The Christian must not forget whose he is and whom he serves, even though the vindication of righteousness seems afar off and tardy. He must, for the sake of his country as well as for the demonstration of the faith committed to him, be a "doer of the word." He must so speak now that when the war is over he will not be ashamed.
That the soldier does not expect to find the "Hymn of Hate" in the pulpit, and is resentful when he hears it there, is at least suggested by a paragraph from a letter in "Letters from Flanders," written by Lieutenant Bey Gillespie, one of the earlier martyrs of the war, a Scotch lad of brilliant promise, whose happy part it was to speak, in speaking his own heart, for hundreds of thousands of other British youths less able than he to make vocal the quests and questionings of their souls:
"Personally I do not care for a mixture of the two styles; and when the cleric says, 'Please God the Germans will take it in the neck,' it makes me wriggle in my chair and feel uncomfortable all down my back. However, when he left our German enemies alone and got to those others with whom a bishop is more particularly concerned, he was very good; and I think the men enjoyed him, for it was something quite new to most of them."
In the London Times, March 15, 1918, appeared a remarkable letter from a British officer who had shortly before reached a convalescent home in Holland after three and one-half years' imprisonment in Germany. It was a ringing protest against the agitation of the pacifists in Parliament and a calm but intense arraignment of the "Landsdowne letter," which had appeared only a short time before. But, wonderful as was the letter itself, the spirit in which it was written was even more wonderful. The concluding paragraph is as follows:
"Unless Germany is beaten in the field we cannot win this war. Any peace based on compromise, whatever its terms, can be only a degree better than a British defeat. The loss of life, of money, of time, will have been to no purpose. The whole terrible tragedy will have to be begun over again. And let no one think that it is for reasons of revenge or in order to enable us to impose harsh and heavy terms that we must defeat the German armies. On the contrary, let us be very generous in the hour of our victory, but until that hour comes let us cease to wrangle about peace terms. For the moment there can be but one war aim—to defeat Germany."
That religion does not make the fighting man less bold, his hand less certain, and his heart less resolute, is evidenced by the fact that the mightiest soldiers since Christianity became a factor in the affairs of men have been, to the fulness of the light they possessed, worshippers of the Nazarene, followers of Him who, being the Prince of Peace, was not afraid to die for the truth. And the greatest of the captains, who in the height of his power denied the sway of the Galilean, cried out in his defeat, "What an abyss between my deep misery and the eternal reign of Christ!"
When this war is ended, ended in the triumph of Democracy,—and until such triumph comes it must not end,—the words of Julian the Apostate will live again: "Thou hast conquered, O Galilean."