Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., Sept. 5, 1914.
Militarism and Christianity
By Lyman Abbott.
A Letter to The New York Sun.
Editor in Chief of The Outlook; author of numerous works on theology, religion, and democracy.
To the Editor of The New York Sun:
In answer to your request for a statement of the causes and meaning of the European war I write with necessary brevity, both because of the limits on my time and the limits on your crowded columns.
What is the cause of the explosion of a powder magazine? The gases stored in the powder. The lighted match is the occasion, not the cause of the explosion. The cause of the European war is the spirit of envy, jealousy, selfishness and suspicion in the so-called Christian nations. The assassination by a Servian of the Crown Prince of Austria was only the lighted match which set the European combustibles in flame.