which ten years are too short a novitiate. The education of the human race is a matter of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of centuries; and that education must embrace all races before the world can hope for a civilization from which jealousy, greed, and hatred shall be driven out as the money-changers were driven out of the Temple. That education discloses its progress in changing institutions and conditions; but institutions and conditions are valuable only as they express or help in the development of character. Society will be redeemed, not by institutions, but by men; the world will be saved, not by political devices, but by character.

It is idle to say that civilization is defeated and barbarism has returned because war is devastating half the world. Deplorable as that war is, it is comprehensible, and it has revealed magnificent human qualities in every nation: noble forgetfulness of self, indifference to danger and hardship, loyalty to ideals both national and personal. Through the darkness a myriad torches are flashing. It is not a time to despair of human nature; but rather to rejoice that it redeems ignorance with such sublime courage and faith in God and country. Those whose faith falters in the presence of this tragedy have not understood the complexity and greatness of the educational progress which is slowly lifting the world toward the ideals of the Christ. Out of this terrible purging there will come a new and passionate demand for that justice between nations which alone can lay the foundation of permanent peace. Through this terrible trial there will come a better world. The signs of a new birth of righteousness are visible; a nobler civilization is

being born in the anguish of the birth-pangs

of half the world.

The birth of the Christ was a beginning, not an ending. It was the beginning of many sorrows and much burden-bearing, because it was the promise of those spiritual and imperishable joys into which men enter only through the gate of suffering. The great gifts cannot be received until the spirit is prepared to receive them.

Heaven would be hell to the corrupt nature; the very bliss of it would sting and torture.

Peace on earth was offered nineteen hundred years ago, but God cannot force it upon us until we are ready to receive it; and it will be ours the very hour in which we establish justice and good will among men. The vision of heaven which the

901*

shepherds saw was not an idle dream; it was prophetic of realities that are coming; it was one of those dreams which invite noble effort and are changed by noble effort into the sublime realities on which eternal life securely rests.

These lines by Miss Susie M. Best, in which the dream of Christmastide is described with moving tenderness and insight, will perhaps be new to some readers; they have a Christmas message for every reader :

"That night when in the Egyptian skies
The Mystic Star dispensed its light,
A blind man turned him in his sleep
And dreamed that he had sight.
That night when shepherds heard the song
Of hosts angelic choiring near,
A deaf man lay in slumber's spell

And dreamed that he could hear.
That night when in the cattle's stall

Slept Child and mother in humble fold,
A cripple turned his twisted limbs

And dreamed that he was whole.
That night when o'er the new-born Babe
A tender mother rose to lean,

A loathsome leper smiled in sleep

And dreamed that he was clean.
That night when to the mother's breast
The little King was held secure,
A harlot slept a happy sleep

And dreamed that she was pure.
That night when in the manger lay

The Holy One who came to save,
A man turned in the sleep of death

And dreamed there was no grave."

THE GLORY OF WAR1.

Spanish bull-fight a maddened bull and a skilled There are bull-fights and bull-fights. In the toreador struggle for existence to give pleasure to a crowd of spectators. The immediate object is to prove that the toreador is the fitter of the two to survive. If it is the bull which survives, the pleasure is modified-in some of the spectators enhanced-by an agreeable thrill of horror. Americans rightly look upon this as a barbaric sport.

But if a mad bull gets into a school-yard and rushes at the terrified children, and one boy, brave and better fitted than the rest, shows fight and saves the children at the hazard and perhaps at the loss of his own life, we honor the American toreador. For his struggle has not been for himself, but for

I See last week's editorial on "The Barbarism of War."

others; not to show his power, but, by his power, to render service to those in need.

When a nation, impelled by the delirium tremens of militarism, attempts to exhibit and establish its power by bringing its neighbors into subjection, none of the customary measures depended on for the maintenance of peace is of the slightest use. Scientific development? It only makes Krupp guns able to batter down the strongest fortifications, aeroplanes and dirigibles able to drop bombs on unfortified cities, and mines and submarines to add a new terror both to warfare and to commerce on the sea. Philosophical culture? The philosophers, infected with the national delirium, teach the doctrine that life is. nothing but a struggle for existence and survival of the fittest, and employ their learning and their world-wide reputations in making respectable the barbarism of war. Humanity? The war leaders declare that humanity has no place in war; that its object is to terrify combatant and non-combatant alike, and the more terrifying it can be made the more effective it is. Treaties of peace? Treaties are only scraps of paper to be thrown aside whenever they interfere with the plans which have been made for conquest. Arbitration? Arbitration is condemned on the express ground that it recognizes the right of the weak nation to exist. And when a weak nation is threatened by its powerful neighbor with a punitive expedition for a crime of which it declares itself innocent, and offers to leave the oppressor to choose the tribunal to which the question of its guilt shall be submitted, the suggestion is carelessly brushed aside as unworthy of consideration. Nor is greater consideration given to arbitration when it is reproposed by nations having no concern with the dispute, no interest in the charge. That one of its own allies joins in this proposal lends to it no weight with the nation determined upon war.

There remains the "irresistible might of meekness." That is a beautiful phrase and it expresses a beautiful truth. But history abundantly demonstrates that meekness is not always an irresistible might. The Jews in Russia were disarmed and submitted meekly to their persecutors, and they were massacred by the hundreds. The Armenians in Turkey were disarmed and submitted meekly to their persecutors, and they were massacred by the thousands. Who will say that unresisted murder is better for either the murderer or

the murdered than attempted murder resisted by all the power with which the innocent victim can equip himself?

The history of our own century illustrates dramatically the truth that the irresistible might of meekness is no protection against wrong-doing. Three million slaves in our

own country were compelled to work without wages for more than a century. They had no recognized rights of property or of perThey had no recognized legal right to husband, wife, or child, none to education, none even to the inspiration and consolation of religion, though these they were permitted to enjoy by masters who were infinitely better than the system under which both master and slave were living. Their weakness did nothing for their succor. War emancipated master and slave alike, and nothing but war could have emancipated them. Disarmament could not-the slaves were disarmed. The irresistible might of meekness could not-the slaves were meek. Arbitration could not-there was a Supreme Court which had authority to decide whether a State had a right to secede, and whether a Nation had a right to coerce a State; but if the question had been submitted to the Supreme Court, if it had decided that a State had no right to secede, the South would not have submitted; if it had decided that the Nation had no right to prevent secession, the North would not have submitted. A treaty could not do it a treaty was made fixing a line beyond which slavery was never to go, and when that line in the Southern development was reached the treaty was cast aside.

Whenever an individual professes to believe that struggle for existence and survival of the fittest is the only law of life, and arms himself to take the property of his unarmed neighbor, we call him a criminal and use whatever police force is necessary to protect society from his violence. society from his violence. Whenever a body

of men is possessed of this faith, and seeks to deny to peaceful citizens the right to life and liberty, we call it a mob and use whatever military force is necessary to protect society from the mob's violence. When a nation, perverted from its nobler industrial ideals by half a century of pagan philosophy inculcated in schools and universities controlled by its war party, devotes its extraordinary equipment to a practical demonstration of the doctrine that might makes right, there remains no alternative for those who believe that right makes might but to defend

by force of arms civilization from the assaults of barbarism, defend the faith that the law of life is a struggle for others and a struggle for the salvation of the unfit from an armed troop endeavoring to enforce upon the world the law of the jungle-that is, the struggle for existence, for survival of the fittest.

The Outlook wonders at the question, Has Christianity failed? We do not recall in the world's history a more splendid illustration of a national exhibition of a Christian spirit than that manifested by heroic little Belgium. She had pledged to Europe her neutrality. That pledge was the protection of Germany from invasion by France, and the protection of France from invasion by Germany. The proffered bribe to disregard her pledge she rejected with undisguised scorn. She had nothing to gain and everything to lose by resistance. And she heroically laid down her life rather than sacrifice her word.. If she should never recover from the wounds inflicted upon her, history should reverently inscribe upon her tomb the apothegm, " She laid down her life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." If, impoverished, scarred, and wounded, she rises from the battlefield, Christendom should place upon her brow the crown of self-sacrifice with that apothegm engraved upon it.

NEUTRALITY AND EXPORTS

Some American merchants have been engaged in supplying the belligerent nations in Europe with munitions of war. Is it right for them to do so? A good many Americans believe that it is not. Measures have been introduced into Congress which, if enacted, would forbid the exportation of such commodities. Thus Representative Bartholdt declares that "if supplies should be cut off from this country, hostilities would cease," that by allowing the exportation of supplies for the armies the United States is "not at present maintaining a position of neutrality as outlined in President Wilson's proclamation," and that we cannot maintain neutrality

so long as one side gets supplies that for various reasons cannot be obtained by the other side." Senator Hitchcock says, "How inconsistent it seems, then, for our people to be selling arms and munitions of war abroad to be used to kill and maim !" Senator Works would starve the belligerents into making peace, and would hold up not only arms and

903*

ammunition, but shoes, blankets, foodstuffseverything that would help sustain an army. There are three questions involved in these proposals.

The first is a question of ethics: Is it right for any one to supply an army with anything that will help it in the work of maiming and killing? No, answer those who believe that all war is essentially wicked. War is hell, they argue, and as the soldier's business is but legalized murder, those who supply the soldier with food, clothing, or shelter, or with arms or horses or machinery, are accomplices in crime. But is war always wicked? Is every soldier. a murderer ? We do not think so. We do not count as murderers the fast-disappearing veterans of the Civil War. Rather, we honor them, because they were sacrificing themselves for others. But they could not have done their duty without shoes and blankets and tents and horses and guns and ammunition. So the men who supplied them were to be honored if they supplied good shoes and good blankets and good guns and ammunition. Only those who are willing to say that the veteran of the Grand Army of the Republic is a legalized murderer can consistently hold that it is always wrong to supply to the fighting forces of a nation their needed munitions of war. We do not believe the American people will take this view. If the exportation of arms and army supplies is to be prohibited, it must be on other than purely ethical grounds.

But may not the prohibition of the export of munitions of war be justified on the ground that this country is a neutral nation? This raises the second question, a question of neutrality: Is it consistent with the neutrality of the United States that an American should sell munitions of war to a foreign belligerent? In time of peace the right of the citizens of one country to sell munitions of war to another country is unquestioned. In time of war this right continues, though such supplies are subject to seizure.

contraband should not be confused with the law of neutrality. A neutral nation observes neutrality only as its government treats all belligerents alike. It does not maintain a neutral attitude if it declares by its acts that it intends to starve a belligerent with which it is at peace. But it is stated that, as Germany is excluded from the sea in this war, it has not the same chance at buying such supplies as its enemies have, and that therefore the United

States in fairness should refuse to sell to those enemies of Germany. This means that the United States should take part in the conflict by doing, as far as it can, to the injury of England and France by a commercial operation what England has done by naval operations to the injury of Germany. This is urging, not that the United States be neutral, but that it be unneutral. It is asking the United States to take part in the war on one side without avowing itself as a belligerent. It may be that the rules of that grim game called war are not as good rules as they might be; but it is not neutrality for an avowedly neutral nation to undertake to change those rules while that game is in progress in order to even the odds in favor of one side and against the other. On the ground, therefore, of neutrality, the prohibition of exports cannot be justified.

There remains, therefore, the third question, a question of permanent policy: Is the prohibition of exporting such supplies an act that we should regard as friendly and neutral if, the case being reversed, we were at war and wished to purchase supplies from a neutral power? At such a time as this the United States must make its decision, guided not by present sentiment and feeling alone, but by its convictions as to what it regards as the policy of permanent validity under all circumstances. Suppose the United States were at war with Great Britain and had swept the British navy from the seas (a supposition plainly contrary to any conceivable fact), and we were confining our operations to defense along the Canadian border; should we regard it as a friendly and neutral act on the part of Germany and France and Russia and the other European Powers if they jointly and severally refused to sell us clothing for our soldiers on the ground that they wished to be entirely neutral and to even matters up because. England had lost her fleet? We do not think that Americans would consider that as a sign of neutrality and friendliness. If it would not be a sign of neutrality and friendliness on the part of Russia and France and Germany under those conditions, it would certainly not be a sign of neutrality on our part to do likewise under present conditions.

We do not think, therefore, that the prohibition of the export of munitions of war can be justified on the ground of ethics, on the ground of neutrality, or on the ground of a consistent permanent policy.

JAPAN AND THE WAR

There have been many statements from German, Russian, Belgian, and English sources explanatory of the position and purposes of those countries in the calamitous war now raging in Europe; but two countries have been conspicuous for their silence -Japan and France. Miss Scidmore's article on "Japan's Platonic War with Germany," which appears on another page, is not a statement of the causes which led Japan to enter the arena of conflict, but a description of the manner in which the Japanese have conducted the war and in which they have treated their German prisoners. On this subject no foreigner is more competent to speak than Miss Scidmore, whose dramatic account of the treatment of the Russians in Japan during the war with that country, in " As The Hague Ordains," has been read by many thousand Americans. When the Russian prisoners were sent to Japan from Manchuria, they carried with them almost as many misconceptions as have taken possession of the minds of some Americans. They supposed they were going to be brutally treated. On the contrary, they were treated not only with extreme consideration, but with great courtesy. Many of them lived under the pleasantest conditions they had ever known; and they went back to Russia carrying a knowledge of Japan which has been of immense service in changing the relations between the two countries.

Miss Scidmore's story of the Japanese attack on Tsingtau is graphic and quite in keeping with Japanese traditions and spirit, and in striking contrast with the attitude of too many Occidentals towards Japan's participation in the struggle. Her German foes have treated Japan's appearance as a piece of Asiatic impertinence; and many American newspapers, and some American public men, have apparently taken the attitude that Japan has no rights in the Far East, and that any Japanese activity beyond the boundaries of the islands is an insolent interference with Occidental interests. At the bottom of this spirit lies the deep-rooted feeling among many Western people of the inherent superiority of the Western races over the Eastern. The West has so long regarded the East as ground for exploitation, and has so long settled its affairs in council without as much as saying to India, Persia, or Japan, " By your leave," that it has come to regard itself as possessing the right to manage Eastern