V
THE MINISTRY AND THE WAR
HENRY HALLAM TWEEDY
When the greatest crime in all history was perpetrated and the
world-war began, it was natural and necessary that the ministry of all
lands should buckle on the Christian armor and take its place in the
fighting ranks. Thousands volunteered as chaplains and Y. M. C. A.
workers. Thousands more--two thousand at one time in Canada
alone--equally eager to don the khaki and endure their share of the
hardships, waited impatiently until a door could be opened for them to
go. In the training camps and in the trenches, in hut and in hospital,
these men found new parishes and pulpits, ministering in a multitude
of ways, and finding opportunities for Christ-like service in the
soldier's every need. They did more than preach sermons, hold Bible
classes, and act as spiritual comforters and advisers. To them, as to
Donald Hankey's "beloved captain," no task was too petty or too
menial, no lowly service beneath them, if it lightened the burdens or
added to the comfort and efficiency of the fighters. At all times and
everywhere, in all ways and by all means, they strove to represent the
Master, who cared for bodies as well as for souls, for the resting
times and food and tired feet as well as for the thoughts and motives
and ambitions of his disciples. They were the ambassadors of the
Prince of Peace and the army's public friends.
All this was only what might have been expected. The arresting fact
was to find these prophets of peace, with comparatively few
exceptions, proclaiming the righteousness of our participation in the
war. In 1915 when the _Continent_, of Chicago, sent out a
questionnaire among the Presbyterian ministers of the country, an
overwhelming majority declared themselves in favor of preparedness. A
vote in Brooklyn, embracing ministers in something like twenty
denominations, showed one hundred and fifty-one in favor of
preparedness, while six qualified their approval and only fourteen
were opposed. These are indications of the trend of thought among the
ministers of America; and though they may not give direct and
unimpeachable evidence of how these men would have viewed the entrance
of the United States into the European _debacle_, it would seem
to be a legitimate inference that their attitude would be the same.
When a nation, patient and forbearing until her enemies scoffed and
her friends grieved, found herself compelled to defend her
unquestioned rights against lawless and brutal pirates, minds which
approved of preparedness for war would naturally, almost inevitably,
approve of war. Nor was it our rights only. We entered the struggle
not through pride or greed or hatred, but as the champion of
international law, righteousness, liberty, democracy, and a world
peace that shall be abiding and just for all.
To the few pacifists among the clergy all this seems quite
unnecessary. Why should not America walk in the footsteps of Jesus,
set her face steadfastly toward her Jerusalem, and for the world's
salvation suffer Germany and Austria and Turkey to drive the spikes
through her hands? Why not permit the Central Powers to seize and
possess our country, even though they dealt with those of us, who
could not and would not submit to the ethics of Nietzsche and the
diplomacy of Bernhardi and the rule of von Hindenburg, as they treated
the fathers and mothers and little children of Armenia and Belgium and
Poland? "Resist not evil!" The cure of Christ's time is the cure of
our time! The age of Judas and of Pilate, of the scribes and brutal
Roman soldiers, has never passed.
This is not the place to attempt to settle the dispute between the
champions of peace at any price and those of a war which, rightly or
wrongly, they regard as righteous and unavoidable. It certainly will
never be decided by calling all pacifists cowards and slackers, and
all defenders of the course pursued by President Wilson, the son of a
clergyman, exponents of Prussian militarism. The plain fact is that
there is no path open to us which presents no moral difficulties. It
is not a choice between absolute right and absolute wrong, but between
the preponderance of right and the preponderance of wrong. As some one
has phrased it, "War is a moral enterprise, if it redeems a state from
a condition worse than war"; and that--so it seemed to thousands of
ethical and religious teachers--was the situation in America. To have
watched the violation of Belgium, the massacre of Armenia, the
destruction of England, France and Italy, the absorption of Russia,
and ultimately the forging of the chains of our own servitude, without
striking a blow to protect the world against the unspeakable barbarism
of a megalomaniac would have been ethical madness. Granting the
culprit's sanity, it would have been a kind of religious paranoia not
to bring the international butcher and brigand to terms. The man who
stands by, while a thug robs his neighbor's house and murders the wife
and children, practically cooperates with the criminal. If he is a
saint, he is a saintly Raffles. Though he never strike a blow, he
bears the mark of Cain. Leaders like the Rev. Charles A. Eaton, D.D.,
of the Madison Avenue Baptist Church in New York City, have ventured
to characterize our participation in the struggle as "our Christian
duty." Many even of our Quakers vigorously champion it. Mr. John L.
Carver, the head of the Friends' School in New York and Brooklyn,
writes: "First and last, let us have no compromise or suggestion of
compromise as to the justice of the American cause--no admixture of
false pacifism in relation to one of the few absolutely just and
unavoidable wars that the world has ever seen, unmarred by fanaticism,
mistaken hatred, or lust of gain. Let us permit no confusion of ideas
between old time wars of aggression or revenge, and this present war
of unselfish sacrifice to save humanity from the reign of the beast."
With this it is safe to say the great majority of Christians, lay and
clerical, heartily agree. War is always bad; but there are situations
when to decline to give battle, permitting the foe to work his immoral
will, is not only still more terrible in its cost but more awful in
its moral degradation. To kill is always an evil; but it is less of an
evil, both for society and for the evil doer, than to permit a band of
deluded assassins to run amuck in the ranks of civilization and to
practice their marksmanship on the gentlest of women and the noblest
of men. Almost to a man the leaders of thought in the allied
countries, with unwilling minds and breaking hearts, have reached this
decision. Rightly or wrongly, it is the answer which has come to their
agonized petition, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?"
But there is a still more striking fact. Not only are our ministers
like Sir George Adam Smith in khaki and Dr. Henry Van Dyke in the
uniform of the navy, toiling as spiritual specialists for our soldiers
and sailors. Not only are teachers like Principal Forsyth and
ex-President Taft proclaiming our moral duty and legal right to
participate in the greatest and most terrible of wars. After careful
deliberation an ever-increasing number of ministers, especially among
those of draft age, both in the pastorate and in the seminary, have
given up their distinctive work, donned the uniform of the soldier,
and sailed for the trenches of France. To some minds this seems
incredible folly, a species of ministerial madness. War is so tigerish
in its ruthlessness, so demoniacal in its treatment of ethical
principles, so un-Christian in matter and in method, that it appears
impossible to characterize any participation as righteous. It is, no
doubt, the minister's duty to play the role of Good Samaritan when,
with nations as his victims, the modern Hun repeats the parable. But
can he still bear the title of minister if he joins the police force
and attempts, even at the cost of killing the robbers, to clean up the
Jericho road?
The answer of these men has been an enthusiastic affirmative. To them
their clerical exemption was something more than what Dean Shailer
Mathews called it, "an insult or a challenge." No doubt there were
good reasons why certain trained specialists, and themselves among
them, should be set to work with tools other than bayonets. The
physician, the engineer, the munitions expert, the ship-builder and
the chaplain will all have their part in the triumph. Mr. Hoover, Mr.
Schwab and the Archbishop of York will do more in their present
positions than they could behind a machine gun or in an aeroplane.
They, and millions of men and women in lowly stations, can fight at
home for peace and for freedom; and when the burden is heaviest and
the strain almost unendurable, call cheerily, as Harry Lauder did to
the Scotch Highlander: "No, man, I'm no tired! If you can die fighting
for me, I can die working for you!"
But this patent plea did not satisfy some militant ministers. Their
religion as well as their patriotism carried them beyond Dean Mathews'
interpretation of the phrase. Grant that their exemption is an insult
if it "implies that ministers are not as ready to serve their country
as any other citizens, that they are slackers, or that they are so
effeminate that they would not make good soldiers; that if they go
about their work with no increase of labor or of sacrifice, making an
excuse out of their holy calling, they accept their exemption as an
insult to their calling." Grant that, if this is not true, it comes to
them as a great challenge to do and to dare as much in their spiritual
work as the soldier does in his, toiling to the limit of costly
sacrifice, possibly to overwork and to death. They are quite ready to
burn out, and that quickly, when the age demands the heat and light of
their lives. But there was still in their hearts a service
unexpressed, an intense desire ungratified. One hears the call in the
following letter from a minister, who is now a lieutenant with a
Canadian regiment in France:
"I expect to go to the front in Europe in the near future," he
wrote to the editor of the _Outlook_. "For six years I was a
Presbyterian minister, although a Canadian, in the Presbyterian
Church of the United States. When the cause of liberty and the
ideals of democracy were at stake, I could not withstand the
'call'--not so much of my country as of civilization--any longer. I
resigned my charge and came to Nova Scotia, my boyhood home. It
seems strange, but true nevertheless, that today I am a happy man.
I hate war and know something about it--I served through the South
African War and saw its results--but there are things worse than
war. I am going, as I find many of my comrades going, not because
we hate the German people, but because we believe that Prussian
militarism would be an intolerable system for the world to live
under."
"Is this a psychological and moral paradox?" comments the editor. "We
think not. Every man who really grasps the meaning of the words
righteousness, justice and peace, and their true relations, will
understand the state of mind of this Canadian clergyman." It is the
decision of one who loves and honors the calling of the ministry, and
yet feels that in this crisis there is a place where he, whatever may
be true of his fellows, is more greatly needed. It is the confession
of faith on the part of a Christian who knows war and hates it, and
yet is happy to make it because he loves peace, and believes, rightly
or wrongly, that if the world is to possess it in our time, it must be
won with the sword. It is the deed of a brother of all men who
declines to be limited by his cloth, who cannot preach to the soldier
without drinking the soldier's cup and being baptized with his baptism
of mud and of blood. It is the spirit of a true Christian preacher,
who cannot urge Christian laymen to "go over the top" unless at least
some Christian ministers go with them. It is the jubilant response to
the call of the heroic, the comradeship which knows no secular and no
sacred, and which covets the most intimate fellowship in the life and
sufferings of brave men.
The same attitude is being increasingly taken by the peace-loving
Friends. "The young Quaker of the present day," writes one of them,
"is so true to his inheritance--that of being allowed to act as his
conscience dictates--that there are already many in the service, and
that, too, with the fervent cooperation of their Quaker parents....
When one of these young Friends--now a trusted officer in the American
infantry, who enlisted before war was declared by our Government--was
challenged by a Quaker friend, he promptly replied: 'I am showing my
regard for my Quaker ancestry and training in the fact that I cannot
and will not allow war to stalk upon the earth unchecked. Only by
meeting the Devil face to face can we hope to crush him.'"
Sir George Adam Smith in an American address stated that in Scotland
90 per cent of the ministers' sons of military age entered the army
before conscription. Would it be strange if some fathers decided to go
with them? He also said that of the sixty thousand Catholic priests
engaged in war work in France, twenty-five thousand are fighting in
the ranks. Some Chinese missionaries are serving behind the lines as
officers of detachments of Chinese artisans and laborers. Other
missionaries, however, and sons of missionaries are reported to have
gone directly into military service. Our country's Roll of Honor
contains the names of men like Captain Jewett Williams, an Episcopal
rector and the son-in-law of Dr. David J. Barrows, Chancellor of the
University of Georgia, who declined a chaplaincy, trained at Fort
Oglethorpe, and was killed in action. Of recent graduates and members
of the Yale School of Religion, forty-four are now in khaki. Of these
nineteen are chaplains and Y. M. C. A. workers, while eighteen are in
the regular army, one each in the British and Canadian armies, two in
the Ambulance Corps, one in aviation and one in the navy. Already the
School Roll of Honor bears one name, that of a young Englishman of
rare promise, who died in the hospital from wounds received on the
battlefields of France.
These men are following in the footsteps of ministers of other
generations. Yale's records show that there is scarcely a campaign of
note, or an important battle in American history, in which her sons
among the clergy did not share the hardships and dangers of the
soldier's lot. Besides the more than one hundred and thirty who served
as chaplains, in the thick of the fight as well as in camp and
hospital, are those who fought shoulder to shoulder with their
parishioners. When the news of the approach of the enemy reached
Thomas Brockway (1768) during service, he dismissed his congregation,
shouldered his long gun, and marched away. Of John Cleaveland (1745)
it is said that he preached all the men of his parish into the army
and then went himself. They helped to take Louisburg in the campaign
against Cape Breton Island. They marched in the Crown Point
Expedition, fought at Ticonderoga, and shared with Wolfe the hardships
of the campaign against Quebec. The record of the Revolutionary days
is a stirring one. Edmund Foster (1778) joined the Minute Men on the
sounding of the alarm in Lexington. Ebenezer Mosely (1763) enlisted in
Israel Putnam's regiment, and with Joseph Badger (1785), who served
with General Arnold in Canada, fought at the Battle of Bunker Hill.
They were in the ranks at Germantown and at Monmouth. Samuel Eells
(1765) was elected the captain of a company formed among his
parishioners to aid General Washington, who was then retreating
through New Jersey. Elisha Scott Williams (1775) crossed the Delaware
in the boat with Washington, and is so depicted in Trumbull's
painting. He also fought at the battles of White Plains, Trenton and
Princeton, and shared with William Stone (1785) and Benjamin Wooster
(1790) the hardships and sufferings at Valley Forge. Levi Lankton
(1777) was present at Burgoyne's surrender.
In the Civil War this record is repeated. The ministers of Yale
fought at Bull Run, South Mountain, Antietam, Fredericksburg,
Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, the Wilderness, Spottsylvania and Cold
Harbor. They rode with Sheridan's cavalry in the Army of the Potomac;
they marched with General Sherman to the sea. Several, like Erastus
Blakeslee (1863), well known for his services to the work of the
Sunday school, rose to the rank of general. Moses Smith (1852)
entered in 1865 with the first troops into Richmond, while Samuel W.
Eaton (1842), after fighting in some of the hardest battles, was
present at Appomattox Court House on the surrender of General Lee.
In all this there is no thought of glorifying war, or of haloing the
head of the minister who lays down his Bible to take up his bayonet.
Quite the contrary. These fighting chaplains condemned war and hated
it. They never proclaimed that organized slaughter was a sane method
of settling international disputes or ethical questions. They would
have marched to their own Calvaries gladly if this would have saved
them from the horror of the task of the soldier and at the same time
helped to bring in the Kingdom of God. But to their minds there was a
time when a Christian ought to put up his sword, and another when his
duty was to buy one. Devilishness is not usually overcome by allowing
the Devil to have his way. If the powers of evil attempt by force to
overthrow righteousness, righteousness may well by force oppose and
thwart them; not that it may escape martyrdom, or vent its anger, but
with the clear purpose of rescuing the evil doer from his devastating
delusion, and of saving the most precious treasures of civilization
from the axe of a vandalism, which can and ought to be restrained. The
thought finds a crude but characteristic expression in Kipling's poem
of Mulholland, the coarse sailor, who, in fulfilment of the vow made
during a storm on the cattle-ship, goes back to preach religion to the
brutal and unsympathetic crew:
I didn't want to do it, for I knew what I should get,
An' I wanted to preach religion, handsome an' out of the wet;
But the Word of the Lord were lain on me, and I done what I was set.
I have been smit and bruised, as warned would be the case,
An' turned my cheek to the smiter, exactly as Scripture says;
But following that, I knocked him down an' led him up to grace.
An' we have preaching on Sundays whenever the sea is calm,
An' I use no knife nor pistol, an' I never take no harm;
For the Lord abideth back of me to guide my fighting arm.
It is devoutly to be wished that it was never necessary for the
preacher to use knife or pistol; but at present apparently there is no
other means by which the smiter may be knocked down.
This teaching is what might be called, in Dr. Van Dyke's phrase,
"Fighting for Peace." It is the kind of militant pacifism which Paul
hints at. "If it be possible, as much as in you lieth, be at peace
with all men." Sometimes it is not possible. It is neither wise nor
saintly to attempt to negotiate with a tiger. It would be something
worse than folly to allow the I. W. W. to dictate the economic policy
of our country, or to suffer philosophical and practical anarchism to
work its will with the law and order of the world. War as mere war
deserves all the vitriolic epithets which have been heaped upon it. It
is the scourge of scourges, the father of piracy and of murder, the
mother of havoc, desolation and woe. It stands clearly revealed as "a
monstrous crime, man's crowning imbecility and folly." But when
through war the attempt is made to tear down law, overthrow justice
and shackle the world's liberty, shall not war be met by war in order
to preserve these priceless possessions, and perchance end all wars by
rendering its mad champions powerless? No minister can be called
Christian who does not hate war. But most of them hate still more the
sinking of the Lusitania, the rape of Belgium, the massacre of the
peaceful people of Armenia. They cannot with clear conscience sit
still and watch the fulfilment of the plot of "the Potsdam gang"
without striking a blow. Peace proposals from the successful marauders
sound to them too much like Dr. Van Dyke's imaginary conversation
between an outraged householder and his triumphant pacifistic burglar.
It is not a question of Christ or Caesar. There is something of the
Sermon on the Mount in pacifist and militarist alike. But in the
choice our ministers in the army have registered their vote for what
seems to be by far the lesser of two evils. They with their fellows
have chosen to tread the new Via Sacra, as the road is now called
which made the salvation of Verdun possible; and today they stand
facing the forces of autocracy, greed and military oppression,
uttering that great battle cry which broke from the heart of France,
"They shall not pass!"
Whatever the verdict of history upon this decision of brave men in the
ministry, certain effects of the war upon them and upon their work are
sure. These again are both good and evil. On the debit side of the
ledger will be the loss of many in whose future service lay much of
the hope and strength of the church. A large proportion of the best
men, who were looking forward to the ministry, are in the training
camps and trenches. Some may now be diverted to other callings; some
will never come back. Their vacant places in the ranks will be
saddening and for a time crippling. Great tasks which might have been
done must needs be left undone. New Elishas will wear the prophet's
mantle; but the memory of many a vanished face will waken the old cry
upon their lips: "My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and the
horsemen thereof!" If the church does not begrudge them, it will mourn
them among its multitude of sons who
laid the world away; poured out the red,
Sweet wine of youth: gave up the years to be
Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene
That men call age; and those who would have been
Their sons they gave--their immortality.
A second regrettable result in the minds of some will be the
discrediting of the ministry. There have been too many un-Christian
utterances from the pulpits of all lands, though we are naturally
especially sensitive to those "made in Germany"; too many petty,
superstitious prayers addressed to tribal deities as little like the
God of Jesus as Moloch and Mars; too reckless dealing with "high
literary explosives" on the part of preachers possessing neither the
wisdom of Solomon nor the restraint of Paul; too flamboyantly
patriotic utterances from orators who apparently forgot their
obligations as citizens of heaven and makers of a new world. So far as
the writer knows, there have been no blasphemies from the pulpits of
the Allies equal to the saying of Pastor W. Lehmann: "The German soul
is God's soul; it shall and will rule over mankind"; or that still
more brutal and unblushing pronouncement of Pastor D. Baumgarten:
"Whoever cannot prevail upon himself to approve from the bottom of his
heart the sinking of the 'Lusitania,' whoever cannot conquer his sense
of the gigantic cruelty to unnumbered innocent victims, and give
himself up to the honest delight at the victorious exploit of German
defensive power--him we judge to be no true German." But if none have
descended to these depths of theological blindness and ethical
madness, there has been a certain kinship with the spirit of the
imprecatory psalms, used as convenient and refreshing outlets for
pent-up tempers, together with more or less pagan treatment of ethical
and religious questions, camouflaged with felicitous phrases, which
lulled the listener with the assurance that the preacher was quoting
from the Litany. All this has not redounded to the respect of the
thoughtful for the pulpit, or for the leadership of men supposed to be
specialists in the rules of right and teachers of the counsels of a
fatherly God.