Two lots of letters arrived this mail, including yours of August 30th
and September 6th, for which many thanks.
If I said that this war means the denying of Christianity I ought to
have explained myself more. That phrase is so often used loosely that
people don't stop to think exactly what they mean. If the Germans
deliberately brought about the war to aggrandise themselves, as I
believe they did, that was a denial of Christianity, _i.e._ a
deliberate rejection of Christian principles and disobedience to
Christ's teaching: and it makes no difference in that case that it was
a national and not an individual act. But once the initiating evil was
done, it involved the consequence, as evil always does, of leaving
other nations only a choice of evils. In this case the choice for
England was between seeing Belgium and France crushed, and war. In
choosing war I can't admit there was any denial of Christianity, and I
don't think you can point to any text, however literally you press the
interpretation, which will bear a contrary construction. Take "Resist
not him that doeth evil" as literally as you like, in its context. It
obviously refers to an individual resisting a wrong committed against
himself, and the moral basis of the doctrine seems to me twofold: (1)
As regards yourself, self-denial, loving your enemies, etc., is the
divine law for the soul; (2) as regards the wronger nothing is so
likely to better him as your unselfish behaviour. The doctrine plainly
does not refer to wrongs committed in your presence against others.
Our Lord Himself overthrew the tables of the money-changers. And the
moral basis of His resistance to evil here is equally clear if you
tolerate evils committed against others: (1) your own morale and
courage is lowered: it is shirking; (2) the wronger is merely
encouraged. If I take A.'s coat and A. gives me his cloak also, I may
be touched. But B.'s acquiescence in the proceeding cannot possibly
touch me and only encourages me. Now the Government of a country is
nearly always in the position of B. not A., because a country is not
an individual. In our case we were emphatically in the position of B.:
but I would justify the resistance of Belgium on the same grounds.
Of course as I said last week, national standards can't be as
self-sacrificing as individual standards: and never can be until all
the individuals in a nation are so Christian as to choose unanimously
the self-sacrificing course.
I agree that the Dardanelles outlook is very serious, and it now looks
as if Germany had got Bulgaria to come in against us. We ought to
concentrate on a decision there as vigorously as the Germans did in
Poland, and let us hope with more success.
The big offensive in France came off and seems to have done remarkably
well for a few days: but we have heard nothing more of it for over a
week. I'm afraid that means we exhausted ourselves and lost heavily.
The outstanding fact here is that the hot weather is over. It is now
only unpleasant to be out from 10 till 4, and then only in the sun.
The transition is going on rapidly and by the end of this month I
expect to see cold weather conditions established. I have played
football twice and been out shooting twice. There is a large black
partridge to be shot here which is very good to eat.
I can give you no details about the Kut fight. In fact you probably
know more than we do: I must stop now.
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