conduct, they have no _raison d'être_. Few of them to-day will plead
that their function is merely to interpret to their fellows what they
regard as the revealed word of God. In face of the challenging spirit of
our time they maintain that they discharge a moral mission of such
importance that society is likely to go to pieces if Christianity is
abandoned. We therefore ask very pertinently where they were, and what
they were doing, during the months when the nations of Europe were
slowly advancing toward a declaration of war.

In examining the charge that, for some reason or other, they neglected
their mission at a crisis of supreme importance, we must recall that few
of us believed that a great war would occur until we actually heard the
declaration. No indictment of the clergy is valid which presupposes that
they are more sagacious or far-seeing than the rest of us. Yet, however
much we may have doubted the actual occurrence of war, we have known for
years, and have quite complacently commented upon, the danger that half
of Europe would sooner or later be involved in the horrors of the
greatest war in history. Now it is notorious that the Christian Churches
have done little or nothing, in proportion to their mighty resources and
influence, to avert this danger. No collective action has been taken,
and relatively few individuals have used their influence to moderate or
obviate the danger. The supreme head of the most powerfully organised
and most cosmopolitan religious body in the world, an institution which
has its thousands of ministers among each of the antagonistic peoples--I
mean the Church of Rome--gave his attention to minute questions of
doctrine and administration, and bemoaned repeatedly the evil spirit of
our age, but issued not one single syllable of precise and useful
direction to the various national regiments of his clergy in connection
with this terrible impending danger. The heads or Councils of the
various Protestant bodies were equally remiss. Here and there individual