THE WAR AND THE CHURCHES

by

JOSEPH McCABE

[Issued for the Rationalist Press Association, Limited] London: Watts & Co. 17 Johnson's Court, Fleet Street, E.C. 1915

WORKS BY THE AUTHOR

_Modern Rationalism_ (Watts), 2nd ed. 1/-

_Peter Abelard_ (Duckworth), 2nd ed. 3/6.

_Saint Augustine and his Age_ (Duckworth), 2nd ed. 3/6.

_Twelve Years in a Monastery_ (Smith Elder), 3rd ed. _6d._ and 1/-

_Life in a Modern Monastery_ (Grant Richards). 6/-

_Life and Letters of G. J. Holyoake_ (Watts), 2 vols. L1/1/-

_Talleyrand_ (Hutchinson). 14/-

_The Iron Cardinal_ (Nash). 12/-

_Goethe_ (Nash). 15/-

_A Candid History of the Jesuits_ (Nash). 10/6.

_The Evolution of Mind_ (Black). 5/-

_Evolution_ (Twentieth Century Science Series). 1/-

_Prehistoric Man_ (Twentieth Century Science Series). 1/-

_The Principles of Evolution_ (The Nation's Library). 1/-

_The Decay of the Church of Rome_ (Methuen), 2nd ed. 7/6.

_The Story of Evolution_ (Hutchinson), 2nd ed. 7/6.

_The Empresses of Rome_ (Methuen). 12/6.

_The Empresses of Constantinople_ (Methuen). 12/6.

_Church Discipline_ (Duckworth). 3/6.

_Can we Disarm?_ (Heinemann). 2/6.

_In the Shade of the Cloister_ (pseudonymous--Constable). 6/-

_The Bible in Europe_ (Watts). 3/6.

_The Religion of Woman_ (Watts), 2nd ed. _6d._

_Woman in Political Evolution_ (Watts). _6d._

_Haeckel's Critics Answered_ (Watts), 2nd ed. _6d._

_From Rome to Rationalism_ (Watts), 4th ed. _4d._

_The Origin of Life_ (Watts). 1/-

_Secular Education_ (Watts), 2nd ed. 1/-

_The Martyrdom of Ferrer_ (Watts), 2nd ed. _6d._

_The Religion of the Twentieth Century_ (Watts). 1/-

_A Hundred Years of Education Controversy_ (Watts). _3d._

_The Existence of God_ (Watts). _9d._

_Shakespeare and Goethe_ (Cole). _6d._

_George Bernard Shaw_ (Kegan Paul). 7/6.

_The Religion of Sir Oliver Lodge_ (Watts). 2/-

PREFACE

The searching crisis through which the nation is passing must have the effect of securing grave consideration for many aspects of our life and institutions. We have already traversed the acute stage of suspense, and are gradually becoming sensible of these wider considerations. It was natural that for a prolonged period the disturbance of our economic conditions, the anxiety for the safety of our nation in face of an appalling menace, the personal concern of millions about the lives of sons or brothers who have bravely responded to the call, should keep our thoughts enchained to the daily or hourly fortunes of the field of battle. Now that the initial disorder has been allayed and we have attained a quiet and reasonable confidence in the issue, we turn to other and broader aspects of this mighty event of our generation. How comes it that the most enlightened century the world has yet seen should be thus darkened by one of the bloodiest and most calamitous wars that have ever spread their awful wings over the life of man? Where is all the optimism of yesterday? Must we reconsider our reasoned boast that our civilisation has lifted the life of man to a level hitherto unattained? Is there something entirely and most mischievously wrong with the foundations of modern civilisation?

Table of contents (by pages)

• 1: The War and the Churches by Joseph McCabe
• 2: A distinguished Positivist writer
• 3: In a matter of the gravest importance
• 4: Wrestled once more with the problem
• 5: This mutual hostility was moderated
• 6: Asserted afresh the doctrine of human brotherhood
• 7: And have quite complacently commented upon
• 8: That is the indictment which many bring against Christianity
• 9: The plea is valid only to this extent
• 10: It was the same in Austria Hungary
• 11: The Catholic bodies of Germany and Austria
• 12: But leading Rationalists like Haeckel and Ostwald
• 13: It is true that Nietzsche was bitterly anti Christian
• 14: Of the Socialist and Catholic parties
• 15: Civilisation took it over from barbarism
• 16: Was intensely and quite modernly humanitarian
• 17: That the election of Pope Damasus
• 18: Even if the protest was unavailing
• 19: When he had in his turn mounted the Papal throne
• 20: Heresy was to be extinguished in blood
• 21: There was a very widespread revolt
• 22: Medieval Christians did the record of Papal warfare
• 23: As the nineteenth century proceeded
• 24: Preparing the most appalling armaments ever known in history
• 25: If the quarrels had thus been submitted to arbitration
• 26: From a long experience of this apologetic branch of theology
• 27: Our civilisation is unique also in its political power
• 28: Attila never reached within two hundred miles of Rome
• 29: I notice a sermon on the war by Professor Clow
• 30: Rushbrooke makes one grave error
• 31: Guttery addressed the Council in a more cheerful mood
• 32: Moral science even is not a preaching agency
• 33: This humanitarianism is hardly a century old
• 34: These clergymen invite all the citizens of their district
• 35: They saw their Church shrink decade by decade
• 36: Or of deterring others from offending
• 37: Which they regard as sacred and unalterable
• 38: Although death is only the negation of life
• 39: And amounts to a colossal untruth
• 40: Produces the same result without waste or suffering
• 41: You have a mighty concurrence of movements
• 42: The theologian has no clear evidence to produce
• 43: See another miraculous interposition in the fourth century
• 44: And has been acutely felt by very able religious thinkers
• 45: God argued with the academic wisdom of a medieval theologian
• 46: The clergy behaved very well during the war
• 47: To day it is overwhelmingly non Christian
• 48: But the true basis of human conduct is simple
• 49: The way of the humanitarian is plain
• 50: The most popular Rationalist of that age
• 51: Its annual waste of a thousand millions sterling
• 52: Foolish to regard this as an obstacle to disarmament
• 53: A vast amount could be done in the education of the adult