WILL CHRISTIANITY SURVIVE THE WAR? 29 



tested by mathematics, chemistry, and the exact narration of 

 events, I am afraid the training would produce deadly dull 

 men and women. If we exclude " speculative beliefs " from 

 training, we must take care not to exclude with them the 

 work of the human imagination, the speculative wonder that 

 fills us in contemplation of man and the universe, the myths 

 by which alone the highest thought can often find expression, 

 and all the fairy-tales and stories which the mind demands, 

 especially in childhood. The Jewish literature collected in 

 the Bible contains passages as splendid as anything in the 

 Greek or English, and of such a different character that we 

 should lose incalculably as a nation if the Bible were excluded 

 from our general reading. In the past we have made the 

 mistake of insisting that the Jewish literature and no other 

 should be widely known, and that even its tales of primitive 

 savagery should be accepted as lessons for edification. The 

 result of that training is seen in our bellicose bishops. But 

 still we cannot afford to lose fine old stories and great 

 imaginative poems which have so long formed the chief 

 part of our national thought ; nor can we afford to lose 

 those noble paradoxes by which Christ has caused so much 

 perplexity to our governors, pastors, and masters, who profess 

 to accept his every word as God's, but find themselves acting 

 and teaching in direct contradiction to these words every hour 

 of their lives. 



VIII 

 BY SIR H. H. JOHNSTON 



THE following questions on religion have been put to me to 

 answer : 



(i) Is it reasonable to assume that the traditional belief in 

 Providence governing the universe can endure in the light of 

 the great World War? 



In the long martyrdom of man, extending over at least 

 half a million years, since he acquired more than the brute's 

 capacity for suffering, the present war is only one among the 

 many great episodes of horror which have plunged hundreds 

 or thousands of humans in this case, millions into physical 

 torment and mental anguish. There have been the ice ages 

 and the floods, the landslides and the sinkings of Palaeolithic 

 times ; the recorded and the unrecorded earthquakes, volcanic 



