THE CONSCIENCE. 



149 



it tolerate Quakers with their refusal to take part in the self- 

 defence of the community. That the Quaker is "conscientious " 

 in this refusal is really irrelevant. What would he himself 

 say in the case of a conscientious Thug who, at the opposite 

 extreme of opinion to his, took it to be his reh'gious duty, not 

 to decline to slay his country's enemies in time of war, but, on 

 the other hand, to slay his fellow-countrymen in time of 

 peace ? 



But are we not, it may be asked, to agree witli the Apostles 

 in the Acts, that we should " obey God rather than men " ? 

 Must we not, when, to the best of our judgment, God forbids 

 what man commands, refuse obedience to the latter ? N'o one 

 surely would answer this question except in the afiirmative ; 

 but it is quite another question how far it is right to claim that 

 man should not penalize the refusal. 



In the original context of the phrase, the Apostles no doubt 

 confidently appeal to their judges to approve their choice of 

 obedience. But who were their judges ? They were the 

 Sanhedrin, the religious court of their nation, sitting to judge 

 them in the name of tlie same national God whom they claimed 

 to be obeying. A like situation has often recurred in the 

 history of the Christian Church and its spiritual tribunals. 

 But the State, nowadays, at any rate, does not pretend to speak 

 in this way as the mouthpiece of God. The analogy in the case 

 of the State is the assertion of a legal or constitutional right 

 against an usurping executive — such as the protest of Ham])den 

 against the ship-money in the history of our own country. I 

 do not, of course, mean to deny that the authority of the State 

 is in a very real sense divine. " There is no power but of 

 God : the powers that be are ordained of God." But there is a 

 distinction, recognized in Christ's precept to render unto Caesar 

 the things which be Caesar's and unto God the things which be 

 God's, between the secular and the spiritual authority, which is 

 entirely relevant to the present issue. 



I am not concerned to defend the action of those who, some 

 years ago, chose to be " passive resisters " against the demand 

 for payment of an education rate which they conceived to be 

 designed to subsidize instruction in the tenets of a religious 

 body from wliich they dissented. It was, indeed, often observed 

 at the time that it was hard to draw the line between their 

 policy and one which would be inconsistent with the main- 

 tenance of the State at all, since this, even in the most democratic 

 community, must at least involve the occasional and temporary 

 submission of the minority to measures regularly carried against 



