OP THE WAR ON RELIGIOUS LIFE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 191 



votaries of Islam to worship there. But who would feel that 

 Christianity was vindicated, or the world itself redeemed from 

 the ignominy of a degenerate religion, if the Kaiser should 

 become the master of S. Sofia ? 



It is right to appreciate as sympathetically as possible the 

 causes lying behind the militarism of Germany, or at least 

 of Prussia. The Germans have made an idol of "Kultur," or 

 efficiency. Their worship of " Kultur " has been a worship of 

 the State ; for it seemed to them, not perhaps without some 

 reason, that in Great Britain the nation was enervated by the 

 individualism which ran, as they thought, through all the veins 

 and arteries of the national life. But the supremacy of the 

 State depended upon force ; the embodiment of force lay in the 

 army ; and so it came to pass that in German eyes the army 

 could do no wrong, as appeared in the notorious incident of 

 Zabern, and every individual must sacrifice his pleasure, his 

 freedom, and his honour — nay, if need be, his life itself — to the 

 interest and dignity of the army. 



How is it possible that men in England, and especially 

 working men, who have seen what must appear to them the 

 complete failure of Christianity, should not after the war be 

 gravely and greatly exercised in their minds upon the claim of 

 Jesus Christ ? 



There has of late been a happy amelioration in the attitude 

 of the people towards the Church and towards Christianity. 

 The spirit of Voltaire's Ecrasez VInfdme was never, perhaps, 

 rife in England. But within the memory of living men and 

 women the secularism of which the late Mr. Bradlaugh was 

 the most prominent representative was a powerful force hostile 

 to Christianity. In the last thirty years The National 

 Reformer, which was his organ, has died. The Halls of Science, 

 in which he was always a popular controversialist, have been 

 shut up. 



One who lives, as I live, amidst a vast operative population 

 must gratefully acknowledge that whether working men, as they 

 are called, are, or are not, Church-goers, they are, at least, 

 generally not ill-disposed to a clergyman or to the Church 

 which he serves. What will happen in the face of the present 

 heartrending warfare ? The question is serious and anxious. 

 May I quote a letter which I received a short time ago, on the 

 occasion of a visit which I paid to one of the great works in the 

 city of Manchester ? I often go to speak to the operatives in 

 such works during their dinner-hour. The letter which I quote 

 I did not, unfortunately, receive until I came back from the 



