superior cleverness or ruthlessness. But all that is changing. Our new nobility is coming to be more and more the nobility for which men qualify by service to their kind. We may count in that class a cobbler like William Carey, or a black man like Booker T. Washington, or a poor immigrant boy like Jacob Riis; but wealth as such or title as such wins no man a place in its ranks. Once men wrote in the hall of fame the names of kings and conquerors who marched to greatness over the prostrate forms of their fellows. But those letters are tarnishing now. "There is a patriciate even in democratic America," said President Wilson not long since. "We reserve the word 'honored' for those who are great, but spend their greatness upon others rather than upon themselves. You do not erect

statues to men who served only themselves."

DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY

Read the Scripture references: Mark 10. 35-45; Luke 10. 2537; Mark 9. 37-42; Matthew 25. 31-46; Mark 8. 31-37.

Review the life of Jesus as a life of service, calling to mind as far as you can the different kinds of people whom he served and the different kinds of service that he rendered.

Next consider the place which Jesus gives to service in his idea of religion. It is the supreme demand made upon his disciples, it is the link that should bind them with others, and it is the final test in judgment.

Consider the question how men can serve God. If God cares most for the welfare of his children, as such a Father would, then what sort of service will he want from us?

In studying the principle of sacrifice, consider how much of the highest good of this world has come by this road. What do these words suggest to you: prophet, martyr, patriot, friend, mother, Christ?

CHAPTER XIV

THE LAW OF BROTHERHOOD AND THE

NATIONS

WE have studied the law of brotherhood so far as it applies to individual relations. Now we face larger and more difficult questions. What does this law mean for our social problems? Here are three outstanding questions of our time: industrial justice, race prejudice, and war.

Jesus any answer for these matters? In this chapter we inquire what his message is for the nations and concerning

war.

SOME OBJECTIONS

Is There One Law for Individuals and Nations?—There are those who declare at the outset that the law for individuals cannot apply to the nations. The nation must demand love and loyalty, service and sacrifice from each individual. But the nation itself is above such law; its duty is to assert itself against all others and for its own people. One writer has put it thus: "Christian morality is based on the law of love. Love God above all things, and thy neighbor as thyself. This law can claim no significance for the relations of one country to another, since its application to politics would lead to a conflict of duties. The love which a man showed to another country as such would imply a want of love for his own countrymen. Such a system of politics must inevitably lead men astray. Christian morality is personal and social, and in its nature cannot be political. Its aim is to promote morality of the individual, in order to strengthen him to work unselfishly in the interests of the community."

We Cannot Be Half Christian and Half Pagan.—Such words are pagan, but unfortunately they express the prin

ciple that has actually governed most nations in the past. Two points must be made in reply. First, we cannot be half Christian and half pagan in our life. The state cannot say to the people, "You follow the Christian law of love and I will follow the pagan law of selfishness." Second: We cannot be half Christian and half pagan in our faith. If the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ be not God of the whole earth, then he is no God for us at all. But if this God of love be God of all, then his law of love must rule all, and principalities and powers must own it as well as individual men.

Has Jesus Any Message on the Nation?-More serious would seem to be the fact that Jesus has no teaching about the nation or patriotism or war or international peace. That is true, nor does he discuss the problem of slavery or the woman question or the rights of labor. All this, however, does not disqualify him as guide. What we wish to know is this: Has Jesus those fundamental principles which can be applied to these questions? In our study we must not wrest the words of Jesus and give them meanings that they did not have in his mind. When Jesus said, "Peace I leave with you," and again, "I came not to bring peace, but a sword," he was not siding now with pacifist and now with militarist. But we do need to ask what his fundamental teachings about God and man mean as applied to these matters.

SOME TEACHINGS OF JESUS

One Father and One Brotherhood.-Turning to Jesus' teachings now, we do not search for any new passages but only for the larger meaning of those that we have already considered. Here is Matthew 5. 43-48. The God of all the earth is a God of good will. Good will belongs thus to the very heart of the world and underlies all its life. So it becomes the rule for all life, least and greatest, and there can be no other. Matthew 23. 8-12 applies in the same way to nations as to individuals. There is only one Master-not Mars, but Christ. There is only one Father

not of America nor of England nor of Germany, but that God who is the Father of all men equally. And there is one brotherhood-not that of fellow Americans but that of fellow men, the sons of this one Father.

The Stewardship of Nations. In at least two passages Jesus specifically opposes the idea that a nation is a law to itself, and makes plain that the nation, like the individual, is under the law of stewardship and service. A few of the prophets of Israel had seen this great truth, and it was one of these that Jesus quoted when he drove the traders from the temple. Israel was following this law of national selfishness; she looked on the temple as her own possession, for her own use and glory. And Jesus quotes the word of the prophet: "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations." We recognize the fact everywhere to-day, not only in the church but in the state, that a man's possessions are his in trust. He must use them for his family, for the state, for God. But a nation's possessions are just as truly a sacred trust. In this year of 1918, God is saying to America: You have no right to call your possessions your own. Save at your own table, and use your wheat fields to feed the world. Count your liberty not as a selfish possession, but use your strength to help democracy to live in the world, and to insure a lasting peace among men. Israel boasted of her temple and used it for herself. We are no less guilty if we boast of wealth or safety or liberty, and use these only for ourselves. Israel went down as a nation because she was not true to this trust. This also Jesus clearly declared (Matthew 21. 33-43, especially 43). Has any nation to-day the right to expect exemption from such responsibility or such retribution?

CESAR OR CHRIST

The Failure of Paganism.-One thing should be wholly clear to-day, and that is the failure of the pagan principles which the nations have been so largely following. These are the law of selfishness and the use of cunning and force. We have recognized the practical value of

With

brotherhood, of peace and mutual helpfulness, among individuals. In this country we have applied it to a great federation of states, some of them comparable in size to countries like Germany, France, and Italy. But for the most part each nation has looked upon every other as rival, if not enemy, uniting in alliances only for a period until it could bring to terms some other power that it feared still more. The result has been destructive rivalries, intolerable military burdens, and at length as the natural and necessary result of it all the great world war. the issue of the conflict still undecided, one thing is clear: whichever side will win, all sides will suffer loss. It is not simply the terrible loss of life and money. There is the harvest of the crippled, the orphaned, the widowed; the decreased birth rate, the increased death rate, even at home; the terrible growth of tuberculosis, and in some countries of typhus and cholera. Sexual immorality grows, and moral standards are lowered. Crime increases among children. Standards of living fall. Family life suffers. All the resources of men and money are drawn from the great tasks of education and social betterment and human upbuilding and devoted to the one end, of making the most effective machine for the killing of our fellow men. And after the war is done, its burdens remain for long years to keep men back from the real work of human progress. No one should close his eyes to the wonderful devotion and heroism which the war has called forth, nor to the large vision and high ideals with which leaders like President Wilson have sought to animate a people that has been forced into conflict and is fighting for a righteous cause. There are many benefits, too, for which we are not directly fighting, that will come from the great struggle. But all this must

not blind us to the terrible meaning of war itself, nor make us forget that our one great object is to destroy war itself. For it is the spirit of militarism, the confidence in war and the glorification of war, which has plunged the world into this tragedy, and it is that pagan spirit that must be defeated and destroyed before we can have a world of righteousness and peace.