27 JANUARY 1900, Page 19

The Daily News of Tuesday contains some very striking quotations

from Dr. Martineau on the subject of Christianity and war. In a review on "The Ethics of Christendom," Dr. Martineau strove to rescue Christianity "from the degrada- tion of being hypocritically flattered as the great persuasive to peace by rulers whom it does not restrain from going to war," and to relieve it "of an oppressive weight of false expectation, as though it broke its promise to the world every time a new case of strife appeared." Addressing those who proposed to conduct the affairs of nations on the principles of brotherly love, the great master of ethics, says the writer on the Daily News, warns them that they are only weakening their country for the purposes of justice and bringing their faith into merited commiseration. "The reverence for human life," he tells them, " is carried to an immoral idolatry when it is held more sacred than justice and right, and when the spectacle of blood becomes more horrible than the sight of desolating tyrannies and triumphant hypocrisies." Wherever law and government exist, somewhere in the background force must lurk. "A religion which does not include the whole moral law ; a moral law which does not embrace all the problems of a commonwealth ; a commonwealth which regards the life of man more than the equities of God, appear to be unfaithful to their functions, and unworthy interpreters of the divine scheme of the world."