[TO THE EDITOR OF TEE "SPEOTVTOR.71
,Sts,--Surely the weak point in the position of the conscientious objector is his passivity. He who would reject material weapons for.apiritual must do so actively, as when the monk Telemachus. descended into the arena to stop gladiatorial shows. Personally, 1 „do not doubt- that a few: score- of such as St. Telemachus, gifted:with the spiritual power which he had gathered to himself, could- have. barred the way to Belgium from Germans or any other wild beasts. But I fear that in these unspiritual times many of us. suppose that an intelleclnal assertion of the power
of the Spirit will suffice. .! It is a delusion. When civil war seemed certain to break out in Ireland I was strongly tempted to make up- my mind to stand (with such others as I could persuade) between the fratricidal armies. Had I had and taken
the:Opportunity, it would have been a gamble upon the appeal to sentiment which such action. might arouse, and it might
have succeeded. But how different in kind from tho experience of him who, as Tennyson pictures it-
" Bathed in that lurid crimson—ask'd ' Is earth
On fire to the West ? or is the Demon-God Wroth at his fall ?' and heard an answer : Wake, Thou deedless dreamer, lazying out a life Of self-suppression, not of selfless love.' . .
And in his heart he cried : The call of God I' And calt'd arose, and, slowly plunging down Thro that-disastrous glory, set his face By waste and field and town of alien tongue. . . And muttering to himself : The call of God!'
Gain'd the huge Colosseum . , and beheld
The dust send up a steam of human -blood,
The gladiators moving toward their fight, And eighty thousand Christian faces watch
Man murder man. A sudden strength from Heaven . . .
Turn'd him again to boy—for up he sprang . . And flung himself between .. . and eall'd : Forbear In the great Name of Him who died for -men ! ' "
For -one' of such ghostly strength we could spare a Pope or two to-day.: Nor will wars cease until there are many so inspired. But a 4' conscientious objector " seems to me less likely to reach that far goal than one who has learnt on the battlefield (like the writer of that most wonderful diary in the Spectator of January
29th)- to "see with the eyes of God."—I am, Sir, &c., G.
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