AN ANTI-PACIFIST STORY.
(To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] 131%-1/1 publishing Lord Sydenham's letter while omitting to Insert my reply to the editorial comments upon mine, I think the Spectator failed to show its usual fairness. In spite of !Lord Sydenham's assertion, I still maintain that no sane person would refuse to help a woman or man who was assaulted. I also still maintain ray original proposition, e.g., that war is purely pagan and quite anti-Christian, and that International we have set Christianity entirely on one side in
matters. The present condition of the world is the best answer to Lord Sydenham's plea for force! The 1..`war to end war has nearly ended civilization itself, and
has merely showed us that force is as futile as it is anti- Christian. I may add that I am not a conscientious objector in the technical sense, but a woman who is not ashamed to range herself with Benjamin Kidd (whose Science of Power taught the folly of force) and with Albert Lord Grey, whose dying message to the world I quote: We have got to leave off quarrelling; we have got to learn to live together; we have got to learn that we are all one family. . . . Nothing can help Humanity but Love. Love is the way on and the way out." Love—not force—is the Christian ideal, for the attainment of which if we are Christians we must strive.—I am, Sir, &c.,
[Lord Sydenham did not offer what can with any fairness be called " a plea for force." He said that if Christianity were really practised there could be no wars, but that so long as nations acted in an unchristian way force might often be the only remedy. To refuse to apply force in such circumstances is to accept the evil. Christ himself applied force on a famous occasion rather than consent to evil-doing.—ED. Spectator.]
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