GOD'S AID AND THE WAR.
TO many men of thoughtful and religious disposition, and especially to those who are naturally apt to trouble themselves with the misgivings of an anxious conscience, this war has been a source of peculiar perplexity. They believe that our cause is a just one, and they sincerely hold that they have a right to ask God's aid for our soldiers, and yet they cannot exclude the thought that the Boers are as sincere as they are in their appeals for divine help and in their
belief that God will defend the right. But they argue How can this be ? God cannot be on both sides, and God cannot be on any but the right side. Are we to think, then, that the war is an ordeal by battle, and that the question of right will be decided by the victory or defeat of our armies ? Surely that is impossible, for history during whole centuries is a record of might triumphing over right.'
We do not for a moment deny the perplexity of the problem, nor do we wonder at its coming home to men's minds just now, but we also do not fail to note that it is no new perplexity, but troubled men's minds in former ages as it does to-day. It was not solved in the past, nor do we suppose that we can solve it now, but this need not prevent our facing it. There are plenty of things which are inscrutable in the governance of the world, but we should not therefore try to turn away from them or to bury them out of sight. We may have to go forward with the work of the world and leave them unsolved, but we do not make them less mysterious or less awe-inspiring by pretending that they do not exist. Mr. Lincoln during the American Civil War faced the matter we are now dealing with, and faced it with his usual clearness of vision and detachment of mind. He did not solve the problem of course, but at least he left it not a cold, hard paradox, a thing for mockery or sneers, but what it is,—a matter which if too hard for man is not too hard for God. It is in the Second Inaugural that the passage we refer to is to be found. In that astonishing piece of reasoned poetry, where the greatness of the occasion, coupled with the greatness of Lincoln's own nature, made the President speak like a prophet new inspired, he puts before us the exact difficulty. Both sides in the war, he told his country- men, "read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered—that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh.' " Those words might with only a little change be said to-day, and said without offence by either side, as might also the passage which begins,—" Fondly do we hope— fervently do we pray—that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away," and ends with the declaration that whether the war is long or short, we can only say : "The judgments of the Lord are pure and righteous altogether." The last period must be quoted verbatim,—a passage both for thought and language as noble as any in our language :— "With malice toward none ; with charity for all ; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds ; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan —to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations." Here it seems to us is the lesson needed for the present war. We must not cherish the feeling that we do not care what the merits of the case are, or speak as if the justice or want of justice did not matter. It does matter, and must matter. On the other hand, those who believe that the war is a just one need not and ought not to worry them- selves, not because they have doubts as to our cause being good, bnt because the Boers so sincerely think their cause
good, and because both views cannot be right. That is no concern of ours. As Lincoln says "With firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work." If we are to think, not of our own standard and sense of right and wrong, but are to be constantly looking round to see whether somebody else has not got a different or a better one, which conflicts with, or even cancels, ours, we shall simply paralyse our hearts and consciences. It is not expected of us that we should do more than what honestly seems to us to be right. It is far better to do that stronglyand earnestly than to do nothing, because there maybe another view of what is truth and justice. "The Almighty has His own purposes." We can only strive to do our duty, con- fident that if we do that all must fall right, whether the issue is or is not the one we desire. But a part, and no small part, of our duty in moments of peril and danger is to stand by our own country. We do not for a moment wish to endorse the miscnievons sentiment, "My country, right or wrong." If a man sincerely believes that his country is playing an evil part he cannot, of course, give her help with a whole heart. But for the men who have not arrived at any such conclusion, or who do not profess to have mastered the merits of the quarrel, the duty of patriotism is clear. It is not for nothing that men are bound each to each by the ties of patriotism. They cannot break away from the duty of national cohesion lightly or capriciously. Till the country is committed to the arbitrament of war a man may well take sides against the Government,—i.e., that which represents his country and has a right to speak in its name. When, however, war has once begun, a man must indeed be clear and confident in the wickedness of his country's action if he can abandon the fulfilment of the duty of patriotism. When men in Cabinets or Committees or other corporate bodies agree to be bound by the will of the majority, and determine that when once a decision has been come to they will act as if that decision were their own, though as a matter of fact it is not, they run, no doubt, some risks of wrongdoing ; but they run even more if they cannot agree to loyal co-operation. In the same way some risks are run by the adoption of the principle that when war has began one must support one's country loyally till peace has been secured again, but still greater risks would ensue if men in- sisted upon carrying the rights of the minority to the extreme point. Societies endure, and men make sacrifices for them, and give to them of their best in no small measure, because they feel that they and their countrymen are tacitly pledged to stand together in the last resort. The man who breaks away from that tacit, but none the less real, pledge, takes a very grave responsibility. We will by no means say that he is always or necessarily wrong, but he takes a responsibility akin to that incurred by those who revolt, and he can only be justified by the magnitude of the evils against which his action is a protest.
We need not, however, labour this point, which can be com- prehended instinctively, and needs no explanation. All we want to do on the present occasion is to point out that the sin- cerity both of our and of the Boers' appeals for divine help should be no source of perplexity. Both have a right to make that appeal, but neither will have the right to argue from the result that their cause is right. "The Almighty has His own purposes," and it must not be assumed that these can be fathomed by man. Meantime we can only say : "With firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in."
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