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XIII

A MARCHING IN THE MULBERRY

M

TREES

WARCHES in Flanders, marches in mud, marches in the mouth of hell are familiar incidents of these battle-worn times, but who has heard of a marching in mulberry trees? In the book of Chronicles it may be read, "At the sound of a marching in the tops of the mulberry trees, then shall you go forth to battle." It must relate to phantom armies. The bowman of Agincourt, the hosts of the Maid of Orleans must be hovering near. Not so.

The Philistine military masters had been ransacking the territory of their Israelitish neighbours. David inquired of God, "Shall I go up against the Philistines?" "Yes," came the answer; "you shall go at the sound of a marching in the tops of the mulberry trees."

There was here instanced the consulting of the divine leadership, with reference to the question of warfare. The supreme matter is not how the consultation was effected, but that it was sought and the divine answer upheld the use of warfare, but only at the sound of a marching in the tops of the mulberry trees.

This is ancient Hebrew history and is not as im

mediately enlightening and authoritative as the New Testament pages, but by implication, comes valuable suggestion for today's usage.

The Philistines of the twentieth century have harked back to those days of savage ancestors. They have burned villages, wiped out cities, demolished cathedrals, ransacked libraries, museums, chateaux, palaces, and poor men's huts, taking the spoil to make glad the feast at the castles of their robber barons. They have violated women and children. They have torn up solemn treaties as mere scraps of paper. Where used to be happy homes, and sunlit valleys, is now smoking desolation. Having sworn to defend Belgium's neutrality, Germany murdered Belgium, because that brave state, little though she was, was determined to keep true her promises of neutrality. Servia and France bear the mark of the oppressor's heel. Armenia's pathetic race without a country has been butchered by the Turk led on by the ruthless German master.

At length came murders by the sea. Germany announced to the world, that since, forsooth, her rulers considered it necessary, she would not be bound by any law, save only the law of necessity. Neither laws of God, nor laws of man should interfere with Germany's having her cherished position in the sun, her autocratic sway over all the nations, whether they would have her Kultur or not.

To America, far away across the seas, came with ever-increasing reverberation, the moaning of these victims of the despot's power. But America was

wedded to the ways of peace. She would but half believe the tales of German intrigue and terror. Time and again came the query, "Shall we go up and fight against the Philistines?" Her chosen political leaders and most of her spiritual leaders answered, "No." But at length, when Germany revoked her promise to abstain from ruthless submarine murderings at sea, and announced that American ships and American freemen must go and come on the free waters of the high seas, only at the German tyrant's dictum, the American soul found itself, and said, "We must be free, we shall be free, we will make all the world free, even if we give our choicest sons, by the million, and our possessions without measure."

When the cry came to the church, "Shall we go up to war?" what answer did the church make?

A recent Atlantic Monthly had an article entitled, "Peter Sat by the Fire Warming Himself,' wherein the church in America, since the outbreak of the European war, is likened unto the cowardly Peter, at the High Priest's fire, warming himself while the Master was on His way to crucifixion. The author quotes from a letter, written near the middle of the third century A. D., by Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, to his friend Donatus.

But

"This is a cheerful world as I see it from my fair garden, under the shadow of my vines. if I could ascend some high mountain, and look out over the wide lands you know very well what I should see: brigands on the highways, pirates on

the seas, armies fighting, cities burning, in the amphitheatres men murdered to please applauding crowds, selfishness and cruelty and despair under all roofs. It is a bad world, Donatus, an incredibly bad world. But I have discovered in the midst of it a quiet and holy people who have learned a great secret. They have found a joy which is a thousand times better than any of the pleasures of our sinful life. They are despised and persecuted, but they care not. They are masters of their souls. They have overcome the world. These people, Donatus, are the Christians-and I am one of them."

The author of the Atlantic article instances this picture as a portrayal of the other worldly spirit of the church even amidst the terrors of the world today. He says, "Cyprian's letter might have been written by any one of thousands of American prelates, bishops, dignitaries, and eminent clergymen, between August 1914 and April 1917, and its reproduction in any one of a hundred ecclesiastical periodicals would have called forth no comment." He continues, "Thoughtful men and women are asking what became of the spiritual leaders of America during those two and thirty months, when Europe and parts of Asia were passing through Gehenna. What prelate or bishop, or ecclesiastical dignitary essayed the work of spiritual interpretation?" He does not know into what wilderness or Arctic zone we might have wandered without the leadership of unmitred and unordained leaders like

Maeterlinck, Arnold Toynbee, Lord Bryce, Alfred Noyes, Raemackers, Owen Wister, Donald Hankey, H. G. Wells, and Ian Hay Beith. So does he proceed to scourge the ecclesiastical representatives of America and the world.

One cannot but admire the passionate conviction with which he makes his attack. As a representative of the church, I would make no special plea for mercy. The church, as evidenced by some of its representatives, has been, in this question as in many other questions of social leadership, dormant rather than active, laggard rather than leading; nevertheless, we cheerfully enter the lists, on behalf of the defendant as being, not guilty.

In the first place, a distinction must be made between the autocratic Roman Church and the democratic free churches of America. With the exception of a few magnificent personalities like Cardinal Mercier, the Roman Church has apparently been satisfied to secure any peace though it be a German peace.

With reference to the leaders of the churches in America, the accuser must remember that his hot indignation against all those in America, who did not immediately favour our intervention in the war, at the first invasion of Belgium, would find many besides the church against which to vent itself. Even Mr. Roosevelt, in the Outlook at that time, maintained that we should make no move in that direction. Slowly as we have moved, we are able with much better conscience and with a far more

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