Consider, again, the case of some German or Austrian widow with many
young children. The Kaiser's Government, breathing the most Christian
sentiments, gave the Fatherland war in her time; her husband was killed,
her country is ruined, her children are growing up stunted and marred by
all the years of semi-starvation; the Paris Press is crying out, in the
name of moral order throughout the world, that they ought to be starved
more drastically; part of the English Press complains, in the tone of an
outraged spiritual director, that she has shown no adequate signs of
repentance of the Kaiser's sins, and that she and hers are living like
fighting cocks; the German Agrarian Party, in the name of Patriotism,
manoeuvres to keep her from getting her weekly ounce or two of butcher's
meat from abroad more cheaply than they would like to sell it to her at
home.
What could you say to such people if they should break out at last in
despair and defiance: "Anyhow, all these people, here and abroad, who
take upon themselves to speak for God and duty and patriotism and
liberty and loyalty are evil people, and do evil things. Shall not all
these trees that they swear by be judged by their fruits? Away with them
into the fire, God and country and social duty and justice and every old
phrase that used to seem more than a phrase till the war came to show it
up for what it was worth as a means to right conduct in men?" Of course
you could say a great deal. But at every third word they could incommode
you with some stumping case of the foulest thing done in the holiest
name till you would be shamed into silence at the sight of all the
crowns of thorns brought to market by keepers of what you still believe
to be vineyards. So, throughout much of Europe, Satan's most promising
innings for many long years has begun.
III
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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