All this was only what might have been expected. The arresting fact was to find these prophets of peace, with comparatively few exceptions, proclaiming the righteousness of our participation in the war. In 1915 when the _Continent_, of Chicago, sent out a questionnaire among the Presbyterian ministers of the country, an overwhelming majority declared themselves in favor of preparedness. A vote in Brooklyn, embracing ministers in something like twenty denominations, showed one hundred and fifty-one in favor of preparedness, while six qualified their approval and only fourteen were opposed. These are indications of the trend of thought among the ministers of America; and though they may not give direct and unimpeachable evidence of how these men would have viewed the entrance of the United States into the European _débâcle_, it would seem to be a legitimate inference that their attitude would be the same. When a nation, patient and forbearing until her enemies scoffed and her friends grieved, found herself compelled to defend her unquestioned rights against lawless and brutal pirates, minds which approved of preparedness for war would naturally, almost inevitably, approve of war. Nor was it our rights only. We entered the struggle not through pride or greed or hatred, but as the champion of international law, righteousness, liberty, democracy, and a world peace that shall be abiding and just for all. To the few pacifists among the clergy all this seems quite unnecessary. Why should not America walk in the footsteps of Jesus, set her face steadfastly toward her Jerusalem, and for the world's salvation suffer Germany and Austria and Turkey to drive the spikes through her hands? Why not permit the Central Powers to seize and possess our country, even though they dealt with those of us, who could not and would not submit to the ethics of Nietzsche and the diplomacy of Bernhardi and the rule of von Hindenburg, as they treated the fathers and mothers and little children of Armenia and Belgium and Poland? "Resist not evil!" The cure of Christ's time is the cure of our time! The age of Judas and of Pilate, of the scribes and brutal Roman soldiers, has never passed.