Methodist Church (Great Britain) -- Fiction; World War, 1914-1918 -- Fiction
'Either this is God's war,' he went on, 'and we are fighting for God's
cause, or we are not. If it is simply a matter of meeting force by
force, devilry by devilry then there is not much to choose between us.
But if we as a nation,--the pioneer of nations, the greatest nation
under the sun,--are fighting for the advancement of the Kingdom of God,
then we should eschew the devil's weapons. We should see to it that no
victory is won at the cost of men's immortal souls. Besides, we gain
no real advantage; I am certain of that. I have been in this war long
enough to know that the stamina of our men, the quality of our men, is
not made better by this damnable thing. It is all the other way. Our
Army is a poorer army because of it, and we have lost more than we have
gained by the use of it. That is looking at it purely from the
physical standpoint. But surely, if a man believes in Almighty God, he
has higher conceptions; when a man fights in the Spirit of God, and
looks to Him for strength and for guidance, he has Omnipotent forces on
his side. That is why we ought to have won months ago. In reality,
this war at the beginning, was a war of might against right, and we
have been making it a war of might against might, and we have been
willing to sacrifice right for might.'
'But surely,' I said, 'you who have seen a lot of fighting, and have
been over the top several times, know that the conditions are so
terrible that men do need help. You know, as well as I do, that an
artillery bombardment is hell, and that it needs a kind of artificial
courage to go through what the lads have to go through.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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