I am concerned mainly with the action or inaction of the Churches in this country, but it is entirely relevant to set out a brief statement of these facts about Germany and Austria-Hungary. The Christian religion was on trial in those countries as well as here. It failed so lamentably, not because there is more Christianity here than in Germany and Austria, not because the national character was inferior to the English and less apt to receive Christian teaching, but because the temptation was greater. Until this war occurred, no responsible traveller ever ventured to say that the German or Austrian character was inferior to the British. It is not. But the economic difficulties of Germany and the political difficulties (with the Slavs) of Austria-Hungary laid a heavier trial on those nations, and their Christianity entirely failed. Catholic and Protestant alike--for the two nations contain fifty million Catholics to sixty million Protestants--were swept onward in the tide of national passion, or feared to oppose it. One might have expected that at least the supreme head of the Roman Church would, from his detached throne in Rome, pass some grave censure on the outrages committed by Catholic Bavarians in Belgium or Catholic Magyars in Serbia. Not one syllable either on the responsibility for the war or the appalling outrages which have characterised it has come from him. The only event which drew from him a protest--a restrained and inoffensive remonstrance--was the confinement to his palace for some days of my old friend and teacher, Cardinal Mercier! To the stories of fearful and widespread outrage, even when they were sternly authenticated, he was deaf. One knows why. If Germany and Austria fail in this war, as they will fail, the Catholic bodies of Germany and Austria, the strongest Catholic political parties in Europe, will be broken. Millions of the Catholic subjects of Germany and Austria will pass under the rule of unbelieving France or schismatical Russia. So the supreme head of the Roman Church wraps himself nervously in a mantle of political neutrality and disclaims the duty of assigning moral guilt.