The Rev. A. T. Guttery addressed the Council in a more cheerful mood, and his reflections are characteristic of a large group of the clergy. He would not for a moment allow the failure of Christianity. The Churches had, he said, been so successful in compelling the world to recognise the evil of aggressive warfare that even the Germans were eager to describe their action as purely defensive. "The Pagan glory of war for its own sake was gone." And when we acknowledge the comparative failure of religion in Germany, and restrict our attention to the sphere of our own clergy, we find that they have created an entirely new spirit. The lust for territory and for gold is felt no more in England. Here there is no mafficking over victories, there are no hymns of hate. The British nation has been sobered by the influence of Christianity. We may regret that the German people has not proved equally susceptible, and its pastors equally energetic, but we cannot bear their burden. Their naughtiness alone has disturbed the moral progress which, even in this department, Christianity was fostering. This is, I think, a very usual attitude of the clergy, and I have already appreciated the sound element of it. There is no comparison between the behaviour of the two nations. Whether England deserves quite all the compliments which Mr. Guttery showers upon it may be a matter of opinion. We have as yet little cause for "mafficking," but there is very little doubt that it will occur on a grandiose scale before the war is over. We do not sing hymns of hate; but it might be hazardous to speculate what we would do if some nation drew an iron ring round our country and reduced us almost to a condition of starvation. We have no lust for territory--I am not sure about the lust for gold--because we have in our Empire territory enough for our population; and we may wait to see if England does not annex any part of Germany's African or Pacific possessions. Mr. Guttery's contrast is crude and superficial. He ignores the economic and geographical conditions which give us a feeling of content and Germany a profound feeling of discontent and a dangerous ambition. The German character is not in itself inferior to ours, and it were well for us to fancy ourselves in Germany's position and wonder if we would have acted otherwise.