Nevertheless, if we say that war is unchristian, or if we hold that those waging war are by their very behaviour unchristian, we are wrong. We are mistaking the true spirit of Christianity. For Christianity is no rule which people must obey; it is no set of rules for people. The deepest thing in Christianity is personal choice. Those who are saved are those who personally choose. If a man goes to bear arms for love of his country, if he offers his life as a sacrifice on the altar of his Fatherland, he is still a true Christian though engaged in violence. Or if a man stands out to refuse to go like the peasant in _Peer Gynt_, who cut off one of his fingers so as to be rejected by the army doctor, we still have Christianity exemplified in personal choice and in the readiness to sacrifice material things for spiritual gain. What, then, of the peasant soldiers who presumably make little choice? Of them it must be said, they are Christians on the emotional plane, not on the intellectual. By their splendid enthusiasm it is evident that the peasants do make an emotional choice. Perhaps in that choice lies their Christianity with regard to war. They are Christians also in that they do not regard death as something terrible. Death for them is a sacrament, a new baptism, a second time going down of the warriors of King Vladimir to the River Dneiper. Footnote 13: _War and Christianity_, by Vladimir Solovyof, now translated into English—Constable’s Russian Library. APPENDIX II THE CHOICE OF EAST AND WEST An interesting new domain of study is opening for the Bible student in the comparison of what the various nations have taken to themselves in their understanding of the Gospels. Translation itself inevitably changes the emphasis, the _accent_ of various passages. And Slavonic perception, British perception, German perception, American perception necessarily differ. It is a truism to say that we each take from a book only what we wish to take from it. To one who knows Russia and has the feeling for Eastern Christianity, there is no more enthralling occupation than to read the Gospels with an eye to discovering which parts Eastern Christianity has emphasised, which parts Western Christianity has taken; which parts, for instance, Russia has emphasised, which parts America has emphasised. One evening in Vladikavkaz I had a long talk with Russian friends about this difference in emphasis, and we went through the whole of St. Matthew and discussed many texts of the New Testament.