The General tried to protest, but Gordon, who was now excited, said— "Oh, I know—I’m a soldier too, sir, and I don’t want to see my country walked upon. It may be all right, all necessary to the game of empire, but for Heaven’s sake let us call it by its right name—conquest, not Christianity—and put away the cant and quackery of being Christian countries." Again the General tried to protest, but Gordon did not hear. "Think of it! Kaisers and Kings and Presidents asking God’s blessing on their Ministries of War! Bishops and Archbishops praying for more battleships! Christians? Followers of Christ? Why, in the name of God, do they not tear the scales from their eyes and stand revealed to themselves as good, upright, honest, honourable Pagans, bent on the re-paganisation of the world and the destruction of Christian civilisation? I’m a soldier, yes, but I hope to Heaven I’m not a hypocrite, and show me the soldier worth his salt who is not at heart a man of peace." The General’s face was growing scarlet, but Gordon saw nothing of that. "Then take what this new preacher says about the greed of wealth—isn’t that true, too? We pretend to believe that ’it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God,’ yet we are nearly all trying, struggling, fighting, scrambling to be rich." He laughed out loud and then said—- "Look at America—I’m half an American myself, sir, so I’ve a right to say it—where a man may become a millionaire by crushing out everybody else and appropriating the gifts of nature which God meant for humanity! But America is a Christian country, too, and its richest men build, of their abundance, churches in which to glorify the giving of the widow’s mite! Is the man to be silenced who warns the world that such sordid and squalid materialism is swallowing up religion, morality, and truth? Such a man may be the very soul of a country, yet what do we do with him? We hang him or stone him or crucify him—that’s what we do with him, sir." Gordon, who had been walking up and down the room and talking in an intense and poignant voice, stopped suddenly and said— "General, did you ever reflect upon the way in which Jesus Christ was brought to His death?" "Good gracious, man, what has that subject to do with this?" said the General. "A good deal, I think, sir. Did you ever ask yourself who it was that betrayed Jesus?" "Judas Iscariot, I suppose."