And yet scarcely a voice is raised in Christendom (outside the Society of Friends) on their behalf; in fact, the defence of the conscience has been left largely to Quakers and Agnostics, whilst official Christianity has declared on behalf of the war, as it always has done on behalf of all war since that fatal day in the history of Christianity when Constantine established the Christian religion as part of the State machinery of Government. I have brought the war in here because it seems to me important in this chapter to show the attitude of the churches towards “force as a remedy for international wrong,” and to compare it with the attitude taken up by those same churches toward the great social class war which curses the whole civilised world. During my life-time there have been innumerable labour disputes, lock-outs, and strikes; but on scarcely any occasion do I remember the leaders of the churches coming out and definitely taking sides. It is true that in the first great London dock strike, nearly twenty years ago, the late Cardinal Manning and Bishop Temple, together with some leading Nonconformists, came out with a demand for a conference and arbitration, and by the influence they exerted were able to secure for the docker the 6d. per hour minimum; but, so far as I recollect, there was no great uprising of Christians on the side of the worker, and this has been true all through the railway, coal, and transport strikes. All I remember of the “Christian” attitude towards these are sermons and articles written by learned Divines telling the workers to moderate their demands, and to give up using such terrible methods as those of the strike. When I appealed to the archbishops and bishops during the Dublin strike, and during other labour disputes, they always declared that the business of the church was not to take sides, but to remain neutral, because it was impossible for the church to know which side was right.