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INTERESTING ITEMS
STRONG DELUSIONS URGE ON THE WAR
All the nations now at war seem possessed of the
thought that they are fighting God's battles and that He
is leading them on to sure and great victory. We quote
the following from The Record of Christian Work:--
"The leading Church weekly of Germany, the Allg. Luth. Evang. Kirchen Zeitung, prints a parallel between
the experiences of the German nation in 1914-1915 and
our Lord's passion, which recalls the pathological misuse
of religious symbols, etc., in French decadent literature.
"The article opens with the words of a Kempis, 'No
one feels the sufferings of Christ so deeply as he who has
passed through similar sufferings.' Germany is the suffering
servant who must bear the sins of many, for it is
very clear that we fight for the continuance of genuine
Christianity. As Israel was the earlier type of Christ,
so Germany is the succeeding one. On the other hand,
all the figures of the Savior's tragical trial and death-day
reappear in the present world conflict. The types are so
clear that no one can mistake the resemblance. The Czar
plays the sad role of Pilate acting against better knowledge
and conscience, surrendering the innocent in anxious
fear lest he lose his own power. Serbia is Barabbas, who
has committed murder. Vain and frivolous France recalls
the picture of Herod Antipas. Autocratic, orthodox
Russia and atheist, republican France are made friends,
as were the two rulers of Christ's day. The active agent
in Christ's passion was the Sanhedrin. The evangelical
story repeatedly affirms that it sought Jesus' death out
of envy. Is there aught else save envy which has made
England the driving force in the war upon Germany?'
"The writer then indulges in characteristic flings at
'England's Sabbath-keeping, mission fanaticism, and general
Pharisaism. The power of the Sanhedrin was
exerted over the Jews of the dispersion, as England's
is over her over-seas colonies.' In the United States, the
writer sees 'Judas, the great betrayer,' and quotes the
words of Ezekiel 22:12, 'They have taken gifts to shed
blood; thou hast greedily gained of thy neighbors by
extortion.' The thirty pieces of silver have become thirty
milliards. The false witnesses are 'the international press
and telegraph agencies.' 'The students and musicians
who warmed themselves at German Universities and Conservatories,
and who now deny Germany, figure as Peter.
Also the poor little Waldensian Church to which, it seems,
German Protestants formerly made contributions.
[R5882 : page 111]
" 'The penitent thief who redeemed a bad past by a
good deed in his last hours and who suffered the same
sorrow as the Lord is the type of the Turkish people who
now put to shame the Christianity of Europe'--'apart
from the Germans,' the writer is careful to explain.
"The publication of this paragraph in cold type in a
Christian paper in the period of the worst excesses which
Turkish anti-Christian fanaticism has ever perpetrated
gives a pretty good measure of the moral and intellectual
aberration into which German Christianity has fallen.
There are other parallels, some trivial, where Sven Hedin
is compared with the centurion at the Cross; others blasphemous,
in which the dry period preceding the last
German harvest is related to the 'I thirst' of Christ."
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TURKISH PROMISES TRUSTED
The Sentimental, a Jewish weekly (Chicago), says:
"The return of Turkish authority in the Balkans must
be welcomed as a result of the war. The sentimental love
of nationality cannot be encouraged when the fact of
nationality imperils the peace of Europe and the world.
The Turk has shown that he is a friend of peace and
humanity and only the intolerance of Christianity and the
cupidity of the adjoining kingdoms make him appear "terribly"
otherwise. The German haters, of course, will
point to Turkey's recent announcement of equal rights to
Jews as inspired by Germany for effect and as resembling
the liberal grants of the Czar, but the fact of the matter
is that the Turkish government is not the Russian government,
for nothing is more certain than that a pledge with
Mohammedans is sacred, however the Greek Orthodox
conscience may construe its own promises. We would
rather deal with the Turk than with any other power except
our own free nation. But if anything else is certain,
it is the Kaiser's sincerity in preaching equal rights for
our people, where at present these are denied them. But
even if it be granted that the concession is inspired solely
by the average statecraft ethics, both by Turkey and by
Germany, the move must add momentum to the advance
of the liberal spirit, so that when peace is discussed, the
opponents of equal rights for our people will themselves
realize that in urging the status quo for their Jewish subjects
they are flying in the face of the moral judgment
and the enlightened will of Europe and civilization, and
must therefore yield. If this definite result comes out of
the war, all the sufferings of our brethren and even of the
millions sacrificed by the war's ravages will have been
offered for a moral gain worth even more."
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