than the Kaiser's idea. He believes that God sent on Europe a war that
will cost £10,000,000,000, that is blasting the homes and embittering
the hearts of millions, that mingles the innocent and guilty in one
common and fearful desolation, that sends millions to a premature death
amidst circumstances which do not lend themselves to a devout
preparation, that is raising storms of hatred and perverting the souls
of millions, because a few other millions refuse to go to church. It
would be difficult to conceive a cruder and more barbarous idea. Attila
did not scourge the Romans, but he did scourge other peoples; and we
hold him up to execration for ever for it. But Archbishop Carr, and many
other preachers, think that an all-holy and all-intelligent God can do
infinitely worse than Attila. He is going to punish the unbelievers in
eternal fire when they die: meantime he will make a hell on earth for
the innocent as well as the supposed guilty, the child and the mother as
well as the free-thinking father. Of a truth, it is not surprising that
a reluctance to listen to sermons has spread to Melbourne, and that men
are wondering whether they had better not take in hand their own
destinies rather than entrust them to such spiritual guides as this.

Note, particularly, in passing the emphasis which the Archbishop puts on
the determination of our generation to control its own destinies. Until
the nineteenth century men entrusted their destinies, on the moral side,
to guides like Archbishop Carr. I have described the result. In the
nineteenth century there began this practice, which the Archbishop
thinks worthy of so inhuman a chastisement, of men attending to their
own moral interests. Of this also I have described the result. The moral
sentiment of Europe has greatly improved, and there is at least a
widespread revolt against warfare and a prospect of abolishing it. For
this God, the more than human, scorched Europe with the horrible flames
which Archbishop Carr thinks he keeps in his arsenal of