Belgium, an incarnate devil who from motives of greed carried
murder and torture through a large section of Africa, and yet was
received in every court, and was eventually buried after a
panegyric from a Cardinal of the Roman Church--a church which
had never once raised her voice against his diabolical career.
Consider the similar crimes in the Putumayo, where British
capitalists, if not guilty of outrage, can at least not be
acquitted of having condoned it by their lethargy and trust in
local agents. Think of Turkey and the recurrent massacres of her
subject races. Think of the heartless grind of the factories
everywhere, where work assumed a very different and more
unnatural shape than the ancient labour of the fields. Think of
the sensuality of many rich, the brutality of many poor, the
shallowness of many fashionable, the coldness and deadness of
religion, the absence anywhere of any deep, true spiritual
impulse. Think, above all, of the organised materialism of
Germany, the arrogance, the heartlessness, the negation of
everything which one could possibly associate with the living
spirit of Christ as evident in the utterances of Catholic
Bishops, like Hartmann of Cologne, as in those of Lutheran
Pastors. Put all this together and say if the human race has
ever presented a more unlovely aspect. When we try to find the
brighter spots they are chiefly where civilisation, as apart
from religion, has built up necessities for the community, such
as hospitals, universities, and organised charities, as
conspicuous in Buddhist Japan as in Christian Europe. We cannot
deny that there has been much virtue, much gentleness, much
spirituality in individuals. But the churches were empty husks,
which contained no spiritual food for the human race, and had in
the main ceased to influence its actions, save in the direction