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Show I ing permitted to accept non-combat-imt .service. This spirit of resistance to law is becoming so common in the country as to constitute a grave problem, and it is discouraging to note that so many ministers are r uily to condone and encourage it by promising in advance to disobey the constitution and laws of the country coun-try at a time when the very existence exis-tence of the government might be at stake. It is discouraging, too, to note the growth of the tendency to approve the reign of force and violence by announcing in advance that if invoked invok-ed there would be submission to it without resistance by people who enjoy en-joy the protection of the American government and flag, only because behind that government and flag stands the force capable of quelling an appeal to violence by lawless elements. ele-ments. Fortunately such declarations, while they may sow the seed of resistance re-sistance to law and make the possibility possi-bility of armed insurrection or invasion invas-ion greater, are chiefly gestures intended in-tended to be heroic, made at a time when they are not so very heroic after af-ter all. If the nation were attacked, for instance, by the armed forces of Soviet Russia, and not only the life of the government but the existence of religion itself were thus threatened, threat-ened, it is probable that many of these pacific parsons would change their minds. If they did not, they would at least change their vocations for 95 per cent of the people in the pews are not so mentally twisted1 or pusillanimous that they would continue con-tinue to be misrepresented in the pul-mt pul-mt by men so weak or so disloyal that they would, in time of danger, repudiate the cause of their country ind give aid and comfort to the enemy by withholding sanction or support for their country's cause. Whenever religion attempts to repudiate re-pudiate patriotism, patriotism will not be so much hurt as religion. PLEDGED LAWBREAKERS. A poll taken of some 19,000 Pro' estant ministers by "The World Tomorrow," To-morrow," a politico-religious journal of the pink persuasion, shows that a majority of the ministers responding respond-ing to the poll declared that they would refuse to sanction or support any future war in which the United States might become involved, and about the same majority declared that it would not sanction or support even a defensive war in case the American Am-erican government and people were attacked by the armed forces of a hostile power. It is fair to say in behalf of the ministers of the country that they number in all about 100,000, and that presumably this poll was taken among those ministers who have for the past few years been bombarded by the heavily financed propaganda of the ultra-pacifists and internationalists. internation-alists. It is also fair to say that many of the ministers to whom the qips-tions qips-tions were addressed, expressed their hot indignation at being asked whether whe-ther or not they would defend their country in case an armed attack were made upon it. If Theodore Roosevelt were alive it would be interesting to read his comment upon the attitude of those ministers who declare in advance that they would become violators of the Constitution and the laws of their county which make every citizen a member of the unorganized militia, subject to call in case of invasion or insurrection, and excusable from support sup-port of their government in such an emergency only to the extent of be- |