Dictated Terms.

This conviction is deepened by the antecedents of the present unhappy war.  In allowing her ally Austria to dictate terms to Servia which were quite incompatible with the independence of that little State, Germany gave proof of her disregard for the rights of smaller States.  A similar disregard for the sovereign rights of greater States was shown in the demand that Russia should demobilize her forces.  It was quite open to Germany to have answered Russia’s mobilization with a counter-mobilization without resorting to war.  Many other nations have mobilized to defend their frontiers without declaring war.  Alike indirectly in regard to Servia and directly in regard to Russia, Germany was indisputably the aggressor.  And this policy of lawless aggression became more nakedly manifest in the invasion of Belgium.  Great Britain is not bound by any treaty rights to defend either Servia or Russia.  But she is bound by the most sacred obligations to defend Belgium, obligations which France undertook to observe.  We have been grieved to the heart to see in the successive acts of German policy a disregard of the liberties of States, small or great, which is the very negation of civilization.  It is not our country that has incurred the odium of being a traitor to civilization or to the conscience of humanity.

Doubtless you read the facts of the situation quite differently.  You may think us entirely mistaken.  But we desire to assure you, as fellow-Christians and fellow-theologians, that our motives are not open to the charge which has been made.

We have been moved to approach you on this matter by our deep reverence for you and our high appreciation of the great services you have rendered to Christendom in general.  We trust that you will receive what we have said in the spirit in which it was sent.

We have the honor to be,

Yours very sincerely,

P.J.  FORSYTH, M.A., D.D., Aberdeen University.  Principal of Hackney
College (Divinity School:  University of London).

HERBERT T. ANDREWS, B.A.  Oxon.  Professor of New Testament, Exegesis,
Introduction and Criticism.  New College, London (Divinity School: 
University of London).

J. HERBERT DARLOW, M.A.  Cambridge.  Literary Superintendent of the
British and Foreign Bible Society.

JAMES R. GILLIES, M.A.  Edinburgh, Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of England.  Pastor of Hampstead Presbyterian Church, London.

R. MACLEOD, Pastor of Frognal Presbyterian Church, London.

W.M.  MACPHAIL, M.A.  Glasgow.  General Secretary of the Presbyterian
Church of England.

RICHARD ROBERTS, Pastor of Crouch Hill Presbyterian Church, London.

H.H.  SCULLARD, M.A.  Cambridge, M.A., D.D.  London.  Professor of Ecclesiastical History, Christian Ethics, and the History of Religions in New College (Divinity School:  University of London).