Eakin's War Sermons

THE WAR-TIME SERMONS OF THE REV. THOMAS EAKIN

That little Welch preacher at Wolf Willow - Rhye, his name is, isn't it? By George, you should hear him flaming in the pulpit. He's the limit. There won't be a man in that parish will dare hold back. He will just have to go to war or quit the church. And it's the same all over. The churches are a mighty force in Canada, you know, even a political force. — Ralph Connor, The Major (1917) [footnote 1]

The weekly preaching of the pulpit is undoubtedly one of the most powerful and influential means of communication at the disposal of Protestant churches. And yet, little historical work has been done in an attempt to discover how the pulpit addressed some of the crucial political issues which faced Canadian society. For example, how did the events of the First World War affect the preaching of Presbyterian ministers? The Eakin Papers, as collected in the Knox College Archives, contain ninety-three sermons which can be identified as being written by Eakin during the First World War. On the basis of these manuscript sermons this paper will attempt to discuss the preaching of Thomas Eakin during the period from 1914 to 1918 in order to determine the issues which dominated his preaching, the kinds of imagery he used, and his overall understanding of the War itself.

Thomas Eakin was born in Northern Ireland on January 30, 1871 and emigrated to Canada in 1891. Graduating from the University of Toronto with his Bachelor's degree in 1896 and from Knox College in 1899, he moved to Guelph and served as Minister of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church from 1899 to 1905. While at St. Andrew's, he studied under McCurdy at the Department of Orientals at the University of Toronto and obtained his Ph.D. in 1905 on the basis of his thesis "The Text of Habakkuk, Chapter I: 1-11, 4". He then began teaching undergraduates in the Department of Orientals and was promoted to Associate Professor in 1910. In 1912 Eakin resigned his teaching position to study law. Throughout the period from 1906 to 1915 he served as Assistant Minister at St. Andrew's, King Street, in Toronto. With the resignation of the senior Minister in May of 1915, Eakin was called to St. Andrew's and was inducted on October 5, 1915,. In late 1918 and early 1919 he served as a speaker in Britain for the Canadian Y.M.C.A. as part of that organization's 'Citizenship Campaign'. Upon his return he was appointed by the 1920 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church to a teaching chair at Presbyterian College in Montreal. He remained at Presbyterian College until Church Union in

1925, at which point he was appointed to the chair of Old Testament at Knox College, Toronto, and was soon thereafter appointed Principal. [footnote 2]

Thomas Eakin may best be described theologically by the term 'liberal evangelical': "liberal' in that he accepted the historical critical method of studying the Bible; yet 'evangelical' in that he believed that the basic spiritual truths of the Scripture remained. For Eakin, redemption involved a turning away from the material realm of wealth and luxury and a turning towards the spiritual realm as embodied in the life of Christ, for to "follow Christ must mean to attach the highest value to spiritual things." [footnote 3] This concern for the spiritual was not a denial of the importance of Christian concern for the world, but represented an attack on the perceived movement towards a society in which materialistic philosophies and earthly possessions were increasingly dominant. Eakin argued that the church needed to become in fact what it is in idea: a society of men and women banded together by a common faith in God and witnessing to a moral and spiritual ideal of life based on the principles of love and sacrifice revealed in Christ and inspired by his Spirit. [footnote 4]

In his understanding of the church, his belief in progress, and his stress on the spiritual over and above the material, Eakin represents a good example of the 'liberal evangelical'. [footnote 5]

Throughout the War years, Thomas Eakin preached the majority of his sermons from the pulpit of St. Andrew's in Toronto, one of the most prominent Presbyterian pulpits in Canada. The War greatly affected St. Andrew's especially in terms of the number who left to serve overseas. The congregation, whose communion roll numbered 581 in the final year of the War, had 166 men and women serving in the military, and had suffered nineteen deaths by 1918. The war affected the congregation in other ways. The Men's Society studied "war problems" during the winter of 1914-1915, while the Women's Association "took up war work," and a new organization, the Women's Patriotic League, was established. [footnote 6]

From one of the most prominent Presbyterian pulpits in Canada, a congregation greatly affected by the War, Thomas Eakin preached throughout the First World War. As the implications of the War began to be felt in Canada, Eakin's liberal evangelical theology was forced to confront an international conflict of unparalleled dimensions and fierceness. The major change in Eakin's thought and preaching through the course of the War was a movement from what might best be described as a 'just war' view of the conflict to a belief that this particular conflict was a crusade - indeed a "holy war", and that God, being on the side of right, was on the side of Great Britain and her allies. Ultimately, Eakin identified the earthly victory of the allies with the eternal triumph of God, and in an effort to achieve this victory encouraged recruiting, conscription, and all other efforts deemed necessary to win the war. The war became a purging fire through which individuals and the church were moving to a brighter day beyond. It was within this context that the theological issues raised by the war, issues such as how an omnipotent God could allow suffering on such a scale, were understood and discussed.

The movement from a just war ideology to the view that this particular war was a crusade can be traced in Eakin's preaching. Prior to the outbreak of the War, in a sermon preached in May 1911, Eakin argued against war and declared that the Christian church must play a more active role in creating international peace. He attacked the militarism which seemed to be pushing Europe into war:

It takes but a casual observer to see that the old world is possessed by an unaccountable military mania which is pushing the nations to financial ruin and to a social and political cataclysm that can be but dimly guessed. [footnote 7]

While opposed to war, Eakin was not a pacifist. He argued that under certain situations, nations, as well as individuals, had the right to protect themselves and those without power. He proposed three criteria by which the use of force might be justified, either by the state or by an individual: "only love may use force;" this force should be used only for protection or for the "enforcement of justice where law is openly violated;" and, this force must only be used under extreme circumstances as "a terrible and unescapable necessity." [footnote 8]

While admitting that the use of force might be necessary under these circumstances in the realm of international, as well as personal, relations, Eakin still believed that individuals were correct in their concern for the growth of militarism. He argued that ninety-nine per cent of wars "might have been avoided" had the parties used some form of arbitration rather than resort to violence. Eakin was concerned about the economic consequences of a modern war, but he believed that "the most serious objection to war is the change in moral standards which it involves." For all this concern for the growth of militarism, Eakin was still able to sound a hopeful note at the conclusion of this sermon. He suggested that he and his audience were at the beginning of an age when all human beings would live without conflict, a time in which "the temple of peace" was being constructed. [footnote 9] In his approach to militarism and his thoughts on the issue of war and peace, Eakin was very much in step with the general pre-War mood of European and North American Christians, including the Presbyterian Church in Canada. [footnote 10]

The outbreak of war saw no radical change in Eakin's attitude towards war. He admitted that under the present circumstances war was "inevitable" and justified the actions of the British Empire, yet he remained opposed to war in general. He called upon his listeners to examine themselves, and argued that in previous wars the British Empire had not been justified. However, this war was different in that it was not a war for Empirical or territorial gain but a struggle against "brute force motivated by insane ambitions." Eakin blamed the Kaiser for the War and described him as a man who

tears up treaties, makes war on a peaceful neighbour, his legions shooting citizens of another country who have done him no wrong, making a desolation of a fair and fruitful country to gratify an insane ambition to be another Napoleon.

The enemy was militarism, personified by the Kaiser, and Eakin expressed the hope that, through the war, God might act so as to bring in a new era of peace. [footnote 11]

The change in Eakin's perception of the War was gradual and it is difficult to determine at what precise point he began to understand the Was as a crusade. It is obvious, by his comparison of the allied soldiers to crusaders in May of 1917, [footnote 12] that by this point the War had indeed become a holy war, but there are indications of a similar perception of the War prior to this date. From the outset of the War Eakin had been harsh in his depiction of the Kaiser and of the German people, but in the course of 1915 this rhetoric began to harden. In September of that year Eakin declared that the Empire's soldiers in Europe were "fighting against barbarous ambition, against a will to power that would enslave the world." [footnote 13] The cruelty and carnage of the war outraged Eakin, in particular the massacre of the Armenians at the hands of Germany's allies the Turks, and what he described as the "bloodstained juggernaut of militarism driving with devilish and insensate fury over the fields of France and Belgium." [footnote 14] His growing reaction to the brutality of war was displayed in a November sermon:

The dehumanizing influence of insensate and unrestrained ambition is colossally and sickeningly evident at the present time when every day brings a new outrage. [footnote 15]

The Kaiser was compared to many ignoble men in history, from Caiaphas to Napolean, [footnote 16] and in particular to the Hellenistic tyrant Antiochus Epiphanes:

Like William of Germany he was an ardent exponent of the doctrine of frightfulness and also like that monarch his speciality seemed to be the murdering of defenseless women and babes and the desecration of houses of worship. [footnote 17]

In the period from late 1915 to early 1916 there was a noticeable hardening of rhetoric towards the Kaiser and the German people.

Throughout 1916 and into early 1917 the rhetoric continued to harden. In an April 9, 1916 sermon Eakin for the first time referred to the war as "this sacred cause." The War was no longer understood as a defence of liberty but as a defence of civilization itself against "all the forces of savagery." [footnote 18] Over the next two months Eakin preached two sermons which made heavy use of recruiting terminology and imagery. [footnote 19] Eakin's attitude towards the German nation was made clear through an attack he made on pacifism the week before Christmas 1916:
But would any sane person accept literally the doctrine of non-resistance to a calculating and ruthless foe, to the most dastardly, inhuman and villanous barbarism that any age ancient or modern has witnessed. [footnote 20]

The Germans were not only the enemy, they were seen to be the most brutal aggressors of all time, a claim which, in light of the brutality of much of the world's history, was an extremely powerful statement. In a February 1917 sermon based upon the text "Blessed are the peacemakers" Eakin declared that: "Our soldiers are among the peacemakers today." While admitting that Britain had not always been justified in all her previous wars, Eakin continued:

But we were never prouder of our Empire than we are today, never did we thank God more fervently for her wonderful fleet and her glorious army drawn from the ends of the earth (than we) do now. [footnote 21]

While Eakin maintained some vestiges of his earlier attitudes towards war, it was clear that he was beginning to understand this was as something more than a justifiable nationalistic conflict.

The emphasis on the Germans as barbarians and the empire's soldiers as peacemakers was present in several sermons preached in February 1917. In describing the outbreak of the War, Eakin told of how an "unscrupulous and barbarous people were overrunning the little country of Belgium with a blood lust that spared neither age nor sex." [footnote 22] Eakin also elaborated on his assertion that the peacemakers of the modern world in fact the allied soldiers:

Hence we say to those who contend with all the engines of warfare against the most hellish spirit of all time - Blessed are ye armed, booted, equipped for slaughter, we say it because we must, blessed are ye peacemakers. [footnote 23]

In the other sermons in the early months of 1917, he commonly referred to the Germans as "barbarians", and spoke of their "unparalleled brutality, and unspeakable bestiality." [footnote 24]

In May 1917 during a sermon preached at St. Andrew's at which members of the Princess Patricia Light Infantry were present, Eakin for the first time described the war as a crusade and those fighting against the Germans as crusaders. He argued that it was clear both from the Bible and from history itself that "God takes sides" against those who defy His will. Referring to Germany as "that nation of blood lust and rapine, and every unnameable vice against which the civilized world is ranged today," he went on to declare:

This war which is convulsing the world today is a war against Anti-Christ, savage, bestial, loathsome, foul, unrestrained in which there is no attempt to be governed by the principles of morality much less by Christianity.

He argued that God is present in the War in the manner by which the consciences of peaceful men had been moved, so that they had chosen to obey the impulse of "duty, the stern daughter of the voice of God," and go to war. He stated:

Therefore they went out as the old crusaders went, Knight errants for God to uphold the cause of country, the cause of humanity, the cause of God. [footnote 25]

To Eakin this was no longer a war in defence of liberty but a crusade against the personified forces of evil and anti-Christ.

Throughout the dark days of 1917 when it appeared that the British Empire and its allies would lose the War, Eakin continued to preach that the war against the Kaiser, now also equated with the "Beast" of the Apocalypse of St. John, [footnote 26] was a special conflict, a crusade. In this conflict even such Christian principles as forgiveness were radically affected. Eakin could no longer believe "that Jesus would have palliated the unspeakable hideousness of the modern Hun." [footnote 27] Images used by Jesus, images such as the narrow way and the broad way, became incarnated in the European conflict. Belgium, through its defiance of the German military machine, had chosen the narrow way "and saved her soul." Similarly, the allied soldiers were portrayed as individuals who followed the "narrow way":

Ask that soldier why he risks his life and I think most of them could give you an answer, the answer of Jesus … the narrow way that society may be free.

The Germans, on the other hand, represented the "broad way" for they had denied all the precepts of Christians morality, making the present war unique in history: "The issue has been joined on a colossal scale. Either Christ or the old gods must go down." [footnote 28] The war raging in Europe was no longer a political contest but a religious struggle between Christianity and paganism.

In a conflict primarily fought between nations which claimed to be 'Christian', the problem emerged as to how Britain and her allies could be certain that God was indeed on their side. While acknowledging that Germany and Austria were also praying to God for victory, Eakin argued that Canadians could be sure that God was on their side because "God is on the side of humanity and only those prayers that have in then some of the blood of sacrifice for impersonal good can be answered." God, although not a national deity, was on the allies side in this "holy war", a war in which "spiritual issues as well as material" ones were at stake. [footnote 29] Remarking upon "the hideous disclosure of the German spirit" which had been displayed through the course of the War, Eakin declared:

Therefore I can pray with all the fervour and faith that are in me, God prosper the arms of Britain and France and our sister republic and all who range themselves on our side, for to them is committed not only the defence of our own lands and homes but the deliverance of a burdened world from the greatest spiritual evil which has menaced it in modern times, for as Paul said we wrestle not alone with flesh and blood, with Nero and Domitian, but with a spirit of wickedness in high places, so we wrestle not alone against the Kaiser and his hosts but against the spirit of the Anti-Christ which could turn our Earth into hell. [footnote 30]

Prayers for victory were important in this spiritual contest.

Throughout the latter days of the War the theme that this war was a holy war of Christianity versus paganism, personified in the Central European states continued. Eakin compared Israel's loss of her soul to that of Germany, for Germany "has sold her soul without compunction or regret into the hands of the devil of material ambition." [footnote 31] It was against German militarism and the belief that "might was Right" that

the civilized nations of the world are in a death grapple with a nation of moral madmen. It is self-aggrandisement on a colossal scale that we are fighting, it is negation of the Christian law of life, the reasonable law of life that we are fighting, and some day we may waken to the real significance of what the allied nations are doing. [footnote 32]

By September, when it was clear that the Allies were winning the War, Eakin stated that it would not affect his faith if all of the miracles of the Old and New Testaments were disproven, for in the fields of Europe God "is doing greater things than these before our holden eyes." [footnote 33] The victory of the allies was ascribed to God: "Further, as we look over the history of the past few years, as we consider the unpreparedness of the allied forces, we are forced to say - it is the Lord's doing." [footnote 34] In the holy war, it is God who brings victory.

Once Eakin began to perceive of the War in terms of a crusade, certain implications arose. Two sermons preached in April and May of 1916 were replete with language which identified the War as Christ's war and which called upon individuals to serve God by taking certain actions, actions which implicitly included joining the armed forces. After discussing how the prophet Isaiah had accepted "A Commission in the service of the King," Eakin moved into the present and declared:

High and splendid things are going forward, such hopes are stirring through the darkness, such sacrifice is needed, such calls are in the air for heroic souls who can embark upon the great adventure. God's work is waiting. God's flag is flying and we are wanted.

The sermon ended with the words of Isaiah: "Here am I, send me." [footnote 35] Not only Isaiah, but Jesus was also depicted as calling men "away from base desires and selfish aims and strangling absorption to serve whatever cause needs them the most." Jesus had not done everything for us, and Eakin called upon those present to "enter into partnership" with Jesus, and to demonstrate love by "laying down our lives, immolating our own self-centred desires, in the greater good and larger life of all mankind." [footnote 36] The preacher reminded his audience that they cannot look only to their own salvation, but must consider the salvation of the world and be the instruments through which God would deliver the world. [footnote 37]

An understanding of the War as a crusade affected not only such issues as recruiting but also influenced attitudes towards conscription. The Presbyterian Church in Canada declared itself in favour of conscription, both of citizens and of wealth, at the General Assembly of 1917. [footnote 38] The question of conscription came to a head in the national election of 1917. [footnote 39] On the day prior to the election, Eakin preached a powerful sermon twice, at St. Andrew's in the morning and at Bloor Street Presbyterian in the evening, in which he urged his audience to vote for the party, never mentioned but clearly the Unionists, which would take any necessary steps in order to win the War. After appealing to his audience that Britain, "the mother of nations," must be defended, Eakin moved on to state the reason why Canadians were fighting:

It is along with Britain and all the other free nations for an imperilled civilization, it is to prevent the clock being thrust back 1,000 years. It is to prevent a nation of murderers and pillagers from working their diabolical will in the world.

Eakin was extremely critical of all groups in Canada, and in particular with the people of Quebec, which did not fully support the war effort. It was "high time to let Quebec know that it cannot dominate the other provinces." Eakin went on to describe the importance of the election:

To-morrow we exercise a sacred trusteeship. We either indicate our desire that this war should be prosecuted until the world is a safe and decent place in which to live or we indicate our desire to retire from this sacred crusade.

He ended the sermon by calling to memory all those in the service, all those who had died, and a "world in agony." [footnote 40] The election was not just a political contest but a test of faith, a declaration of one's intent to follow the ways of God.

Eakin's understanding of the war as a crusade influenced how he dealt with the theological problem of suffering. Although discussed in different ways, the problem basically involved reconciling belief in a loving and omnipotent God with the suffering and chaos which were enveloping Europe. This was in many ways the major theological issue raised by the War, and Eakin preached on the subject, to some extent or other, no less than fifteen times. [footnote 41]

The question could most poignantly be expressed:

Where is God, what is he doing, can he hear and remain unmoved by the cry of the innocent, the feeble, the homeless? Does he not heed the cry of the little children maimed and mutilated. [footnote 42]

Most of the answers Eakin offered to this problem, for example his view that he and his contemporaries were too close to the events to see the hidden hand of God at work in the world and his arguments relating to human freedom and responsibility, [footnote 43] were more or less traditional answers and these expressions continued throughout the War.. But as the war developed Eakin began to approach the problem from a different perspective. By 1917 Eakin was arguing that God's presence could be seen at work in the world through the outrage at the actions of the German army. He stated:

Never was conscience, which is the voice of God, touched more keenly than in this conflict. Never did the shock of wrong so astonish the spirit and fire the indignation of mankind. Never was there a war that led men to condemn and execrate the ideals and methods the spirit and the action that are behind this conflict. [footnote 44]

The very fact that individuals protested against such evils gave Eakin the "surest ground of faith in the eternal goodness" of the world. [footnote 45]

With this understanding of the war the entire question of the reconciliation of a loving, omnipotent God with the chaos of the war was radically altered. The voice of God was discerned in "his messengers" who declared that through the struggle, through "the holocaust of young life offered up on the altar of fiendish ambition," that evil was being destroyed. While suffering was, in itself, undesirable Eakin suggested:
suffering that others may not suffer, dying that others may live, renouncing that the world may be lapped in universal peace and security, these are the white winged angels seen above the turmoil and horror of war, God's messengers, and woe be to us if we heed them not. [footnote 46]

In a war understood as a crusade, suffering ceases to be a problem of the omnipotence of God; rather it is understood that the suffering which is evident is part of the birth pangs of the better age which is struggling to be born.

The question remains: how unique was Thomas Eakin, both in terms of the Christian church in general and the Presbyterian Church in Canada in particular, in his understanding of the War. The evidence suggests clearly that Eakin was not unusual in understanding the War as a crusade nor in the implications which he drew from this perception. [footnote 47] While there were individuals more active in their support of the war effort within the Presbyterian Church in Canada, most notably C.W. Gordon (Ralph Connor) who actively campaigned to have the United States enter the War, [footnote 48] Thomas Eakin seems to have been typical of the Church's attitude to the War. Edward A. Christie has discovered no evidence of pacifism among the clergy of the Canadian Presbyterian Church, a fact which stands in sharp contrast to the Methodist Church in Canada. [footnote 49] At the 1915 General Assembly the Church passed a resolution, originating from C.W. Gordon, another liberal evangelical, which stated:

We consider the provocation of this conflict has been a crime against humanity and that the force which is arrayed against us, in ruthless and savage warfare, threatens the progress of Christianity and the very existence of civilization. [footnote 50]

In the course of the War the General Assembly encouraged recruiting and called for conscription. [footnote 51] The Presbyterian and Westminster also referred to the war as a "sacred cause" in early 1917. [footnote 52] Later the same year the above publication editorialized:

There is no doubt now that if the military autocracy which has welded the German nation into a hammer wherewith to beat the world into subjection were to win the war it would be an unspeakable calamity for the human race. Our nation - every nation - is in danger. The peril is so real and so great that it demands the full effort of all the free nations to avert it. [footnote 53]

While more work needs to be done on the whole area of the Presbyterian Church in World War I, it seems that an understanding of the War as a crusade or sacred cause was a common feature.

A more difficult question is that of whether the Presbyterian Church in Canada influenced Eakin and affected his view of the War, or whether Eakin himself was influential in altering how the Church at large viewed the War. Eakin was not involved in any of the major committees of the Church which dealt with the issues related to the War. [footnote 54] It is difficult, if not impossible, to determine at this juncture whether Eakin was a powerful influence on the Church or whether the influence moved in the opposite direction. At the present state of our knowledge it seems best to suggest that both Eakin and the Presbyterian Church moved in a parallel direction, largely due to the influence of the same external forces. As the beginnings of the shift in Eakin's understanding of the War can be traced to the middle months of 1915, it seems likely that the events of early 1915 - events which included the sinking of the Lusitania by the Germans, the first use of poisonous gas, and the release of the Bryce Commission's report on German actions in Belgium, a report which included graphic references to alleged atrocities committed by the Germans in the march through Belgium [footnote 55] may have been important in affecting this change. Words such as "barbarians" appear more frequently in Eakin's sermons and there are also references to atrocities contained in remarks such as "every day brings a new outrage" and comments such as to the "fiendish devices" being employed in the War. [footnote 56] It is also significant that Eakin mentions upon one occasion that he has read the evidence of the Bryce Commission and that "an army of fiends from the nethermost pit could not have devised tortures more cruel." [footnote 57] Mentioned in Eakin's sermons are also some books, in particular Owen Wister's Pentecost of Calamity and J.P. Bang's Hurrah and Hallelujah, which may be understood as anti-German propaganda. [footnote 58]

The propaganda efforts of Great Britain and her allies was a major influence in affecting the attitudes of individuals and of groups to the First World War. [footnote 59] This was the first occasion on which modern propaganda techniques were used, and the effect was quite remarkable. At the outbreak of the War the atrocity stories, many of which were proven after the War to have been unreliable, exaggerated or manufactured, including the evidence presented before the Bryce Commission, were not believed but as the War continued and as vast quantities of atrocity stories began to circulate, the sheer weight of the 'evidence' gradually effected the change. [footnote 60] Both of the historians who have studied the Church of England during this period have pointed to the series of incidents in the spring of 1915 as crucial in altering clerical conceptions of the War. [footnote 61] Allied propaganda may have been one of the major forces which convinced Thomas Eakin that this particular War was a moral struggle and not simply a political conflict.

Through our study of the war-time sermons of Thomas Eakin certain factors have become clear. The major change in Eakin's thought and preaching during the course of the War was a movement from what might best be described as a just war understanding of the conflict to a belief that this particular war was a crusade, a 'holy war', and that God, who stands with the righteous, was on the side of Great Britain and Canada. Ultimately, Eakin identified the earthly victory of the allies with the eternal triumph of God, and in an effort to achieve this victory encouraged recruiting, conscription, and all other efforts deemed necessary to win the War. It was within this context that the theological issues raised by the War, issues such as how an omnipotent God could allow suffering on such a scale, were understood and discussed. From our examination of the attitudes of the Christian church at large and the Presbyterian Church in Canada towards the War, it seems that Thomas Eakin was not unique in his understanding of the First World War as a crusade or in the implications which he drew from this understanding. Eakin is a good representative of how Canadian liberal evangelical's approached the War.

REFERENCES

1. Ralph Connor (C.W. Gordon). The Major (Toronto: McClelland, Goodchild &
Stewart, 1917, p. 357-358.

2. The biographical information on Thomas Eakin comes from the following sources: T.G.N. Bryan & Gordon H. Allison, Biographical Dictionary of Graduates and Students of Knox College, Toronto, 1845 - 1945(unpublished, 1982), p.64. Knox College Archives: John S. Moir, A History of Biblical Studies in Canada: A Sense of Proportion (Chico, California: Scholars Press, 1982), p. 26-27, 42-43, 59-60; Stuart C. Parker. The Book of St. Andrew's: A Short History of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Toronto (Toronto: --, 1930), p. 95-108; Charles W. Bishop, The Canadian Y.M.C.A. in the Great War (--: Canadian National Council Y.M.C.A., 1924), p. 174, 264, 400.

3. Eakin Sermons, September 22, 1918. 207/0854. Knox College Archives. Throughout this paper the seven digit classifications number of the Knox College Archives will be used to designate the various sermons.

4. September 8, 1918. 207/0590.

5. P. Carnegie Simpson, The Life of Principal Rainy, Vol I (London: Hodden & Stoughton, 1909), p. 404-428, esp. p. 421; Brian J. Fraser, "The Christianization of our Civilization": Presbyterian Reformers and their Defence of a Protestant Canada, 1875-1914, Ph.D., York University: 1982) p. 50-95.

6. Parker, Book of St. Andrew's, p. 94.

7. May 4, 1911. 207/0800.

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid.

10. The General Assembly passed a resolution against war at the 1913 Assembly. Acts and Proceedings, 1913, p. 73. For a good discussion of the pre-War peace movements see: Barbara Tuchman, The Proud Tower (New York, 1967), Ch. 5.

11. August 1914. 207/0729; September 6, 1914. 207/0709.

12. May 8, 1917. 207/0713.

13. September 1915. 207/0653.

14. October 24, 1915. 207/0751.

15. November 21, 1915. 209/0802.

16. Ibid., February 20, 1916. 207/0540.

17. March 1916. 207/0602.

18. April 9, 1916. 207/0704.

19. April 9, 1916. 207/0733; June 1916. 207/0848.

20. December 17, 1916. 207/0687.

21. February 11, 1917. 207/0706.

22. February 1917. 207/0695.

23. February 1917. 207/0707.

24. March 11, 1917. 207/0824.

25. May 8, 1917. 207/0713. Similar statements were made in an article entitled "The Army Chaplain's Conference" by General Sir W.H. Horne. General Horne stated: "It rest with the chaplain to inspire men with the conviction that this is a crusade and not simply a contest among nations, that God is with us and, like Cromwell's Ironsides, we cannot fail." Presbyterian and Westminster, Nov. 8, 1917. P. 447.

26. June 24, 1917. 207/0798.

27. November 11, 1917. 207/0530.

28. December 23, 1917. 207/0657.

29. January 6, 1918. P.M. 207/0528.

30. January 6, 1918. A.M. 207/0528.

31. September 8, 1918. 207/0590.

32. June 30, 1918. 207/0674.

33. September 29, 1918. 207/0581.

34. October 16, 1918. 207/0823.

35. April 9, 1916. 207/0733.

36. June 1916. 207/0848.

37. Both of these sermons were preached before the General Assembly of 1916 passed a resolution to "instruct the ministers and members of our church to aid to their utmost in securing recruits for the Canadian Expeditionary Forces." Acts and Proceedings, 1916. p. 63.

38. Acts and Proceedings, 1917, p. 37.

39. Robert Craig Brown & Ramsay Cook, Canada: 1896-1921: A Nation Transformed (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1974), p. 271-274, esp. p. 273; W.L. Morton, The Kingdom of Canada: A General History from Earliest Times, 2nd ed. (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1969), p. 425-426.

40. December 16, 1917. 207/0734.

41. These include: 207/0751, 207/0615, 207/0765, 207/0587, 207/0608, 207/0587, 207/0730, 207/0751, 207/0785, 207/0713, 207/0759 and 207/0647.

42. October 24, 1915. 207/0751; also, September 1915. 207/0615.

43. September 1915. 207/0599; October 24, 1915. 207/0751; June 11, 1916. 207/0785; March 26, 1916. 207/0730; November 1915. 207/0765.

44. May 8, 1917. 207/0713.

45. September 1917. 207/0587.

46. June 30, 1918. 207/0584.

47. Ray H. Abrams, Preachers Present Arms (New York: Round Table Press, 1933), p. 17, 60; John S. Moir, Enduring Witness: A History of the Presbyterian Church in Canada (Toronto: Presbyterian Publications, 1975), p. 208-209; John Webster Grant, The Church in the Canadian Era: The First Century of Confederation (Toronto: McGraw-Hill, 1972), p. 113-114; Richard Allen, The Social Passion: Religion and Social Reform in Canada, 1914-1928 (Toronto: University of Toronto, 1973), p.35. J.M. Bliss, "The Methodist Church and World War I", Canadian Historical Review, 1968, p. 214-217; Albert Marrin, The Last Crusade: The Church of England in the First World War (Durham, N.C. : Duke University Press, 1974), p. 119-142; Alan Wilkinson, The Church of England and the First World War (London: S.P.C.K., 1978), p.35, 252; Keith Robbins, The First World War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), p. 158.

48. C. W. Gordon, Postscript to Adventure: The Autobiography of Ralph Connor (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1975), p. 294ff.

49. Edward A. Christie, The Presbyterian Church in Canada and its Official Attitude towards Public Affairs and Social Problems, 1875-1925, (M.A., University of Toronto; 1955), p. 366; Bliss, "Methodist Church", p. 216; Allen, Social Passion, p. 45-50.

50. Acts and Proceedings, 1915, p. 30.

51. Acts and Proceedings, 1916, p. 63; Acts and Proceedings, 1917, p. 37.

52. Presbyterian and Westminster, January 11, 1917, p. 47.

53. Presbyterian and Westminster, October 25, 1917, p. 391.

54. Acts and Proceedings, 1916, p. 107; Acts and Proceedings, 1917, p. 31, 52.

55. Marrin, Last Crusade, p. 138.

56. November 21, 1915. 207/0802; April 9, 1916. 207/0704.

57. February 11, 1917. 207/0706. Eakin also mentions Edith Cavell, the nurse shot by the Germans, in the sermon preached on January 6, 1918. 207/0528. P.M. In another he uses a ship being blown up as an illustration, then comments in an aside: "I must acknowledge my indebtedness to the Germans for that illustration." February 1916, 207/0847.

58. These are both mentioned in important sermons: February 11, 1917 (207/0706) and May 8, 1917 (207/0713) respectively. Of the book Hurrah and Hallelujah Eakin wrote: "The book shows a whole nation obsessed, possessed by a devil of hatred and malignity, and amenable to one kind of argument, the only kind that can appeal to a brute besotted with crime and lust and plunder. . ." The book is referred to by Harold Dwight Lasswell, Propaganda Technique in the World War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1927). p. 79.

59. Philip Knightley, The First Casualty: From Crimea to Vietnam: The War Correspondent as Hero, Propagandist, and Myth Maker (New York: Harvest, 1975), p. 80ff; Abrams, Preachers Present Arms, p.16; James Morgan Read, Atrocity Propaganda, 1914-919 (New York: Arno Press, 1972).

60. Knightley, First Casualty, p. 80-85; Read, Atrocity Propaganda, p. 28-32.

61. Marrin, Last Crusade, p. 138-139; Wilkinson, Church of England, p. 214-216.