The Great Discovery

s of unclouded prosperity other gods called forth our devotion and enthusiasm, but the God of our Fathers who made us a great nat

fathers died could not evoke an added heart-beat from their sons. They cared so little for the mighty empire which they inhe

ering fires of patriotism have broken forth once more into bright flame; and that everywhere the hearts of the people have been stirred by the call to arise

hing should not penetrate. Some have even said that Christianity, so far from fostering the spirit of patriotism, is in reality hostile to it. "Patriotism i

e occupying its stage, seemed but as a shadow. Their devotion to the Unseen King left little room for loyalty to the earthly ruler. In the glorious consciousness of his citizenship in heaven, it was a small thing in the estimation of St. Paul that h

l power was subject to the spiritual power, and kings and emperors were only vassals of the Church, and Henry V. was left three days standing barefooted in the snow waiting humbly to see the Pope at Canossa-in those days certainly Christianity sought to foster not the sense of national loyalty, but that of devotion towards that holy Catholic and universal Church whose visible head was the

otic. An exile by the rivers of Babylon, the Israelite refused to forget Zion. "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its cunning"-that was the cry wherewith his unconquerable soul faced an overwhelming destiny. And in this respect Jesus Christ was true to His r

em, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen

was a patriotism before Christianity, but it was that of arrogance, aggression, and self-glorification. It was a patriotism which meted

. With eyes cleansed from prejudice, it beholds the good in other races. It seeks the first place for its own nation because it acts the noblest, loves the best. All the elements which make up the strong power of patriotism-love of family, love of neighbours, love of race, love of country-Christianity has purified the

days the fires of patriotism burned brightly. The cry of our fathers was "my country right or wrong." But we feel not quite so sure of our country being always in the right. The passion of Christianity is an ethical passion. Christian patri

st forsaken by our enemy. A new law was promulgated: "Become hard, O my brethren, for we are emancipated and the world belongs to us." New beatitudes were declared: "Ye have heard how ... it was said, Blessed are the meek ... but I say unto you, Blessed are t

kable barbarities-but the God thus invoked is not the Christian God. It is Odin in whose name these things are done. What we are fighting for is for the Christian ideal against Odin-for the law of truth and mercy against the reign of falsehood of word and bond, and of merciless

h ours. "Are you sure that God is on your side?" Abraham Lincoln was asked in the dark days of the American Civil War. "I have not thought about that," he replied; "but I am very anxious to know whether we are on God's side." And when the causes of this war ar

hich our Empire stands over all the world. As we look out to-day on the Empire which our fathers bequeathed us, taking it all in all,

rity and peace. "When I think," said ex-President Taft, "of what England has done in India ... how she found those many millions torn by internecine strife, disrupted with constant wars, unable to continue agriculture or the art

r the sway of Britain extends, though yesterday the land reeked with blood, to-day mercy and kindness are healing the woes of men, and millions who knew not when death lurked for them in the bush now sleep in peace under the palms. It was the might of Britain that destroyed the slave trade, and it is nothing except the might of Britain wh

ss, of the vast multitudes to whom the King-Emperor is the symbol of justice and security-his is a poor heart which cannot feel

e. It was self-sacrifice-the spirit that faced and endured death. For us, too, patriotism m

of our people who shrink from the burden which patriotism imposes. Many thousands refuse to pr

aring the call, have gone forth to fight, counting everything but loss as compared to their country's gain. But these others, they cannot have paused to think. They

m thrown on the mercies of the world, women and children fleeing, driven by nameless fears, with no place to flee to but the mountain fastnesses of Wales and the

nd children in these little islands, who would be swept to ruin, and on whom despair would fall. From the far north-west to the long wash of the Australasian seas the shadow of devouring misery and death would fall on humanity. The millions of India would b

ght would be cast over all the world. The ideals of righteousness which this Empire upholds would be

truction. Were the fate which has overtaken the Low Country to overtake us; were this fair land to be made a wilderness, our women and children

ay, "This might not have happened if I, and others like me, had done our duty." That woul

not require of us as Christians to engage in wars of conquest for the gratification of pride and greed, but it doe

oice of their Lord saying, "Resist not evil; whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also." They are bewildered. Is not the attitude of non-resistance that which Jesus Christ enjoins? If they fight with sword and shell are they not lowerin

and we must not kill any animal-not even the parasites of uncleanness. There is, moreover, another law which runs: "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God created He him." So far from the mere physical life being for ever sacred, the very altar of God Himse

ysical life-even those things which constitute the image of God stamped upon man. There are things for which men in all ages have been content to die-truth and loyalty to truth, the principles which

rs be if we had not behind us the great and noble deeds which built up our Empire, if the words of the high souls of many generations did not come thrilling to our hearts, if Shakespeare and Wordsworth, Scott and Burns did not pour their

al for wounded souls. His place is among the strong of the earth. He faced the evil of this earth unflinching in His resistance. "Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites" is His denunciation of the oppressor; "Go tell that fox" is His messa

eek to the smiter. What the individual can do, the nation may not do. It no doubt is the duty of the Ruler to turn his own individual cheek to the insulter; it is

m his evil, it would be immoral to forgive him. Duty demands that every means be used to bring the evildoer to repentance; for only so is there a chance of his soul being s

it is as Christian to kill as it would be to shoot a tiger which leapeth out of the jungle to devour a man. And that Irish soldier whose face in the hospital in Paris wa

t He struck a blow in Jerusalem and wielded the thongs on the shoulders of those who polluted His Father's hous

's heart-strings as Jerusalem gripped the heart of the Jew. No suffering, no defeat, no exile however far, could quench the fire of patriotism in the heart. "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand

the heart. It was the light of eternity shining over them. It was because of the "house of the Lord our God" that the Jew counted no good worth his striving except the good of Jerusalem. It is only when God standeth at the heart of a nation th

r the nation. It was with God that the sailors of Queen Elizabeth swept the main, that the soldiers of Wellington h

od's face be veiled and lost and everything is lost. "Without God nothing, with God everything," says the ancient Celti

907 by exclaiming: "With one magnificent gesture we have extinguished the lights of heaven, which none shall rekindle." France, in the words of its present Prime Minister, "extinguished the lights of heaven," but in so

e degeneration that leadeth to destruction. With the departure from God came moral decay and racial suicide. The hope of France is this, that through the des

living God. When we again realise our calling and our election as instruments in the hand of God for the establishment of His Kingdom of Righteousness over all the earth, our hea

to raise the life at home nearer to God, for we cannot raise the world to higher levels than that on which we ourselves stand. The vision of the new Jerusalem descending fro

s citizens shall walk its streets, pure in heart, seeing God everywhere. "And they shall bring the glory and the honour of the nations into it." There the nations shall be one in the streets of the city of God, all their contendings forgotten in

ities shall become holy cities, even as the new Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven. When we shall set ourselves to realise t

blished in righteousness once more blazes forth before the people, then once more the throb of patriotism and the passion to make righteous law operative to the ends of the earth will