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diff --git a/33637-h/33637-h.htm b/33637-h/33637-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..81be3f8 --- /dev/null +++ b/33637-h/33637-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4307 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<HTML> +<HEAD> + +<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> + +<TITLE> +The Project Gutenberg E-text of Victory out of Ruin, by Norman Maclean +</TITLE> + +<STYLE TYPE="text/css"> +BODY { color: Black; + background: White; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; + text-align: justify } + +P {text-indent: 4% } + +P.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +P.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; } + +P.intro {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + font-size: 80% } + +P.letter {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +P.finis { font-size: larger ; + text-align: center ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +.pagenum { position: absolute; + left: 1%; + font-size: 95%; + text-align: left; + text-indent: 0; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal; } + +</STYLE> + +</HEAD> + +<BODY> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Victory out of Ruin, by Norman Maclean + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Victory out of Ruin + +Author: Norman Maclean + +Release Date: September 4, 2010 [EBook #33637] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VICTORY OUT OF RUIN *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + +</pre> + + +<BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +VICTORY OUT OF RUIN +</H1> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +BY +</H4> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +NORMAN MACLEAN +</H3> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +HODDER AND STOUGHTON LTD. +<BR> +LONDON — NEW YORK — TORONTO +<BR> +MCMXXII +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H5 ALIGN="center"> +Printed in Great Britain by T. and A. CONSTABLE LTD.<BR> +at the Edinburgh University Press<BR> +</H5> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +PREFACE +</H3> + +<P> +There is a joy in battle; but the greatest of all joys is to take some +part, however humble, in the fight for the triumph of righteousness. +There is a thrill such as can be found nowhere else in facing a mass of +people whose prejudices and social customs are as an unscalable wall, +in compelling their attention and, at last, in winning them to espouse +your cause. To fight your opponent, loving him all the time, is the +essence of Christianity. The excitement of betting on races or +watching football matches is nothing compared to the excitement of +facing an audience not knowing whether you are to be trampled on or to +be applauded. Those who have fought under the banner of the King of +Kings know the indefinable joy there is in it. That is why the young +and the chivalrous give a swift response when the call is to a forlorn +hope in the service of Christ. +</P> + +<P> +And the joy of it is this, that, whatever may happen, you are bound to +win. The Infinite has infinite resources. Those who array themselves +against Him are up against all the forces in the universe. The fight +for the Kingdom of God is the greatest in which man ever fought; it +goes on ceaselessly without any discharge; the big battalions seem +always on the other side; but God always wins. There never has been a +fight for deliverance, a struggle for progress, but the forces of +righteousness conquered at last. +</P> + +<P> +This book is the third of a series. The Great Discovery portrayed the +spiritual emotions of the Great War; Stand up, Ye Dead dealt with the +soul of the nation in the midst of its travail; and this third book +seeks to point out the way of deliverance and renewal. The malady of +the world is spiritual. The fountain of healing is with God. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +N. M. +<BR> +EDINBURGH, <I>September</I> 1922 +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +NOTE +</H3> + +<P CLASS="noindent" STYLE="margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%"> +Chapters I, II, III, IV, VIII, IX, XI, XII, and XIII appeared in <I>The +Glasgow Herald</I>, and Chapters VI, VII, and X in <I>The Scotsman</I>. +Chapter V is based on an article in <I>The Glasgow Herald</I>, but it has +been rewritten. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +CONTENTS +</H2> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER I +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +<A HREF="#chap01">THE ONLY HOPE</A> +</H4> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER II +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +<A HREF="#chap02">THE SUPREME NEED</A> +</H4> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER III +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +<A HREF="#chap03">IN THE SACRED NAME OF LIBERTY!</A> +</H4> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IV +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +<A HREF="#chap04">THE GREATEST OF TYRANNIES</A> +</H4> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER V +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +<A HREF="#chap05">THE LAST DELIVERANCE</A> +</H4> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VI +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +<A HREF="#chap06">THE PERIL OF THE CROWD</A> +</H4> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VII +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +<A HREF="#chap07">LET US HAVE PEACE</A> +</H4> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VIII +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +<A HREF="#chap08">THE WAY OF PEACE</A> +</H4> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IX +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +<A HREF="#chap09">NO ROOM</A> +</H4> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER X +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +<A HREF="#chap10">DOMINION FROM SEA TO SEA</A> +</H4> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XI +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +<A HREF="#chap11">THERE WERE IN THE SAME COUNTRY SHEPHERDS</A> +</H4> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XII +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +<A HREF="#chap12">THE FULNESS OF THE TIME</A> +</H4> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XIII +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +<A HREF="#chap13">VICTORY OUT OF RUIN</A> +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap01"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER I +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +THE ONLY HOPE +</H4> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +'To a large extent the working people of this country do not care any +more for the doctrines of Christianity than the upper classes care for +the practice of that religion.'—JOHN BRIGHT in the year 1880. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +It is wonderful how quickly, when a peril is past, men forget about it +and straightway compose themselves to slumbrous dreams again. It was +so after the Great War; it is so already regarding the great strikes. +'Don't disturb our repose,' they as good as say; 'we have had an +anxious time; do let us sleep.' But wars and strikes are only symptoms +of the hidden disease; and the allaying of a symptom without the +healing of the disease is of all things the most dangerous. What we +must consider is the disease and set ourselves to find a remedy. Then, +and then only, will the symptoms harass us no more. It was a little +bald man with a straggling beard and one eye that had got a little +tired of the long-continued effort to look at the other, who set me +thinking. The burden of his contention was that this country and the +world at large is sinking back into paganism. Though I endeavour to +keep an open mind and refuse to accept opinions ready-made, however +much inclined I may be to shirk the preliminary fatigue of forming +opinions of my own, yet the opinions of my friend are worth recording. +They are at least gropings after the truth. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +I +</H4> + +<P> +'What is the test of a Christian?' asked the little man, trying to +bring his vagrant eye to bear on me; 'if we once settle that we shall +be able to judge whether this is now a Christian world. The test is +not beliefs or opinions regarding the Founder of Christianity (for +trifles such as that men used cheerfully to burn their fellows +aforetime, thinking they were doing God service); to find the true test +we must go back to the only test known to those who knew Christ. What +was their test? It was this—'If any man have not the Spirit of +Christ, he is none of His.' That spirit was love enduring even the +Cross—love emptying itself that it might serve. Now, apply that test +to our social organisation to-day. In the one city you find in one +street mansions such as a Roman emperor could only desire in vain; and +a few yards away a street of crowded closes and airless dugouts and +fetid tenements where little children perish. Herod slaughtered a +score of babies and the centuries pour the vials of infamy upon him. +But this holocaust goes on, year in year out, ceaselessly. Yet the +dwellers in the terraces tolerate that. The causes that produce slums +and keep slums full are manifest. Yet they will not rouse themselves +to remove them. Is that being a Christian? We assemble in church and +recite, "I believe in God the Father," and every fact of the faith we +profess condemns our callous indifference. If we realised that God is +the Father of these babes, we would die to save them; yet we leave them +a prey to vested interests. Is that toleration of evil compatible with +Christianity?' +</P> + +<P> +'You forget,' I objected, 'the law of environment. No man can live +ahead of his own time—at least only the great can—and we are waking +up to social duty as never before.' +</P> + +<P> +'Waking up!' he exclaimed; 'we are going to sleep. A Christian should +never need to waken up to facts like that. He would have them as a +burden ever on his heart until they were for ever banished. He would +be constantly hearing the voice of Him who said of little ones like +these that it was better for those who did them wrong that a millstone +were hanged round their necks and that they were cast into the midst of +the sea.... If only we were Christians, endued with Christ's spirit of +love, we would make an end of that at once.... We are only +semi-pagans.' +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +II +</H4> + +<P> +'It isn't merely what you see outside,' went on the little man, +polishing his shining poll, 'but look inside the churches +themselves—any one of the hundreds in this city—and what do you find? +You find the house of God given over to an unholy merchandise. Every +church is parcelled out into so many square feet, and these are bought +and sold as ecclesiastical allotments. Did you ever think of that +gruesome traffic, and the weirdness of it? That good news of Love +brooding over all, caring even for the grass and the sparrow, has now +become the monopoly of the renter, while the poor are shut out. And it +was at first proclaimed to the poor without money and without price, +committed to the winds of Galilee.' +</P> + +<P> +'Put like that,' I said, 'it is rather weird.' +</P> + +<P> +'Aye,' he went on, 'and every half-year managers and deacons assemble +in the houses of God to traffic in these square feet of pews. There is +a story how One long ago knotted a whip of cords and drove the +traffickers out of His Father's house, His eyes blazing with anger. +Would He not wield the same whip on these deacons and managers, and +drive them out to-day? How astonished they would be, with all the law +and all the vested interest on their side ... and yet that whip!' +</P> + +<P> +The little man fell silent, and his strange eye looked as if he were +seeing it all. And he smiled curiously. +</P> + +<P> +'Did you ever trespass on an ecclesiastical allotment?' he asked +jerkily. 'No! Well, it is a thing not to be done. I once trespassed +on a garden allotment out in Kelvinside, just to admire some wonderful +sweet-peas, and the man who owned it found me and welcomed me like a +brother, and sent me away with a radiant bunch of flowers; but an +ecclesiastical allotment is another story. An old heritor once said to +me that the only thing that really roused the devil in a Scotsman's +heart was trespassing on his ecclesiastical allotment.' +</P> + +<P> +'That only shows,' I retorted, 'how dear to a Scotsman's heart his part +in the Church is.' +</P> + +<P> +'That is only quibbling,' jerked out the bald man. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +III +</H4> + +<P> +'Last Sunday evening,' went on the bald man, speaking very rapidly and +walking up and down the room in his excitement, 'I went to a church +situated in a mean street, surrounded by closes that each holds the +population of a sparse parish. A tattered bill on the door proclaimed +the traffic in seats. There seemed to be no demand. There were only +eighteen present. A cheap church, with varnished pews, that could hold +a thousand—and only eighteen there—old people and two or three +children—none who could lay hold on life with both hands. To that +handful a discouraged and hopeless preacher proclaimed the evangel of +the love of God ... but his voice died in the disconsolate and empty +spaces.... But when I came out, there in an open space were massed +thousands of men, and the air throbbed with vitality as they listened +to an orator denouncing capital and proclaiming the coming of the new +day when every man could have his heart's desire—money and more +money.... Eighteen at the church where the salt had lost its savour, +and thousands where the chaff of worldliness was the only bread served +to perishing souls.' +</P> + +<P> +'But you must remember that there were some churches quite full in the +city that evening,' I interjected. +</P> + +<P> +'Quite so,' resumed the bald man, 'but who were they that filled them? +Only the one class that has still kept its hold on the seriousness and +the duty of life—the middle class—the one layer of health in the +nation.' +</P> + +<P> +'You forget,' I protested, 'that the other two classes have proved that +they know how to die.' +</P> + +<P> +He came to a sudden halt, and his tripping sentences suddenly stopped. +</P> + +<P> +'Yes,' he answered, 'they know how to die; but what is the use of +knowing how to die if they do not know how to live?' +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +IV +</H4> + +<P> +'What is the use of facing death,' went on the bald man, resuming his +walk up and down, and pointing now and again an accusing finger, 'if +death does not teach the way of life? Through death we conquered the +greatest tyranny that ever threatened the world, but the enemy has +really been the victor, for the spirit of the enemy has now conquered +us. That spirit is the covetousness that knows no law but force. It +does not matter whether the goal aimed at be the hegemony of the world +or more and more of gold—the spirit is the same. And now it has +seized us. There is the profiteer living on the results of other men's +industry and fattening on the plunder of the public—his god is +covetousness. There are the millions who are ready to march over the +ruins of the Empire, careless of the sufferings of others if only they +will get their demands on the world. Nobody realises the futility of +gaining the world and losing the life. Eighteen in church and +thousands out for their share of the world.... It is covetousness +triumphant.' +</P> + +<P> +The old man came to a halt and began to speak as one weighing his +words. 'We are just sinking into savagery,' he went on. 'The savage +knows no weapon but force—and Christianity knows no weapon but +love—but we have chosen force. We have, in truth, abolished the +bludgeon of force as between man and man, but pagan Rome did that. We +have never learned that law must rule between class and class, as well +as between man and man. We remained pagan in our jealousy and distrust +as between class and class, and failed to make law supreme. We failed +because we had no brotherliness, no love. If we had been Christians we +would have made the law of love supreme long ago.... What a hollow +mockery our actions are. Our statesmen become rhetorical over a +tribunal of the nations that will make wars cease for ever, while war +reigns in our own midst. Tribunals and treaties are nothing if truth +be not supreme in the heart. But there is never a word about that.... +We think we can raise the world to a level higher than we have attained +ourselves, as if water could ever rise higher than its source.... The +law of force is honest paganism, but this covering up of the world's +foulness with scum—that is nauseating pharisaism. Where the spirit of +love and truth is not, there peace cannot be.' +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +V +</H4> + +<P> +Whether the bald man with the one piercing and the other straying eye +was right or wrong I am no great judge. But it is clear that there is +something very far wrong. It is not in our country, the fairest on +God's earth, that the evil lies, nor in the Empire, the greatest and +richest ever reared by man. The evil is not without but within us. +The only hope for us is in a regenerated spirit. And there is none who +can give us that new spirit but the Carpenter of Nazareth. He was +Himself a poor working man toiling for twenty years, wielding heavy, +clumsy tools as he shaped rude ploughs in a village of poor fame. He +can feel for poor toiling working men; it was He who first taught +brotherhood. To a generation that says, 'Let me get all I can, however +much others may suffer,' He says, 'Say not so, but rather say, Let me +serve all I can, however much I may suffer.' If He were here now He +would be talking to men in public-houses and at the street corners and +on the fringes of crowds, and He would say, 'My brothers, why excite +yourselves over the world? Life is not money. Life is love and beauty +and sonship with God. It is not what the hand grasps but what the eye +sees and the heart feels that makes life great. If you want the +fulness of life, lose it.' And to rich men He would say, 'Your riches +are only yours in trust that you may serve: consecrate them or they +will be taken from you.' He would have but one law for all—Love. If +they but loved there could not be any more profiteering, or ca' canny, +or any injustice. For love never says 'Give,' only 'Let me give.' ... +But, alas! we make room for every spirit but that. For forty years we +have taught the children by statute, but they have not been taught +that. They have been taught figures and the records that are mainly +the records of crime, and the explanations that are no explanations. +We must begin again and teach our children what duty is, what the love +of God and man is, what reverence is, and how there is a moral purpose +working out life and death—life if men conform to it and death if they +defy it. We teach everything by statute except that—the one thing +needful. We teach that man is to be saved by the brain; we have +forgotten that salvation is of the soul. There is but one power known +among men that can turn the self-willed and self-centred life into the +self-sacrificing and the God-centred life, and that power is the spirit +of the Carpenter of Nazareth. If we but sought it, then it would fuse +the poor fissiparous sand of our national life into the unity and +potency of steel. It is our only hope. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap02"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER II +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +THE SUPREME NEED +</H4> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +'To me through these thin cobwebs Death and Eternity sat +gazing.'—THOMAS CARLYLE. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Many eager hearts looked for the redemption of mankind to come out of +Armageddon. Aceldama has been cleansed, but redemption seems to tarry. +And nobody need be surprised. Out of filth and mud and horror the +cleansed soul does not emerge. There was a king long ago who saw ten +horrible plagues succeed each other until at last the first-born lay +dead—but he was the same until the sea overwhelmed him. And man is +the same in all ages. Cataclysms do not work renewal. Miracles do not +regenerate. Not even the millions dead will mean a new earth or a new +Britain. That new Britain of the heart's desire will only come if men +and women whose souls are quickened will arise and make their world +anew. The world's supreme need is not reorganisation, but a new spirit. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +I +</H4> + +<P> +The pathos of humanity is that men are ever the victims of illusion. +After Waterloo, when a conflict that waged for a quarter of a century +ended, our fathers hailed the millennial dawn. But, alas! Peterloo +succeeded Waterloo. The nation was seized with the passion for riches. +To get rich quick the nation had to be reorganised on an industrial +basis, and the people were swept out of the green of England and out of +the straths and valleys of Scotland into sunless, airless cities. A +population that formerly lived in cottages was now piled into barracks. +In mills above ground and in mines beneath little children were set to +labour. Social conditions were created that destroyed two hundred +babies out of a thousand in the first year of life. These conditions +still continue. The pages of the Press in these last days show how +horrifying they still are. There are streets in our cities which are +sacrificial altars on which the little children are offered to the +social Moloch.... These things came after Waterloo. The cannon-fodder +of war became the cannon-fodder of industry. The small minority that +got rich quick were balanced by the vast multitude who got poor quick. +And for four generations the ugly streets have presented the spectacle +of files of men begging for work—begging for permission to exist! +To-day the files wait for the dole. The folly and the greed have +worked out the inevitable consequences. History goes on monotonously +repeating itself. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +II +</H4> + +<P> +And just as a hundred years ago men thought they were going to make a +new and better world by reorganisation, so also is it to-day. On all +hands the cry is reorganise. In Paris and in Glasgow it is the same. +In Paris they are to save the world from all future bloodshed by a +treaty. That childlike faith in treaties!—they have forgotten that +treaties were unable to save even one fragment of Europe eight years +ago. But this time the treaty is to be so very big that it will save. +But, alas! no treaty is of value beyond the truth in the soul of its +signatories—and of that there is never a word. No treaty can exorcise +greed, ambition, and lust out of the heart—and it is from these wars +spring. If the hearts of the nations be not changed, one more mirage +will be added to the many humanity has pursued across the burning +sands, strewing the barren desert with bleached bones. +</P> + +<P> +In London or Glasgow or Hamilton or Fife it is the same. There also +the new earth is to come through redistribution. Society will be +differently organised. The voice that to-day cries, 'What is yours is +mine,' will to-morrow shout victory. The day of material good will +come through the maximum of pay for the minimum of work. The new order +will banish all our ills. But the question emerges—How is the new +order to be worked? If the new order is to bless humanity it must be +guided and administered by men of truth, unselfishness, and honour. +Unless there be such, then the mastery of capital will be only +succeeded by the tyranny of the mob. None asks how such men are to be +found. The hope of the new world lies not so much in better machinery +as in better men. The men in the Cabinets adjusting the map of the +world and the men in the shipyards and the mines are alike in this, +that they forget that man's supreme need is regeneration and not +reorganisation. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +III +</H4> + +<P> +It is on that ultimate fact—that the supreme need of the day is a new +spirit—that the Church seeks to fix the attention of the nation. The +Church has only one purpose—to make God blaze forth once more before +the eyes of men. In that alone lies the salvation of the future. The +great host of the toilers may adopt the watchword 'Brotherhood,' but +that is only half a truth. A brotherhood that knows nothing of a +common fatherhood will not stand the day of strain. The Church +therefore proclaims the full truth that the brotherhood of men only +realises itself in the Fatherhood of God. To the nations seeking a +unity by way of parchments, the Church must also proclaim that there +can be only one ultimate unity for nations—the only unity that will +stand all strain—the unity of the Spirit. The Church has the one +message for warring nations and for warring classes: 'One is your +Master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren.' The Church alone can +bring home to the hearts of men that the way of honour is that of +service, and the path of greatness that of sacrifice. Looking back on +that long road by which humanity has marched forward even to this hour, +it is strange to think how the great days on which the epochs turned +have not been the days of mammon-worship or of military glory, but the +days on which the Cross suddenly blazed forth in the heavens, as it did +to Constantine, when the summons rang—'By this sign conquer.' It was +then that men set their faces to climb upward, realising that the +greatest thing a man can do with his life is to lay it down. And not +by a cross blazing in heaven, but by millions of crosses round which +the winds moan and sigh on earth, does God summon us to-day. It is +that summons the Church would sound. By the spirit of self-sacrifice, +by the law of love—by these alone can the world be saved. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +IV +</H4> + +<P> +The remedy for every woe on earth is the one commandment—'Love one +another, as I have loved you.' It is so divinely simple—perhaps that +is why the generations refuse to listen. The measure of the law is its +greatness—'As I have loved you.' To obey that law means—blood. It +was the greatness of the sacrifice that was made and the greatness of +the sacrifice demanded that stirred the hearts of men to life. 'He +loved me, and gave Himself for me,' the Christian said, and with +rapture in his heart he looked at others and said, 'He loved that man +also, and gave Himself for him. I cannot rob or murder or leave in +misery a man for whom Christ's hands were nailed to the cross.' That +was what revolutionised the world long ago. It is the only way in +which the world can be revolutionised to-day. If only the world can be +brought to listen to the law of love, the world will become new. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap03"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER III +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +IN THE SACRED NAME OF LIBERTY! +</H4> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +'The ranks are gathering; on the one side of men +rightly informed and meaning to seek redress by lawful +and honourable means only, and on the other of men +capable of compassion and open to reason but with +personal interests at stake so vast and with all the gear +and mechanism of their arts so involved in the web of +past iniquity that the best of them are helpless and the +wisest blind.'—The Right Hon. C. F. G. MASTEBMAN. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +It is difficult for men and women to arrive +at a true estimate of their own state of +mind. What others think of us is often +a truer gauge than what we think of +ourselves, for we can only look at ourselves +through the distorting glass of self-love +and self-interest. In these last days we +have had a wonderful revelation of what +others think of us. Our hoardings and our +advertisement pages are crowded with +appeals which could only appeal to a +generation that had ceased to think and ceased +to bear upon their hearts the woes of their +fellows. In the sacred name of liberty, in +the cause of brotherhood and equality, we +were exhorted on every horizon to hold +fast and change not. And we were, above +all, to beware of fanatics! We are indeed +fallen very low if this measure of our +intelligence be correct. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +I +</H4> + +<P> +In the sacred name of liberty we are +exhorted to lay no sacrilegious hand on the +sacred ark of our licensing system. +Whatever results may ensue of perishing babes +and ruined manhood we must vote No +Change, for liberty is great. Moloch of old +was great; so great that he demanded and +got the sacrifice of a child now and then. +But ' Liberty' is greater still. If it be +true that in proportion to the number of +licences in a district is the death-rate +among the babies; if in districts crowded +with public-houses there be a death-rate +of something like 160 to 180 per 1000 +babies in the first year of life, while in +districts where public-houses are rare the +death-rate is about 40 per 1000 babies +in the first year of life; and if we are to +vote No Change and acquiesce in that in +the name of liberty, how great that idol +Liberty must be! We must examine it +and make sure that its feet be not of clay. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +II +</H4> + +<P> +What is freedom? Freedom is that +condition of things which enables a man to +co-ordinate all his faculties for the +development of what is best in him. The best a +man is capable of is the evolution of a +character whose uprightness and honesty +will command respect. But no sooner +does a man set his face toward that goal +than he finds that he can only climb +towards it by sacrificing the liberty of his +lower nature. The animal in man must +be fettered that the spirit may grow. Only +so can nobility of character be produced. +It is manifest then that freedom to +produce character is only achieved by +sacrificing liberty. The idol Liberty is not, +after all, really so great. +</P> + +<P> +The best in life is not, however, +developed in isolation. For we are bound +up with our fellow-men in the complex +organism of life. And we have no right +to exercise any liberty that will mean loss +or injury to our fellows. It may be +beneficial to me that I should have the stimulus +of alcohol; it may add colour to my drab +life, and make the bores that harass me +more tolerable; and I may find in it a +sacramental value, as it promotes the flow +of easy fellowship; but if the provision +made to supply one with that stimulus +means the ruin of others—the perishing of +babes and the destruction of homes—then +I have no right to that provision. The +limit of my personal freedom is the +beginning of hurt or injury to my fellow-men. +It is along this great line that civilisation +has evolved. Each step forward has been +a restriction of liberty. Every extension +of the franchise has been a restriction of +the power of the classes that ruled +previously; each new law a restriction of the +right to do what one liked. Every great +social advance has been a restriction of +previous liberty. No man is free now to +leave his children uneducated; no +employer is free to deal as he pleases with +his employed. No sooner is the child born +than the law has it in its grip: within a +few days the parent must register it and +give a biography of its ancestors to a +registrar; then it ordains that it be +inoculated. At five years of age the child is +deprived of liberty, for he is shut up in +barracks and then made a prisoner for +ten years, compelled to learn things that +will never be of any value in all the after +years. After he has escaped from that +prison-house, there comes an interval of +illusory liberty. He comes and goes as +he likes after the hours of toil. Then +comes an emotional crisis and he marries—and +what is there left of his liberty? +Every family is established on this—the +restriction of liberty. The traffic in the +street and the narcotic in the shop are +alike in the grasp of law. From the cradle +to the grave a man is surrounded with +restrictions of liberty. There is no base +liberty left to-day but the liberty to get +drunk. In the name of freedom there +must come an end to that liberty. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +III +</H4> + +<P> +And yet the horizon glows with these +placarded appeals to leave things as they +are in the name of liberty. There is a true +feeling behind these appeals—the feeling +that above all things Scotsmen love +freedom. And so they do. There is no +race under the sun that have hazarded +their lives so much and so frequently for +freedom as we have done. How it stirs our +blood to read the words in which our +ancestors in the year 1320 defied the Pope +when his Holiness sided with England +against King Robert Bruce. 'The wrongs +which we have suffered under the tyranny +of Edward are beyond description,' wrote +the nobility and commonalty of Scotland +in Parliament assembled, '... while a +hundred of us exist we will never submit +to England. We fight not for glory, +wealth, or honour, but for that liberty +without which no virtuous man can +survive.' We know the end of that and of +every fight our fathers fought for liberty. +It was the moorsmen and cottars of +Scotland, who defied three kingdoms, and +fought on with the Bible in one hand and +the sword in the other, that saved the +liberties of nations. But what liberty was +it they fought for? The liberty to get +drunk! The liberty to establish at every +street corner a centre for the spreading of +disease, misery, and pauperism! Those +who make such appeals surely underrate +the intelligence of a generation who have +not yet quite forgotten the exploits and +the sacrifices of their sires. The freedom +they achieved was the freedom to worship +God as their consciences directed, and to +develop that national character of +uprightness and understanding that has been +so fraught with blessing to the world. And +that freedom it is left to us to carry to +fruition—by developing a State that shall +be free from ignorance, from degradation, +from vice, from self-indulgence—in one +word, from drunkenness in every form. +'He who will not give up a little temporary +liberty for essential safety, deserves neither +liberty nor safety,' declared Benjamin +Franklin. We shall awake and establish +public safety on the ruins of a false and +a degrading liberty. When we shall have +achieved that—then we shall be free indeed. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +IV +</H4> + +<P> +Nothing appeals to my own heart so +much as the anxiety shown by those +publicists regarding my taxation. They +feel so much for me, and are afraid that I +shall require to pay more of an income-tax +if I do not vote No Change. This care +for my personal interests touches me +profoundly; and the desire that the nation +should drink itself into financial prosperity +must affect every patriot's heart. But, +again, Scotsmen can think. And no sooner +do we exercise our minds than we see how +fallacious all this is—and how ungrounded +our fears. The greatest loss the nation +siistains is the revenue from alcohol. What +are the losses that are entailed by that +revenue? Against it must be put the +pauperism that the State has to support, +and which is mainly caused by alcohol; +the cost of "police and judges and prisons +that are mainly required because of alcohol; +the loss to the State of the lives wasted +and ruined by alcohol. Strike a balance—and +there is no gain to the State from the +revenues of alcohol. The greatest loss the +State sustains is the revenue it derives +from the misery and degradation of its +citizens. No State can grow rich by +exploiting the misery and the vice of its own +people. Were the money now wasted in +this non-productive trade devoted to +industry, the resultant product would pay +the State over and over again for any loss +from the sacrifice of alcohol. Already this +is being proved in the United States. In +the State of Massachusetts an increase +in the taxation of theatres, soft drinks, +candy, and transport not only made up +for the loss from the taxes on alcohol, but +realised an increase of over 500,000 dollars +in the first dry year! There in America +the breweries and distilleries are being +converted into jam factories, boot +factories, and where formerly 250 men were +employed they now employ 1500 men! +One such factory bears the placard:— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +'Once we made booze,<BR> +Now we make shoes.'<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +The revenue that comes from prosperity +enriches a nation; the revenue that comes +from its degradation impoverishes. When +we are freed from the waste and ruin +wrought by alcohol—then our national +revenue will nourish as never before. In +a prosperous land the revenue will look +after itself. Those who are so anxious +lest we be overtaxed are trying to inspire +us with groundless fears. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +V +</H4> + +<P> +The most sacred thing on earth is the +mother and the child. It is they who +suffer and perish because of conditions +that are indefensible. The little spark of +grey matter behind the eyes of a little +child may become a Newton, a Knox, or +a Walter Scott. 'There is no wealth but +life,' declared Ruskin. Every motive of +patriotism and religion moves us to do +everything in our power to save childhood +and motherhood. There never in any +land was any propaganda so cynical, so +unblushing as the propaganda that for +weary weeks has now screamed in our +ears—'No Change.' The blood of four +dread years, and then—'No Change!' +The agony of the world's most awful +Gethsemane, and at its end—'No +Change!' ... Nothing more need be said. Only +the blind could have made such appeals. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap04"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IV +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +THE GREATEST OF TYRANNIES +</H4> + +<P> +The deadliest foe of humanity is the deadening power of custom. What +we have seen from our earliest days has no power to stir our conscience +or kindle the fire of indignation. It may be the case that when Lot +went down to Sodom he was at first 'vexed with the filthy conversation +of the wicked.' But he did not continue vexed very long. He got to +like it. At last he sat at the gates of that city with great +enjoyment. As he sank into the mire he became unconscious of the +slough. Otherwise he would never have returned to it. When the great +war of the five kings against four reached its consummation, and Lot +was a prisoner going north with a halter round his neck, he often +groaned, 'If I ever get out of this I'll never look near that filthy +Sodom again.' Like a bolt from the blue came deliverance and victory +and spoils—and back he went to Sodom and its filthy conversations as +before. It is such a wonderfully modern story. In every age men get +so accustomed to the filth that it no longer seems filth. The mud of +their daily habit becomes their gold. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +I +</H4> + +<P> +When we look back on the long road by which humanity has travelled and +read of the things men once did in cold blood, we wonder how they could +ever have had the heart to do them. The answer is—custom. To us it +is incredible that men should once have trafficked in human flesh and +blood. And yet to our forefathers of even recent years it seemed the +most natural thing. Were there not slaves from the beginning, and +naturally there would be unto the end! The captains of the slave ships +would assemble their crews in their cabins for prayer meetings while +the holds of their ships were filled with men and women dying in these +gehennas! So far from experiencing any twinges of conscience, these +slave captains regarded themselves as benefactors of humanity. Sir +John Hawkins was not alone in priding himself on the fact that he +brought so many of the heathen of Africa into Christian lands, where +they might hear the Gospel. It is not so long ago when children of six +years worked in factories from five in the morning to nine at night. +We who play with our babes and build our brick castles in Spain while +they shout for joy—think of it! What hearts they must have had—these +fathers of ours—who took the babes by their thousands and harnessed +them to the car of their juggernaut! And yet they were not any +different from us. They were only blinded by custom.... Whoever has +wandered over the hills of his native land will remember the leap of +the heart when he has suddenly seen some fair valley open up before his +amazed eyes. He can hear the song of the river that waters it, he sees +the clouds playing on the slopes, his awestruck lips murmur with the +great artist as he looked on Glen Feshie, 'Lord God Almighty!' But no +human dwelling is there, only heaps of stones where the homesteads once +stood; only the bleating of sheep where children once shouted at play. +What became of the people? They were driven out. The will of one man +or one woman drove the population of a parish into the Cowcaddens of +Glasgow or exiled them beyond the seas. And the Church of Christ +looked on silent. And the men who made the countryside waste prided +themselves on the fact that they set the people, whom they drove forth, +on the way of fortune! How could men do deeds like these? How could +the Church be silent in the face of them? Again it was just custom. +The ears had got so accustomed to phrases such as the 'sacredness of +property,' the 'right of a man to do what he liked with his own,' that +the heart forgot the sacredness of the Gospel and the rights of the +people in the land of their birth. It is time we stopped mouthing +about the cannon-fodder of war, and began to speak about the +cannon-fodder of custom. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +II +</H4> + +<P> +If poor, blundering, pitiful humanity had not been blinded by custom to +the folly of war, it would have made an end of war long ago. But all +the days of youth humanity has shut into dreary barracks, learning all +sorts of foolish things. And the history it learns is just the history +of war after war! At fourteen the centuries seem to a boy but a river +of blood. He deems it an inevitable weapon in the progress of the +world—this ceaseless killing! It is custom alone that prevents +humanity from making an end of that horror. And strikes are only war +in another form—the bludgeon of force! Kaiserism is not dead. World +dominion for me or destruction for you has its counterpart in two +shillings for me or ruin for you. The spirit is the same. If custom +had not deadened us to the meaning of war and strike, we would shrink +back in horror at the very sound of the words. But, instead of that, +ere humanity has recovered from the woe of the one, we are plunged into +the woes of the other.... It sounds a respectable sort of word! And +the right of a man to stop working seems elementary—for we are not +slaves. But humanity has learned there is a higher word than +rights—and that is duty. We owe service to our brethren. We can pay +too high a price for two shillings more a day if they mean starving +women and perishing children. Life is more than livelihood; and if the +endeavour to better livelihood means the destruction of life, then it +is condemned. And that is what it means. Europe is perishing. Vienna +is dying. All over the world Rachel is weeping for her children. What +Europe needs is coal and raw materials, that it may have wherewith to +buy food. And we go on strike. And ships can no longer carry food or +cotton; and Europe will starve ... starving is a good discipline and I +shouldn't mind ... but, God! the little children ... the babies.... +'Strike,' we shout, finding it easy through long custom. But our +striking is only completing the work that Kaiserism began. And the +little graves are dug faster and faster; and you can hear the falling +of tears like soft rain.... What savages we are, unable through any +disciple to learn that the world can only be saved by submitting to law +and by ceasing to wield the bludgeon of force.... When one thinks of +the poor suffering, quarrelling, dying slaves of custom; when one sees +the world in one blinding flash convulsed in the death throes—Oh, God! +if only there came a gale from Heaven—a sudden, rushing wind. Only +that could save a world blinded like this. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +III +</H4> + +<P> +You may imagine that I am exaggerating the power of this tyrant of +whose despotism you are unconscious. But you have only to think and +you will at once recognise that my words are but the words of +soberness. Use your eyes as if for the first time—and what a world +this is that surrounds us! I read the other day a paragraph in the +morning paper that made my blood cold. A discharged soldier got his +gratuity and spent his day in jollity. He came home at night and, in +the presence of his children, trampled his wife to death, and not his +wife only, but the unborn child—and in the presence of his children. +That, in the most cultured city in Bible-loving and Christian Scotland. +And every day the tale is much the same. Little children are +perishing, mothers are broken-hearted, and the streets are strewn with +human wreckage. The casualties of war pale in significance before the +casualties of peace! But this does not move us: we are accustomed to +it. These crowded, reeking public-houses, thirty to the half-mile, +battening on the misery of the poor—we have seen them from our youth +and they move us not. How many in our Circuses and Terraces and Places +will even trouble themselves to so much as vote for the deliverance of +their fellow-citizens? Very few in these particular places, if I +mistake not. For they cannot shake themselves loose from the yoke of +custom. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +IV +</H4> + +<P> +And this same tyrant blinds us to the goal to which we are hastening. +The last great proof of the power of custom is that when nations and +empires were perishing they never knew they were perishing. Men were +so accustomed to the riches and greatness and security of the Roman +empire, that even when it was tottering to its fall they never realised +that it was doomed. All nations have gone the one road. They have +abolished God or the gods! They have cast duty to the winds; they have +given themselves to Mammon and to pleasure; and they perished—but they +never knew that the world that seemed to them so secure was passing +away. And unless there comes a change—a mighty gale from Heaven—then +this world we know must perish. Custom alone blinds us to the fact, +plain to the open eye. Scotland cannot feed her people but for a few +weeks in the year. For the rest they must be fed by the food brought +from overseas by the fruits of our industries. If these industries +fail ... we perish. The Clyde will no longer hum with the throbbing +engines or great ships come with food.... And every strike, every +stoppage of labour, is but a step towards the abyss.... But probably +that is what God means. He makes the wrath of men to praise Him—He +will use hunger as the instrument wherewith to scatter the great +Scottish race broadcast over the world, to people the mighty plains of +Canada and the wastes of Australasia. A great silence will fall over +the plain of central Scotland. The most hideous of all the workings of +man will be beautified when the lichen grows over the crumbling ruins. +The mavis will sing in the thorn-tree, dewy with fragrance, where +Motherwell now stands ... or Anderston. That may be the hidden purpose +of our follies and our crimes. This, at least, is sure, that if we +cannot shake ourselves loose from the grip of custom—custom will be +our destruction. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap05"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER V +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +THE LAST DELIVERANCE +</H4> + +<P> +Every great social advance made by men in the past has been made under +the pressure of public opinion. That public opinion was created by a +free and an unfettered Press. The grim fact that we are now faced with +is that the day of the free Press is over. Syndicates of capitalists +control the Press of the country, and newspapers whose circulation +approaches a couple of millions create the opinion their owners desire. +The duty of the newspaper is to record facts, and communicate to the +people the correct data on which public opinion can be based. If the +Press purposely suppresses what is true, lends itself to the colouring +of the records so that the false seems to be the true and the true +false, then it becomes the greatest public peril. A generation that is +doped with doctored news can scarcely arrive at the truth. The +newspapers are supplied free by the bureaux of the interested with news +that serve their purpose. Thus it comes that the machinery for +creating public opinion is largely in the hands of those whose purpose +is that public opinion shall not destroy or lessen their profits. +There are noble exceptions; but, taking it as a whole, the syndicated +Press of this country is no longer a mirror of the truth. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +I +</H4> + +<P> +In the United States of America and in Canada there are one hundred and +twenty millions who speak our language, whose religion is also ours, +who are the most intelligent and hard-headed people on the face of the +earth, yet if one were to believe what the Press of this country says, +one would be driven to the conclusion that they are poor foolish +idealists who have said farewell to their senses. And that because the +Press serves the public with doctored news. One day we are told how a +hundred thousand New Yorkers are to march in procession through the +streets demanding the return of their alcoholic drinks. The columns +are full of the preparations for the greatest uprising of the oppressed +and parched citizens. The great day comes and the procession is a +fiasco. But the syndicated Press omit to record that only a miserable +handful paraded the streets, the offscourings of the city's purlieus, +amid the derision of the onlookers. We are later informed under great +headlines that the American Medical Association or some such society +has called for the annulling of the Prohibition Law. We feel that the +climate is bound to become wet again, for the doctors demand it. But +we soon learn that this particular association of doctors is a mere +fragment of a noble profession—a fragment separate from the American +Association which corresponds to the British Medical Association. But +the syndicated Press does not record that fact. The Press that +distorts events after that manner can only flourish among a generation +that desires not the truth. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +II +</H4> + +<P> +There is nothing more to be desired than that the people of Great +Britain should acquaint themselves with the facts regarding the +greatest social advance ever made by humanity in a generation. Can it +be the case that the millions of America committed an act of social +folly when they outlawed the liquor traffic and closed the saloons, and +that, awakening from their dream, they are to restore the traffic in +alcohol and the saloon once more? That is the impression that a +spoon-fed Press seeks to create. Can it be true? +</P> + +<P> +To answer that question we must ascertain first whether the prohibition +of the sale and manufacture of alcohol in the States was an act of +panic legislation, the result of a snap vote, the effect of a passing +enthusiasm or a fanaticism that was triumphant for a moment? If it be +of that order, then it may be expected to be cast aside by a wearied +and disillusioned people. But the movement that prohibited alcohol +across the Atlantic has the toil and sacrifice and devotion of three +generations behind it. It is not a thing of yesterday. As far back as +1834 the selling of liquor to Indians was forbidden by law. +Seventy-six years ago (in 1846) the first Prohibition Law was enacted +in the State of Maine. Fifty-seven years ago the Presbyterian General +Assembly excluded liquor distillers and liquor sellers from the +membership of the Church. In 1873 the Women's Temperance Crusade +movement was inaugurated—a movement whose ideal was to make the United +States safe for women and children by the suppression of the saloon. +In 1893 the Anti-Saloon League was formed—an organisation that brought +the various societies into unity and fused them into the strength of +steel. There were long years of work in school and of teaching in the +churches ere on the 18th December 1917 the Amendment in favour of +Prohibition passed the Legislative Assemblies at Washington. Having +passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, it had to be +ratified by a majority of the various States. The States had seven +years in which to ratify; but within one year and two months forty-five +States, with a population of over one hundred millions, ratified the +Amendment. Only three out of the forty-eight States failed to ratify. +On the 29th January, it being certified that three-fourths of the +States had ratified as the Constitution requires, the 18th Amendment to +the Constitution of the United States, prohibiting alcohol, became law. +And on that night the leaders of the movement held a service of +thanksgiving in Washington, and when the hour struck ushering in the +first day of the new era, Mr. W. J. Bryan began his address by reading +the words: 'They are dead that sought the young child's life.' An +Amendment to a National Constitution which has the generations behind +it is not one to be repealed. To repeal it requires now a majority of +three-fourths of the States! The one great fact to remember, is that +by local option two thousand two hundred and thirty-five counties in +the United States had made an end of the liquor traffic in their areas +before Prohibition became the national law, and that there were only +three hundred and five counties in all the States which had not +declared themselves dry before Prohibition became the law. If anything +be certain under the sun it is that Prohibition is the settled and +unalterable policy of the United States of America. During a visit of +three months, and after inquiries in several cities, I never met a +single person who wanted the saloon again reopened in the States. +Whatever criticism might be made, there was among everybody only one +sentiment regarding the saloon—and that was thankfulness that it was +closed for ever. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +III +</H4> + +<P> +There are, however, those who desire the Volstead law defining alcohol +amended so that the sale of beer and light wines may be permitted in +restaurants with meals. To us that seems reasonable; but there is no +chance of such a policy being adopted. The reason is that these +experiments have already been made in the States and have been found +unworkable and unsatisfactory. The settled policy of the reformers in +the States is to seal up the sources of drunkenness. Every drunkard +began as a moderate drinker; and the evil has to be stayed at its +source. Mr. Bryan described the process dramatically: 'The moderate +drinker says every man should stop when he has had enough. But the +difficulty is to know when one has had enough, for enough is a horizon +that recedes as one approaches it. A frail brother was advised by a +friend to drink a glass of sarsaparilla when he had had enough. +"That's right," was the reply, "but when I have had enough I cannot say +sarsaparilla!"' The prevailing opinion among the Church and social +leaders is that the liquor trade as it was conducted in America could +not be mended, and that it had to be ended. And it was ended. Having +been ended, there is no possibility of its being amended! +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +IV +</H4> + +<P> +It is one thing to legislate and another to make that legislation +effective. We know that by experience in this country. It took long +years to make the laws against smuggling operative in this country; and +it was only after Queen Victoria's accession that the laws abolishing +slavery in the British Empire, passed in a previous reign, were made +operative. In the States the stage of legislation regarding alcohol is +past, and the stage of making the legislation effective has come. The +difficulty of making Prohibition operative is great, but the difficulty +is being steadily overcome. No law that ever was made has been fully +successful: otherwise there would be no theft and no murder in a +perfect world. In one State—Detroit—it is said that five thousand +automobiles are stolen every year, but nobody ever suggested that the +commandment forbidding theft should be repealed in Detroit. There are +more murders in New York in any one year than in the whole of Ireland +in its most distressful year, but nobody suggests that the commandment +against murder should be repealed in New York. That a law is broken is +no argument for its repeal. And notwithstanding all the smuggling +there is no doubt but that the Prohibition Law is obeyed by 99 per +cent. of the American people. 'In Nebraska there are several times as +many men in the penitentiary for stealing automobiles as there are for +violating the liquor laws.' The persons who are convicted for breaking +the law are the aliens newly come to the country—Italians, Poles, +Irish, Spaniards. A native-born American scarcely ever is found among +the breakers of the Prohibition Law, and very seldom a Scotsman. But +the newspapers themselves are the proof of this. If the disregard of +Prohibition were the general thing, the newspapers would cease to +record it; for according to the Press news is the exceptional. To walk +to business every day is commonplace and receives no record; but to be +run down in the traffic and break a limb is news. That receives its +paragraph. It is the exceptional that receives the big headlines. And +the big headlines about smuggling across the Canadian border and from +the Bahama Islands or about wood alcohol are the proof that these +things are exceptional. Otherwise they would not be news. That +ethical passion which passed the 18th Amendment is now being diverted +to its enforcement. The traffic across the Canadian border is being +stopped, for Canada is now going dry. The traffic from the Bahamas +under the British flag is being dealt with. 'We shall move heaven and +earth to make Prohibition effective,' said the orator. 'You had +better move the Bahamas,' came the reply. It would be a disaster if +the false impression created in this country by the syndicated Press +regarding the working of Prohibition in the States were to lead those +in authority to imagine that the people of the States will regard with +no indignation the British flag being used for the flouting of the laws +and of the Constitution of the United States. It is impossible that +that can go on. Everywhere in the States the organisation for making +Prohibition effective is being tightened up. In social reform the +citizens of the States are determined to lead the world. I for one am +convinced that they will not be turned from their chosen path or +deflected from their goal by bootleggers or by Jewish syndicates. +Whoever will judge of the condition of the States regarding Prohibition +from the newspapers in New York will find themselves misled. 'In New +York,' says <I>The World</I>, 'it will be necessary to install three +enforcement agents to a family, so that they can stand in three +eight-hour shifts, or hire the entire population of the city as special +enforcement agents and set every man to watch himself.' That is the +sort of piffle that is supplied gratis to the newspapers in this +country. What is forgotten is the fact that the millions of homes +where the fathers and mothers live and toil, who have carried the law, +say nothing. Their voice is not heard in their Press. And they have +not weakened in their resolution that their country shall be a country +where children shall grow up untempted and where monopolies shall no +longer be free to fill the jails and the poorhouses. No amount of +jibes can alter the fact that there has been no ethical revolution in +the history of the world comparable to that passion for righteousness +which passed the 18th Amendment and which is now determined to enforce +it. 'Our parents,' said a wet orator lately, 'taught us to lay up +something for a rainy day: how much nicer if they had only taught us to +lay up something for a dry one.' The American will make any number of +jokes about his climate, but his determination is unalterable that it +shall be dry. There has been no great moral advance made by humanity +in these last centuries which has been unable to hold its ground. +Whatever dust may be thrown in their eyes, the people of this country +may be certain that there will be no repeal. When the choice is +'Repeal' or 'Enforce,' the American chooses unhesitatingly. 'Enforce' +becomes his watchword. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +V +</H4> + +<P> +Though in the Western States full enforcement of the Prohibition Law +has not been effected so far, yet the beneficial effects of the closing +of the saloons are so many and great, that he who runs may read. There +were four millions idle in the States at the time when I was there, but +the nation was going through the greatest industrial crisis in its +history with perfect calm, and without suffering the pangs of +destitution, because workmen no longer wasted their money in the +saloons. Here in Britain the idle have been pauperised by doles from +the public exchequer; in the United States there have been no doles. +The nation can thus come through a crisis of unemployment without half +its number becoming a charge on the remainder. That is possible +because the sources of waste are sealed up. Statistics amply prove +that drunkenness is rapidly disappearing. The Salvation Army ceased +its rescue work among the drunkards in New York because there were no +more drunkards to be rescued. In Pittsburg I found the jail well-nigh +empty and the poorhouse without sufficient inmates to keep it clean. +It is the same everywhere. One great employer of labour, whose opinion +I asked, said: 'Prohibition has given us a good Monday in our factory.' +That was the most terse and effective testimony to Prohibition that I +heard. There is no broken time owing to drunkenness. Industrial +efficiency has been increased 20 per cent. One man who had an interest +in a big hotel told me that the profits from soft drinks +(non-alcoholic) were last year double the profit they used to make by +the sale of alcohol. Hotels never had such a time of prosperity as +they have had lately. The reason is that men can bring their wives and +children to stay at the hotels with perfect safety. The proprietor of +the biggest hotel in a city where I stayed told me that he was glad to +be rid of the bar and that he would never have it back on any account. +A Canadian-Scot who has prospered greatly told me how he became a +Prohibitionist. 'I am interested in a mine in the north,' said he, +'and I went to visit it. I saw the men wasting their substance and +their lives in the saloons—lying around drugged, with their pockets +empty. It was shocking. I used to give $500 to fight Prohibition. +When the wet agent came to my office after that for my subscription, I +said: "Get out! I'll give $500 a year in the future to make an end of +all saloons!" It is thus the movement spreads. The moderate drinker +is as determined as the Rechabites that the saloon shall never open its +door again—and it never will. One of the oddest testimonies in behalf +of the success of the new law was this saying: 'In Detroit there has +been a falling off in the taxi-cab trade.' The inference is that +everybody can walk home now. 'We saw,' says Mr. Harold Spender, 'only +a single drunken man in America for three weeks, and then he was a +politician going to Washington.' In a period of three months I saw +none. Though this reform has been in operation for so short a time, it +has already effected the greatest miracle in modern history. It has +healed the sick by the hundred thousand and it has raised the dead. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +VI +</H4> + +<P> +The readers of the commercialised Press when they scan the inspired +articles regarding America's social uprising have only to use their +common-sense to realise that they are being served up falsehoods. They +have only to think what a mighty change for the betterment of humanity +has been wrought in the great cities where alcohol no longer seeks and +lies in wait for the unwary at every street corner. Instead of liquor +seeking him, the drouth must now seek the liquor—and the search is a +toilsome one in a dry and parched land. What a deliverance that must +be for the weak-willed when the State no longer, by licensed premises +every few yards in the crowded streets, tempts them to take the road to +pauperism and destruction. They have only to think of the lives of +rich and poor whom they themselves knew, that have made shipwreck on +these rocks and shoals, and think what a deliverance has come to the +nation that no longer, with the marshalled host of its liquor sellers, +seeks to enslave and destroy its citizens. They have only to look at +the city of their habitation and ask themselves why it is that so many +hundred thousand of their fellow-citizens live under conditions that +mean unspeakable misery. Why are families doomed to one-roomed houses? +why are children reared under conditions that mean their being damned +before they are born? The answer is—Alcohol! In proportion to the +number of public-houses in any district is the misery of the housing +conditions. You have but to scratch the surface of human misery +anywhere in our cities and you find the turgid stream of alcohol. Let +the reader of the subsidised Press ask himself why all the money spent +on clearing and cleaning slums has wrought no result? It is that +alcohol creates new slums faster than the old are cleared away. Let +him ask why all the money spent in mission work, in philanthropic work, +in rescue work, has not diminished the mass of human misery; and the +answer is—Alcohol! Let him think of the money now wasted by the +workers in the reeking public-houses being used to clothe and feed and +house the children—and what wonderful cities we would have and what a +new race we would become. And all that has been done in the United +States and in Canada. 'Our great claim as Prohibitionists,' said +Admiral Sims, 'is that it has shut up the schools of future drunkards, +the saloons and the clubs. We have saved the rising generation.' No +amount of misrepresentations can alter facts. The Americans are not +fools. They know their own business. 'In every community,' said +President Harding recently, 'men and women have had an opportunity to +know what Prohibition means. They know that debts are more promptly +paid, that men take home the wages that once were wasted in saloons, +that families are better clothed and fed, and more money finds its way +into the savings bank. In another generation I believe that liquor +will have disappeared, not merely from our politics, but from our +memories.' +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +VII +</H4> + +<P> +Great Britain led the world in the deliverance of humanity from the +degradation of slavery; the United States and Canada are leading the +world in the still greater deliverance of humanity from the degradation +of alcohol. Out of the West cometh the world's salvation. America, +that is for ever singing of itself as the 'sweet land of liberty,' is +now the seat of the greatest experiment in personal coercion that the +world has known. And that is because the American has freed his mind +from cant. He has replaced the conception of liberty as liberty to do +as we like by the conception of liberty which is the liberation of +large masses of the community from thraldom to their base appetites and +from the oppression of grafters and profiteers. The main cause of that +deliverance was the awakened conscience of the people. When the power +to veto licences was placed in the hands of the people, the citizens +became conscious of the fact that when they voted for a licence they +were just as much partners in the saloon as if they furnished the +liquor and sold it standing behind the bar. When they considered that +the poisoning of the poor by alcohol was a road to wealth, when they +traced the misery and ruin that afflicted the community to the saloons, +they felt that they could not any longer be sharers in the traffic nor +incur responsibility for it. It was the Churches of the land that +wakened the conscience of the people. It was better that any community +perish rather than that they should offend one of the little ones for +which Christ died.... What we need is that the conscience of the +community should be wakened in the same manner. The Church of Christ +alone can sound the trumpet that wakens from the slumber of torpor. +But the Church seems more concerned about dealing out soothing syrup to +its soporific members than about wakening the dead. The spectacle of +bishops denouncing Prohibition in the name of Freedom; of +representative Church Councils refusing to recommend the cause of +No-Licence; of congregations being narcotised to the slaughter of the +innocents that goes on ceaselessly all around them—the victims of +Bacchus laid for ever on his altar—while the preacher proclaims peace, +peace, where there is no peace, and expounds an evangel of sweetness +and light while the people are perishing—all that may well make angels +weep. But the Churches are wakening. The founder of Christianity +prayed, 'Lead us not into temptation,' and Christians cannot for ever +acquiesce in the State tempting its own children to their destruction. +Just as we look back and marvel how any Christian could ever defend +slavery, so fifty years hence, when the liquor traffic will have become +a memory, men will marvel how Christians could ever have defended the +Liquor Trade and looked on, silent, while it swept the young and the +strong to doom. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap06"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VI +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +THE PERIL OF THE CROWD +</H4> + +<P> +The history of humanity is in large measure the history of its own +illusions. It has always been towards the mirage that men have tramped +with bleeding feet, only to strew the desert with bleached bones. One +great illusion has been that the golden age would come when the world's +autocracies gave place at last to democracy, and the will of the +multitude became law. It has come; democracy now wields the world's +sceptre. But alas! the golden age tarries, and the wistful doubt +arises whether the greatest peril confronting humanity may not be just +that—the sceptre in the hand of the unregenerate crowd. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +I +</H4> + +<P> +For what we have to remember is that the crowd is by its very nature +and spirit capable of crimes such as the individual autocrat would +shrink from in horror. You may think that fantastic, and imagine that +a crowd consists, after all, of so many individuals, and that the +spirit of the crowd can only be the aggregate of the individuals +comprising it. But such a view is mistaken. The corporate spirit of +the crowd is not that of the units composing it. The best illustration +of this is the sudden reeling back into the jungle of a crowd when a +panic seizes them. Let the cry 'Fire' be raised in a crowded building, +and though the separate individuals be of the gentlest and most +considerate, yet instantly the crowd becomes dęmonic, a wrestling, +writhing, struggling mass trampling the weak under foot, with no +thought but self-preservation. +</P> + +<P> +There are various explanations. One is the law of sympathy, by which +an emotion is intensified in being shared. At the first cry of peril a +wave of fear passes through the crowd; and as each looks at the faces +around him he sees fear in every eye. The emotion suddenly unloosed is +like a river whose source is amid the silent hills, that gathers in its +course a thousand rills, until at last it sweeps in mighty floods +everything before it. Before the flood of terror generated by the +crowd all the decencies of civilisation vanish, and man becomes once +more the animal with but the one instinct—to fight for one's life. +And it is the same with anger. Let a skilled orator set himself to +rouse the passion of a crowd, and he will soon generate a spirit that +utterly obliterates the individual. Let him depict the wrongs they +suffer, and anger sweeps through the multitude, bending them to the +spirit of the orator as the corn field bends before the wind. Though +as individuals they may tremble in their shoes before their wives, now, +fused by rhetoric into one glowing mass, they are ready to loot a city, +pull down a Bastille, and level an absolutist throne with the dust. +But the great explanation of the spirit of the crowd as distinct from +the individual is that in the surge of contagious emotion generated by +the crowd the sense of personal identity is lost. Each only lives in +the crowd. And with the loss of identity comes the loss of personal +responsibility. I no longer stand alone to be judged for my acts; it +is the crowd who will be judged. The brake of personal responsibility +suddenly snaps. It is thus that a crowd will commit a crime that the +individual afterwards remembers with horror. Only a crowd could have +said: 'His blood be on us and on our children.' +</P> + +<P> +In these last years the horrors that struck a chill into the heart of +the world were committed by the crowd. Suddenly in a Belgian village +the cry was raised, 'We are being sniped.' Instantly the soldiers were +swept by one emotion, and there rose the cry for vengeance. Then the +Mayor and the priest and a handful of village notables would be +gathered and shot. It was the rage and panic of a crowd seeking its +own safety through brutality. +</P> + +<P> +It is plain, then, that the spirit of the crowd is something far other +than that of the individual, and is capable of the greatest crimes. It +was the crowd that compelled Socrates to drink the hemlock; it was the +crowd that overbore that poor vacillating weakling, Pilate, with their +monotonous chant, 'Crucify, Crucify'; it has always been the crowd that +has turned the sanctuaries into the nesting-places of owls and bats; +and the rock on which humanity may make shipwreck at last is just +this—the crowd. The millions of the dead have made the world safe for +democracy: the appalling question now is—Who will make democracy safe +for the world? +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +II +</H4> + +<P> +It is, however, only when the crowd is organised that the crowd becomes +a real menace. The horrors of war are unspeakable just because they +are the horrors committed by the crowd perfectly organised. A crowd +that has met for no purpose, and is a mere fortuitous concourse of +atoms, can do neither good nor harm. In proportion to its organisation +is the peril of the crowd. The power of the crowd that committed the +greatest crime in the history of the world lay in the fact that it was +perfectly organised. It was there in that chilly morning with only one +purpose, to cry, 'Crucify, Crucify.' Across all the mists of the +centuries we can see the organisers at work moving among the crowd. +They whisper to one group: 'He struck you in your property, overturning +the tables of your barter; if he lives you are ruined'; and to the +other: 'Remember his blasphemies: what he called himself.' ... And in +the trail of the organisers arose with intenser volume the cry, +'Crucify, Crucify.' It was the organised crowd that nailed the Son of +Man to the cross. +</P> + +<P> +The fact that confronts us to-day is that the crowd is at last +perfectly organised; so perfectly organised that all the industry and +transport of three kingdoms can be stopped by the flash of an electric +wire. The crowd knows what it wants, and it has organised itself to +get it. But the crowd to-day is not an isolated handful such as that +of old in Athens or Jerusalem. The crowd is now world-wide and +international. What is shouted on the banks of the Volga in the +morning, at noon is shouted on the Clyde, and at the setting of the sun +in New York. For the cable and the telephone and the wireless have +woven humanity into one web. From the rising to the setting of the +sun, slowly but steadily on the forge the international crowd is being +hammered into the unity of steel. +</P> + +<P> +In the old days the crowd had to storm their way into the presence of +their Pilates before they could cry 'Crucify.' But to-day the +organised, super-national crowd has changed all that. Now the crowd +can make itself heard across half the world. It assembles on the banks +of the Ganges and formulates its demands. The Turk must stay at +Constantinople! If not, well, there will be trouble. There in London +or Paris or Washington the modern Pilate receives his message. The cry +of the crowd hums in his ears across five thousand miles. 'What shall +I do with the bleeding and persecuted?' asks he. 'What is that to us?' +answers the crowd on the Ganges. And expediency gains the day as it +did in Jerusalem.... And fifteen thousand crosses arise with their +bleeding, agonising victims in Anatolia.... The governors of this +world have had but one rule in all the ages. Instead of fixing their +eyes on the stars they have gazed at the streets and have listened to +the crowd.... And the organised crowd can to-day make itself heard +round all the world as it cries, 'Crucify, Crucify.' +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +III +</H4> + +<P> +There is to-day one other added element in the peril of the crowd, and +that is the removal of the forces that formerly restrained and curbed. +The witness of history is that only one spirit can stand up against and +cast out the spirit of the crowd, and that is the spirit of religion. +I am not speaking of Christianity merely, but of religion in its +generic sense. There was only one force in Jerusalem on Good Friday +stronger than the thirst for blood, and that was the feeling that they, +the crowd, must not defile themselves ceremonially. Only one power, +religion alone, can cut the claws of the tiger in man.... In the midst +of the darkest deeds the thought of God's judgment-seat has ever and +again pulled humanity up. +</P> + +<P> +But it is gone now—that sense of the Unseen Assize. Two generations +ago the international crowd of the learned (for crowds are of many +kinds), having discovered they could explain some processes, took it +for granted that nobody initiated these processes. With great +congratulations on the delivery of humanity from superstition, they +bowed the Creator out of His universe. In so doing they thought they +were ushering in a new world, where man would find deliverance from all +ill through the illumined brain.... Alas! for human hopes. The +learned have now gone back to the old truth—that this world is +organised spirit. But the sad thing is that though it is easy to +bamboozle the crowd, yet, once they are bamboozled, it passes the wit +of man to debamboozle them again. The scientific crowd bowed God out a +generation ago; but to bow Him in again is beyond them. And the spirit +of the crowd is left to-day without curb or chain from Siberia to Cork. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +IV +</H4> + +<P> +There are few sadder thoughts than this—to think how the Church has +thrown away the power that once it knew how to use, the mesmeric +instinct of the crowd. 'In our State,' said an American, 'the devil is +fighting hard against the Church!' 'Ah! in Montana it is different,' +was the reply; 'there with us, the devil is running the Church.' It +would look as if it were even so. Wherever there was a crowd waiting +anywhere on the ministry of the Gospel, the devil set himself to break +up that crowd. He did it in ways most skilful. Had his true +personality appeared, he would instantly have been cast forth. It was +therefore apparelled as an angel of light that he set about the work. +He never failed to mouth high-sounding phrases. His favourite +watchword was principle. It did not matter much what the principle was +if only thereby the crowd could be broken up. In the beginning of the +seventeenth century the evangel of Jesus, that was committed to the +winds of Galilee and to a handful of peasants, was intellectualised +into a massive system of propositions that was to be for all time the +test of orthodoxy. One might smile if the fountain of tears lay not +here. That religion, which is like the wind blowing where it listeth, +was caught at last, and embodied in legal enactments and +formulas—sheltered behind statistics! Whoever heard of wind blowing +through legal documents? Build shelters and there is no more wind! +Yet these legal documents became the test of that religion which is +life and which is love. If any doubt was expressed about the use of +shelters when men needed the fresh breeze from heaven—then the devil +appeared and said that to abide by the shelter was a principle. Nobody +must touch or change that structure. If that be done, then those who +were loyal must separate. By a discreet use of the principle of +loyalty to confessions the devil broke up crowd after crowd of +worshipping Christians. There was nothing that he could not use for +that purpose. The doubt arose whether the all-loving Father could +really send babes to everlasting torments or decree that the vast +majority of mankind be tortured, for ever and ever. That was used to +break up the Church. A hymn, a paraphrase, the form of a prayer, the +posture at worship, a vestment—anything, everything, was good enough +for the devil's purpose. By these he achieved his ends. The crowd was +no longer to be found in one sanctuary. Here, where I write, in the +days of my boyhood the folk assembled in the open air for their great +Christian festival on the second Sunday of August. It was a moving +spectacle to see a couple of thousand people in the hearing of the sea, +with the hills brooding over them, raise a psalm to heaven. But that +crowd has been broken up into four fragments. There is no longer a +crowd. The devil has secured its overthrow. On the wave of an emotion +generated by a thousand hearts no soul shall again be wafted heavenward +in that green place. For the devil has seen to it that the thousand +hearts shall be no longer there. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +V +</H4> + +<P> +There is a hopeful side to all this if only Christians will learn +wisdom. Instead of allowing the devil to break up congregations into +fragments, as he has done for a hundred years, what the Church must do +now is to provide the crowd which will exercise the powerful attraction +of the herd-instinct on the side of righteousness. The spectacle +presented in a poor and crowded district of a great city by competing +missions—Primitives, Wesleyans, Presbyterians, Catholics, Salvation +Army, and so on—each weak and ineffective—is heart-breaking. There +are so many of them that there can be a crowd at none of them. The day +of home-mission activities as now conducted is at an end.... At +Pittsburg I was taken to a meeting in a great auditorium, seated for +8000 people, where Gipsy Smith was carrying on a mission. The place +was crowded. There was a massed choir of a few hundred voices. After +a great volume of praise rolled heavenward, there came an atmosphere +vibrant with the sense of the Divine as prayer was offered. I never +heard Gipsy Smith before, and I was not prejudiced in his favour. But +his simplicity, his directness, his power of speaking straight home to +the heart, made me captive. Here was a master of crowd-psychology. +The Jesus whom this man preached was the elder brother, the lover of +men, the saviour from self. When the preacher asked those who desired +to follow and obey Jesus to stand up, they rose in hundreds. It almost +seemed as if the whole congregation were on their feet. The difficulty +when every force seemed to lift one up was in continuing to sit still. +This is the only mission that can to-day be effective—the mission in +which the mysterious powers latent sub-consciously in man are directed +heavenward. Instead of weak, isolated, competitive missions, if the +churches would organise home-missions after this order.... There in +Pittsburg, as in every city where men such as Gipsy Smith exercise +their ministry, the first requisite is that the churches organise to +provide the herd. Without the herd, the herd-instinct cannot operate. +First provide the crowd, and then the masters of crowd-psychology can +turn their faces heavenward. It will be a poor ruined world if the +crowd be left much longer as the monopoly of the devil. The laws of +crowd-psychology, which can crucify a Christ and turn an ancient +civilisation into carnage and animalism, can also shape humanity to the +noblest ends. By these same laws self-sacrifice, love, heroism, +idealism can make their irresistible appeal. Along this line victory +will come. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap07"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VII +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +LET US HAVE PEACE +</H4> + +<P> +It was to attend a Congress of Churches that I crossed the Atlantic, +but it is not listening to speeches that gives a realisation of any +country. It is when wandering about the streets, sitting in cafés, +listening in a smoking-car, or talking to a man in a hotel lounge that +one forms some impression of the atmosphere which Americans breathe. +It has been asserted, doubtless with truth, that human aberrations are +a misplaced worship. That happiness which men were created to find in +fellowship with the Highest, they seek in base and sensual forms. +Drunkenness, on this theory, is a species of misdirected worship. If +this be granted, then, Americans are of all nations the most devout. +They worship the vast in every form. At Pittsburg you could hear a man +rolling out statistics of millions of tons of steel a year; of harbour +dues, though the city is far from the sea, that put even London and +Glasgow in the shade; and as he speaks you feel that he has a thrill +approaching adoration. He is on his knees before the greatest he +knows. It is the same in everything. A town of 14,000 inhabitants in +1840 is now a city of a million. He rolls the figures as if they were +a mystic ritual. Everything with which he has to do must be the +greatest on the earth. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +I +</H4> + +<P> +It was, however, in New York that one came to the inner shrine of +American idealism. I had stayed for two days in the academic calm of +Princeton, had heard Lord Bryce lecture in iced and polished and +classic phrases on the age-long problem of Church and State; had spoken +to two hundred theological students who might just be in Oxford or +Edinburgh, for their eyes were just the same—the eyes of youth, who +perennially believe that they at least were born to put this old world +right. (That is the wonderful feeling that keeps pulpits filled—the +feeling that however much the message has been spurned and others have +failed, yet I cannot fail—glorious dream of youth!) From that +atmosphere of reposeful idealism I was suddenly projected into the +midst of New York. It was a bewildering experience. A friend who knew +his way in the maze guided me to the Pennsylvania hotel, 'The biggest +hotel in the world, with 2200 baths!' I found a room on the twentieth +storey, served by an 'express' service of lifts. I could enter into +the feelings of the countryman who, descending in one of those for the +first time and seeing floor after floor flash past, murmured, 'Thank +God, I am safe so far.' Having secured our 'baths' we went forth to +see New York by night. +</P> + +<P> +Straight as an arrow my friend brought me to the spots where the full +blaze of the illumined streets burst into view. On every hand the +street fronts blazed with multi-coloured lights. Rainbows of dazzling +splendour spanned the avenues. Above every sky-scraper, darkening the +stars, letters of fire proclaimed 'The Greatest Boot Emporium in the +World' or 'The Vastest Store in all the Universe.' St. John in his +dreams of apocalyptic splendour in Patmos could never have dreamed +anything weirder than this. Far as the eye could see down Fifth Avenue +the quivering lights proclaimed to the silent stars: 'We are the +people—the greatest on the earth!' But, after all, the world is but a +tenth-rate little gutta-percha ball in the immensity of infinitude, and +it was a comfort to think that the constellations were not impressed. +On our way back we rested in a 'Soda-Fountain' refreshment room where +we sucked nectar through straws. 'This,' said my friend, 'was a +notorious saloon before the war, and here are we, two douce parsons, +drinking in all the phylacteries of respectability.' That, on the +whole, was the most wonderful thing we saw that night in New York. But +as I looked from the dizzy height of my room in the sky-scraper, out on +that city of glittering light, I seemed to realise what it meant. That +building of monstrous height, these proclamations that darkened the +heavens, making the stars but a background for vaunting—what are they +but the pursuit of the ideal; the scaling of heaven by force; the soul +laying hold on immensity by both hands. It is humanity on its knees +before the wrong altar. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +II +</H4> + +<P> +It is the same when the Great War is recalled, as it inevitably is +every hour. To the American his share looms so vast that he is +convinced he won the war. Among certain classes 'We won the war' has +become a watchword. 'My brother last year travelled through Italy and +France and part of Germany,' a typical American will confide in you, +'and he met a German officer, and this German told him that they +thought little of the English and less of the French, but that when the +Americans came in they recognised their masters and quitted at once.' +Hereupon a quiet man in a corner begins to talk. 'We air a wonderful +nation, sir, and that's a sure thing,' he nasalises; 'we had only +50,000 casualties, and you had a million, and the French a million and +a half, and the Russians perhaps two millions, and the Italians half a +million—say five millions in all among the Europeans. My friend says +we won the war with 50,000 casualties! His idea seems to be that an +American is worth a hundred of his brethren in Europe. It is the +atmosphere here, sir. We air a great nation, sir.' Upon this the +first eyes the second speaker askance. But a Canadian takes up the +tale. 'There was an Englishman down in Florida this summer and he went +bathing,' thus the Canadian. 'There was a poster forbidding bathing at +a particular beach; but there the Englishman, having donned his bathing +suit, plunged in. The watcher of the beach rushed to him on his return +to shore and reprimanded him for disobeying orders. "Oh! I am all +right, for I took precautions," was the answer. "What precautions?" +exclaimed the watcher, at once professionally interested. And the +bather turned round and showed his newly-bought bathing suit. On one +side it bore the stars and stripes and on the other the legend "We won +the war." Pointing to these he said, "I was perfectly safe, for no +shark that ever swam in the ocean would swallow that!"' ... The +Canadian can beat the Yankee at his own game. He just pricks the tube +and you hear the wind whizzing. But in a few years nobody in the +States outside the ranks of the learned will know anything about any +one's sufferings and heroisms in the Great War except their own. Just +as to-day it is a surprise to a German to learn that Wellington won +Waterloo, so in the future it will be a surprise to an American to +learn that Britain and France by rivers of their blood won the Great +War. 'We won the war' has only begun as yet to run its course. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +III +</H4> + +<P> +It was, however, at Mount Vernon, sixteen miles south of Washington, +that I seemed to be nearest to the soul of America. It was with a +quiet thankfulness that I left the city behind and went on pilgrimage +to Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington. There the scenes amid +which the Father of his country moved and had his being are unchanged. +In the city, the Washington monument, a shaft of white marble rising to +a height of '555 feet 5 1/8 inches,' confronts one's eyes at the end of +every vista. But here no monument challenges the world by its height. +The plain, wooden building, painted to resemble stone, with a piazza +extending along the whole front, consisting of two storeys and an attic +with dormer windows, surmounted by a small cupola and an ancient +weathervane, is just as it was when Washington lived and died. In +these rooms with the tables and chairs and bed and pictures, and the +books (duplicates mostly), just as they were a hundred and fifty years +ago, there were dreamed dreams that have changed half the world. Out +of this farm-house came the impulse and the power wherewith 'The +embattled farmers stood and fired the shot heard around the world.' +</P> + +<P> +There could be found few spots on earth in which one could better muse +on the mutability of earthly affairs than in these rooms tenanted by +ghosts. Here in the main hall is the key of the Bastille, sent by +Lafayette from Paris as a gift to Washington after the capture of the +prison in 1789. 'Give me leave, my dear General,' wrote Lafayette, 'to +present you with a picture of the Bastille, just as it looked a few +days after I ordered its demolition, with the main key of the fortress +of despotism. It is a gift which I owe as a son to my adopted country, +as an aide-de-camp to my General, as a missionary of liberty to its +patriarch.' No nation ever owed so great a debt for its liberty as the +United States owed to France. George Washington won the War of +Independence because half the people of Britain sympathised with him, +knowing that he was fighting their battle for liberty as well as his +own; but mainly because France espoused his cause on sea and land, and +sent him money, and men, and leaders such as Lafayette. But in the +realm of international politics gratitude has no place. When France in +1914 faced the menace of overwhelming and final destruction; when +Belgium, to whose independence the United States was a signatory at the +Hague Convention, was overrun, the Government at Washington did not +even enter a protest, and the President still addressed the Kaiser as +'great and good friend.' While France that won her liberty for America +was for three years in Gethsemane, the States were 'too proud to +fight.' As late as 1917 there was the famous speech about 'peace +without victory.' It was only when a Presidential Election was gained +by 'the Man who kept us out of the war,' and when the interests of the +States on the high seas were threatened with ruin, that the Americans +at last entered the fray. If Britain had acted as the States did, +France to-day would have been the conscript appendage of Germany. When +the American Ambassador in London declared in a candid moment that +America came into the war for 'her own interests,' the resolutions +passed and the speeches made disowning him were amazing. That key of +the Bastille there in Mount Vernon is a monument of international +ingratitude. There is no reason to narcotise ourselves into believing +that poor humanity has been changed for ever in this year of grace at +Washington. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +IV +</H4> + +<P> +To-day Mount Vernon is a shrine, and a sky-scraping monument dominates +Washington, but George Washington learned in his own day the lesson +that in politics there is no gratitude. The founder of the great +Republic did not escape the common fate. He was accused as President +of drawing more than his salary, of aping at monarchy; there were hints +of the guillotine being needed; until at last the scurrilous attacks +drove Washington to declare at a Cabinet meeting in 1793 that he would +rather be in his grave than in his present position. It is said that +at the end he would have preferred to seek reunion with Britain. (An +American lecturer was howled down in New York two years ago for +venturing to refer to that!) This at least is sure, that Washington +was glad to end his days in the peace of Mount Vernon. If this may +seem incredible one has only to think of the fate of Clemenceau, of +Venizelos, or of Woodrow Wilson. There is to-day in Washington a +living monument of national ingratitude. Whatever may be thought of +many of the acts of President Wilson, of his leaving France to her fate +until he won his election to the second term of office by the help of +the anti-British and pacifist votes, yet posterity will undoubtedly +acclaim him as Lincoln now is acclaimed. It was he who not only, with +the dreamers of all the years, dreamed the dream of perpetual peace, +but by his unbending will-power forced the nations of Europe to place +that dream, materialised in the League of Nations, in the forefront of +the Treaty of Versailles. That was one of those epoch-making events on +which the history of the world turns. It is idle to think that the +coming generations will not place the man who did that among the +greatest of the human race. And yet to-day his own countrymen can find +no words strong enough to express their contempt and dislike. There is +no more pathetic figure in all the world. A shattered body gains him +no respite from abuse. When the broken man drove for the last time +from the White House to his own home—the burden at last laid down—a +demonstration organised by the League of Nations Union cheered him at +his gate. They would not go away until he spoke. He was taken to a +window, and after saying a few words he pointed to his throat, in token +that he could not further reply to the ovation. History can scarcely +parallel that tragedy. But Woodrow Wilson can comfort himself with the +thought that the hosannas will rise in chorus when he is dead. George +Washington has now a monument 555 feet high; a hundred years hence +Woodrow Wilson will have a monument 666 feet high. The generations of +those who garnish tombs never fail. 'I tremble for my country,' said +President Jefferson, 'when I remember that God is just.' +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +V +</H4> + +<P> +The world has raised a chorus of rejoicing over the results of the +Conference at Washington. While we rejoice at the prospect of reducing +the number of battleships, we can only rejoice with trembling. (It is +America, who had the Japanese navy on the brain, that has the greatest +cause to rejoice.) But agreements and treaties are not going to save +us. The crucial question is not the form and context of a treaty, but +rather whether there is among men sufficient truth and righteousness to +fulfil its terms. The warfare of the future will be a warfare of +chemistry. (According to a statement ascribed to Edison, the whole +population of London can in the future be wiped out in eight hours by +poison gas!) Is there a possibility of restricting laboratories and +the massing of deadly germs? The men who will release the energy in an +atom will be able to destroy a world. If we look at facts we shall not +be drugged by oratory. 'Rhetoric,' said Theodore Roosevelt, 'is a poor +substitute for the habit of looking facts resolutely in the face.' The +facts confronting us are ominous enough. Twice recently one of the +greatest of nations has thrown over the signature of its Supreme Head +and its Secretary of State. The United States repudiated its President +and refused to ratify the League of Nations; and not only that, but +refused also to ratify the Agreement made with France and Britain to +secure France against future aggression. The present misery and unrest +in Europe are largely due to the failure of one hundred and ten +millions of the English-speaking race to honour the signature of their +Chief. The best of them bewail it, and say that it is the fault of +their political system. Under the worst system of European government +such events would be impossible. +</P> + +<P> +But though the failure to ratify treaties be grievous, yet the failure +to observe treaties duly ratified is still more grievous. And the +history of our relations with the States is largely the history of +broken treaties. There was the famous Clayton-Bulwer Treaty of 1850 +regarding the Panama Canal; it was repudiated in 1880, and its history +since is a history of broken agreements. There have been so many +conferences, so many agreements, so many treaties since the days of the +Holy Alliance to the days of The Hague, and the end has always been the +same. In 1916 Mr. Elihu Root made a speech in the American Senate, the +echoes of which will ring round the world in the coming years. The +burden of his sorrow was shame for his country's repudiation of their +obligation to protect Belgium. Here are some sentences:— +</P> + +<P> +'Wherever there was respect for law, it revolted against the wrong done +to Belgium. Wherever there was true passion for liberty, it blazed out +for Belgium. Wherever there was humanity it mourned for Belgium.... +The law protecting Belgium was our law and the law of every civilised +country.... We had played our part, in conjunction with other +civilised nations, in making that law.... Moreover, that law was +written into a solemn and formal Convention, signed and ratified by +Germany, and Belgium and France, and the United States.... When +Belgium was invaded, that Agreement was binding, not only morally, but +strictly and technically, because there was then no nation a party to +the war which was not also a party to the Convention. The invasion of +Belgium was a breach of contract with us for the maintenance of a law +of nations.... The American Government failed to rise to the demands +of a great occasion. Gone were the old love of justice, the old +passion for liberty, the old sympathy with the oppressed, the old +ideals of an America helping the world towards a better future, and +there remained in the eyes of mankind only solicitude for trade and +profit and prosperity and wealth.' +</P> + +<P> +Yes, humanity might mourn for Belgium, and the States stand aloof in +spite of its plighted word, but what of that when an election had to be +won and the Irish vote conciliated! The world being what it is there +can be no hope of deliverance along the road of treaties. There can be +no salvation by parchments. You cannot make a treaty when there is no +sense of truth and honour. You cannot make a treaty with paganism. +There is no truth or honour there for a treaty to rest on. And the +world is still overwhelmingly pagan. Europe may have been baptized and +America also, but Asia still dreams that its day will return. Japan is +haunted by the dreams of Potsdam, and the hunger of empire is in her +eyes. China, India, Africa, and the Turk are not yet even baptized! +And yet people think that we have arrived at last within sight of the +millennium. The characteristic of humanity is its credulous +simplicity. Men cannot rid themselves of the fond belief that they can +reform the jungle by manicuring the tiger's claws. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +VI +</H4> + +<P> +The march of events is the proof that the woe of humanity is too deeply +seated to be healed by any human salve. There is no balm in any Gilead +for these wounds. The first step towards the rehabilitation of the +world would be the mutual cancelling of the nations' debts to each +other. The United States alone makes this impossible. Money that we +borrowed for our allies, and which we cannot recover from our allies, +America insists that we pay. And yet that money was spent to save +America as well as ourselves. To realise that one has only to think +what would have happened if Germany had won? The greatest day in the +history of Scotland was when the German fleet, its crimes against the +laws of Neptune for ever ended, came sailing into the Forth to +surrender. Through the mist that shrouded it there never moved a +procession so humiliating and so woeful. Judgment at last overtook the +murderers who gloated over the <I>Lusitania</I>! But supposing Germany had +won, what then? The first condition would have been the surrender of +the British fleet at Kiel. And we would have no choice; for a starving +nation must sacrifice everything to feed its children. But what would +have happened then? Think of the Emperor William master of the British +and French fleets as well as his own. What would have become of the +Monroe Doctrine next morning? What would have become of the scores he +had to settle about the supplying of munitions to his foes? In face of +the might confronting her, America would have been helpless. New York +would have been given to the flames if America came not to heel. We +saved the great Republic as well as France and ourselves. And now, +having given our sons and our treasure, we are being bled white that we +may pay America for the munitions which we used in her defence. These +payments are earmarked for the payment of American war-pensions! The +world has never seen so grotesque a situation. The protected and the +delivered demand that their protectors and deliverers should pay for +the privilege of protecting and delivering them! What is at the back +of so preposterous a state of things? It is this, that there is the +shadow of a Presidential Election looming ahead, and the cancelling of +the debts guaranteed by Britain would be unpopular. One can quite +realise the use the Irish orators would make of that. We forget that +Anglophobia is still the staple of American history as taught in her +schools. The Boston Tea Party and the War of Independence were due to +British vices and the triumph of American virtues. To cancel the debts +for which such a nation is responsible would be to repudiate the makers +of America! ... What is required, of course, is the right education of +the American democracy. Schools should teach that it is impossible in +so imperfect a world that all the right can be on one side. Yet that +is how history is taught, not only there but here. Our foes also were +always wrong! There will be no peace in the world until the spirit of +spread-eagleism is replaced by that of meekness; until nations and men +realise that we are members one of another, and that we are here to +help and serve each other. Until that new spirit breathes through the +masses of humanity, there will be war. And we shall have to endure. +We who saved America must pay for the privilege of saving her; and we +must do it while every opportunity of doing so is snatched from us. A +tariff that will exclude our goods has been established; the only way +left to pay is by acting as carriers on the seas! Now we are to be +driven from that service by nationally subsidised mercantile American +fleets! And yet we must pay! ... If anything could waken humanity to +the fact that the conversion of the people can alone save the world, it +would be this. Missionaries to convert the hearts of the American +voters is the world's supreme need. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +VII +</H4> + +<P> +One of the most impressive sights in New York is the tomb of General +Grant. Its site overlooking the deep-gorged Hudson river is most +impressive. It is a square building of white granite without and white +marble within, surmounted by a cupola with Ionic columns. Above the +door, between two figures emblematic of peace and war, are inscribed +the words, 'Let us have peace.' These are the closing words of his +letter accepting the Presidency. Grant had a right to use the words, +for he was a great peace-maker. He made peace by conquering the forces +of disruption. He kept stubbornly at it. But when he won at last he +would not humiliate Lee by taking his sword from him; and when he was +told that Lee's men owned their own horses—'Let them keep them,' said +Grant; 'they will need them for the spring ploughing.' Nor would he +allow any salvos of victory. 'We are all citizens of the same +Republic,' said he; 'let us have peace.' To-day the whole world is one +Republic woven together by the mighty shuttles of steamships, airships, +and wireless. In that world there can be no hermit nation. In that +world, 'let us have peace.' In the Governor's garden at the base of +the slope that leads to the citadel, in Quebec, there is an obelisk +that stirs the heart. It is a monument to Wolfe and Montcalm. The one +died content that he had won a dominion greater than he knew for the +nation that he loved; the other, dying, comforted himself with the +thought that he did not live to see the surrender of Quebec. There, +these two heroic souls, near the scene of their heroism, share a common +monument. The inscription is the most beautiful I know:— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Mortem, Virtus, Communem,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Famam Historia</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Monumentum Posteritas</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 4em">Dedit.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +'Valour gave them a common death; history a common fame; posterity a +common monument.' That obelisk visualises the hope of the future. It +would indeed be a miserable world in which men went on hating for ever. +Only the spirit of Him who for the love of men stooped to a cross can +dig the grave of hate and war at last. When the world shall awake from +its nightmare and shall listen to Him, then the world will have peace. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +VIII +</H4> + +<P> +When I shall have forgotten all else, I shall remember a morning spent +in Trinity Church, New York. The oldest grave in the graveyard +surrounding it is that of a little child, Richard Churcher, 'who died +the 5 of April 1681 of age 5 years and 5 months.' The child's name has +outlived the city; for the old city is gone. A few years ago the spire +of Trinity Church was a landmark. Now they are completely hidden by +the buildings of enormous height that surround them. By contrast the +church and spire look like toys. One building soars to 724 feet—49 +storeys, with elevators rising 41 storeys in one minute, and express +elevators 30 storeys in 30 seconds! Even St. Paul's Cathedral +surrounded by buildings such as the Woolworth, rising to 800 feet, +would be dwarfed into significance, and Trinity Church is small +compared to St. Paul's. It is when one ponders such a scene that one +realises what it is that is wrong with the world. The towers and +pinnacles of Mammon soar everywhere high above the puny sanctuaries of +faith. The evangel of the Carpenter of Nazareth is jostled aside and +crowded out. What the world has to do is to make room once more for +love and self-sacrifice—for idealism. That is the only road to +salvation. Nobody knows that better than the American. He likes to +listen to oratory about world-peace; but when the oratory is done he +smiles. 'We might as well,' says he, 'try to lift ourselves by our +bootlaces.' And that is the moral of it all. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent" ALIGN="center"> +<SPAN STYLE="letter-spacing: 4em">*****</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P> +The United States refused the mandate for Armenia, and the mandate for +Constantinople, and dishonoured the signature of its chief magistrate +guaranteeing the security of France. To-day the blood of the slain +cries to Heaven, and Britain is left alone holding the gates of Europe +against a race whose only rule is government by massacre. And from +America the Press reports a cablegram to the Prime Minister:—'Win +civilisation's everlasting appreciation by keeping the brutes out of +Europe. Americans expect every Englishman to do his duty.' What a +strange species of humour! In very truth the regeneration of the +world's democracies is the only road to peace. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap08"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VIII +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +THE WAY OF PEACE +</H4> + +<P> +The supreme need of the world to-day is peace. Europe is sinking into +the morass of despair because across their frontiers a dozen nations +drilled and armed are watching each other with sullen eyes. From the +shores of the Pacific to the long wash of Australasian seas everywhere +it is the same. Civilisation is perishing; but it is a civilisation +armed to the teeth that is awaiting its obsequies. Every newspaper +proclaims the one need is Peace. The Conference on disarmament has but +one word to express the sum of all its desires—Peace. There must be +some stupendous barrier in the way when all this yearning and endless +talking fail to reach the goal of humanity's striving. However eagerly +the nations pursue it, peace seems to be for ever a receding horizon. +If on one spot of an anguished world statesmen confer as to the things +that make for peace, yet behind their fortified frontiers the nations +are still sharpening their swords. It is, as it has ever been, a mad +world. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +I +</H4> + +<P> +There must be some hidden cause of this failure of humanity to work out +its own deliverance. And our duty is to find out that cause. It is +quite possible to make an idol even of peace. Peace is not necessarily +the supreme good. If there have been wars which call for repentance +and humiliation on the part of those who waged them, there have been +again and again periods of peace which call for even deeper humiliation +and keener repentance. If we have waged war when we ought to have been +at peace, we have as often been at peace when we ought to have waged +war. Time and again, a generation ago, we heard of Armenians being +massacred. But we kept the peace. There never was a more disgraceful +peace in the history of the world, and awful has been the price that we +have paid for it. To keep the peace when the innocent are being +massacred is damnation. Peace is not then the supreme word in man's +vocabulary. By mouthing it man often falls into the mire. There is a +greater word by far, and that is—righteousness. The only peace worth +having is the fruit of righteousness. That is why peace flies faster +than its pursuers. The votaries of peace have forgotten that fruit +does not grow without roots and soil. Eloquence can do much, but it +cannot grow grapes without vines deep rooted in the soil. And peace is +a fruit of the spirit deep rooted in righteousness. And the nations +pursuing peace have forgotten that pilgrimages to Washington or The +Hague may be good, but the supreme need of humanity is to go on +pilgrimage to the fountains that will cleanse the heart. The +deliverance of the world is not by way of renewed or remodelled +treaties, but by the old, old way of renewed and converted souls. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +II +</H4> + +<P> +How has peace ever come to men? It has come in one way only—the way +of the renewed spirit. I have been reading again the wonderful story +of this Scotland of ours, and that old, simple truth has come home to +me afresh. The problem that confronted Scotland in the dawn of its +history was how to unify and pacify warring tribes that were +ceaselessly drenching the land with blood. And the way the problem was +solved here is the way in which alone it can be solved on the greater +stage of the whole world. Fourteen hundred years ago there was no +Scotland anywhere on the map. There were four kingdoms in North +Britain—the Picts north of the Grampians, the Britons in Strathclyde, +the Angles in the Lothians and southward to the Tweed, and in Kintyre a +small and feeble colony of Scots who had crossed from Ireland. (In +those days a Scot was invariably an Irishman.) In those distressful +days wars in North Britain were as common as strikes are now, and women +went forth to battle along with the men. And they were wars of +extermination—without mercy. Out of that welter how did unity and +peace come? The uniter and pacifier came out of Ireland. The Scots in +Kintyre were Christians, and the pagan Picts under King Brude inflicted +on them a shattering defeat. It looked as if Christianity were on the +eve of being stamped out in Kintyre. To Columba in Ireland there came +the cry of his kinsmen's woe—'Come over and help us.' To a man +burning with ardour and longing for new fields to conquer for his +Master, that cry was like a bugle summoning to battle. He came to +their help, but not with spears and arrows. He came with the might of +the Cross. The greatness of the man is revealed in the fact that +instead of material weapons he went straight to the fountain-head of +the misery. He realised that there was only one way of salvation for +the Christian Scots in Kintyre, and that was by converting to Christ +the wild people in the North that had braved the Roman arms and were +still in their primitive savagery. In those days to convert a clan one +had first to convert the chief; to convert a nation one had first to +convert the king. The goal towards which St. Columba set his face was +the castle of King Brude at Inverness. Iona was but the base for the +great campaign that was to make North Britain safe for Christians. If +to-day the problem be how to make the world safe for democracy (though +the problem is really greater—how to produce a democracy worth the +sacrifice of making the world safe for it), in the sixth century the +problem was how to make Scotland safe for Christ. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +III +</H4> + +<P> +The greatest story in our history is that which tells how Columba made +his venture of faith and conquered. He never lacked courage this man. +'Do you think, Columba, shall I be saved?' asked the King of Ireland. +'Certainly not,' answered Columba, 'unless you break off from your +sins, repent, and be converted.' The courage wherewith he faced his +kinsfolk, with that same courage he now faced his enemy. We can see +his galley sailing up Loch Linnhe with the Cross at the masthead, and +the face of the leader set like a flint. He would go to the stronghold +of paganism. Up the great glen the little band trudged with death +lurking behind every bush, but there was never a thought of faltering. +In vain did King Brude bar his gates against him. No walls can shut +out the Spirit, no gates of iron can debar the Word living and +powerful. Outside the gates Columba and his band begin to chant a +Psalm—'We have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us, +what work Thou didst in their days ... how Thou didst drive out the +heathen with Thy hand....' And as that voice of his rolled like +thunder the King and the people 'were affrighted with fear +intolerable.' The gates were flung open and King Brude surrendered to +the ambassador of Christ. The wild race, whom the legions of Rome +could not subdue, were conquered by an unarmed man. What a light must +have been in that man's eye: what a fire in his heart! From that day +Scotland was safe for the followers of Christ, and the little band of +Christians in Kintyre could now sleep peacefully at night, for King +Brude was learning the law of love and the way of peace. From that day +the good seed was sown broadcast over all the land. That dauntless +messenger traversed sombre, uncharted gulfs, trod his way along +rock-strewn sounds, and the darkness of the centuries faded before the +Cross that gleamed at the masthead. The Picts became Christians, and +in due course united with the Christian Scots in Kintyre, and Scotland +found a name. In time the Angles and Strathclyde were merged in the +unity of the Kingdom of Scotland. There came first the unity of one +ideal, of one law, of one faith—and out of that there came the four +kingdoms merged at last in the unity of the one Kingdom of Scotland. +Until at last, after weary centuries, the sounds of war hushed into +silence: clan no longer lifted up sword against clan; brethren in +Christ could no longer slay one another. Peace lay at last like a +golden shaft across all the land. One fearless unarmed man faced a +king with the weapons of the Spirit, sowed the harvest which we are now +reaping. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +IV +</H4> + +<P> +It is only by that road that humanity can come at last to the great +goal of universal peace. It is the road that nations are unwilling to +tread. They still are following the mirage that has strewn the deserts +of time with the bleached skeletons of those who set out to reach it. +The mirage is salvation by treaties. That idol has had hecatombs +offered on its altars, and unless there comes a change it will have +hecatombs in the future. If there be no truth and righteousness in the +heart that signs, then treaties are valueless. The history of the +centuries is the proof of their futility. The treaties of to-day can +no more save than the treaties of all the yesterdays. For the nations +that sign cannot trust each other. In the hearts of the nations there +is not throned that righteousness which can be trusted. +</P> + +<P> +The world's sickness is of the soul. What the nations need is that +truth and righteousness be enthroned in their midst. Without that, +peace is only the scum on the surface of the foul and stagnant pool. +And the witness of the centuries is that righteousness is the fruit of +the vision of God. The foundation of righteousness is the realisation +of the ceaseless operation of the laws whose source is God. If only +the vision of God could blaze forth before the eyes of democracies as +it blazed forth before the eyes of King Brude, then the way of peace +would open up for groaning humanity. How can there be lasting peace in +a world of conflicting ideals? Can Christianity be at peace with +Mohammedanism stained with the blood of millions of Armenians; with +paganism still brooding over the ideal of an empire based on force? +Can the ideals of unselfish service and of pride and greed lie down in +peace together? There can be no peace until humanity is brought into a +unity of the soul—of allegiance to one King, of obedience to one law. +The only hand worthy to wield the sceptre of the world is the hand that +was nailed to a Cross. What the world has to realise is that the +Manger overthrows the Cęsars, and that the road leading to a Cross is +the way of peace. When we shall send forth over all the world men +endued with the spirit of St. Columba, then there will be hope of the +world. But that is the last thing we think of. We fondly believe that +while we ourselves are sinking back into the mire we shall be able to +lift the world up into light; while we ourselves turn our backs on the +Prince of Peace, that we will bestow peace on the world. It is the +weirdest of all obsessions. When William Ewart Gladstone was once +asked how a man of his intellect could listen to such dull sermons, he +answered—'I go to church because I love England.' There is a wider +motive—'I go to church because I love the world, because I can hear +there a law that men should love one another with a love that stoops to +a Cross, by which alone the world can be saved.' It is vain for +nations that forsake the worship of a God of love to spend their days +devising schemes for bringing peace to a ruined world. For there is no +way of peace save one—the way of love. No nation has as yet tried +that way. And there is no sign that they mean to try it. The world +waits for the man who will convince it that the new order must be based +on fraternity and not on fighting. But the world will applaud him +instantly. Fraternity—that's the word! Most excellent! But when the +new Columba will go on to show that fraternity without a Fatherhood to +rest on is meaningless and powerless; that humanity can only realise +its brotherhood in a common Father—even God. Then the world will once +more shrug its shoulders. 'This is the same old wheeze,' it will +say—and go its way. For we have no longer any use for God. That is +the root of our misery. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap09"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IX +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +NO ROOM +</H4> + +<P> +There is an old Gaelic proverb that says: 'Where there is heart-room +there also is house-room.' There was room enough in that mean inn for +the farmers with their pouches filled with money for the tax, for the +soldiers that swaggered with the pride of empire, for the +village-talebearers with their rude jests; but for a poor woman in the +hour of her need there was no room. She was shut out because there was +not found in that inn any with heart big enough to make room for her. +What was she anyway?—a mere chattel; and what her child?—already +there were too many children; and the only course to adopt was to let +most of them die! And so at its dawn we can see what a mighty change +Christianity has made in the world. Though the mother and the Child +were shut out of the inn and consigned to the asses' stall, yet because +of that mother and Child womanhood is to-day honoured and childhood +most precious. To-day, in whatever land on which the shadow of the +Cross has fallen, there is heart-room and house-room for mother and +child. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +I +</H4> + +<P> +As one reads the old beautiful story, this foot-note that explains how +the Founder of Christianity was born in a stable because 'there was no +room for them in the inn' stirs the mind with a wistful poignancy. The +book slips down on the knees and the imagination awakes. The essence +of nineteen centuries of Christian history is here. The web of all the +centuries is woven after the one pattern. Shut out at His birth, His +fate has been the same ever since. He came with the message of +humanity's renewal. He proclaimed the most revolutionary doctrine ever +preached to men—that the pariahs of humanity, publicans, sinners, +slaves, those ignorant of the law and therefore accursed, were all the +sons of God; and that only one law was requisite, that men should love +one another with a love that gleamed red with sacrificial blood. But +what have men done with this evangel? They have shut it out! It was +too beautiful for their gross hearts and their self-clouded eyes. It +was also very difficult. It required the changed heart and the +transfigured life. And that has always been most difficult—to +transmute the self-centred into the God-centred and all it means. So +men set themselves to circumvent that demand for the surrendered +heart—and they offered the surrendered brain. That is quite easy. +They formulated logical propositions setting forth that thus and thus +God acted, and they said—'Believe this and be saved, or disbelieve and +be damned!' Christianity that came into the world as spirit and life +became mere intellectual gymnastics! And with the name of the Lord of +Love on their lips Christians cheerfully burnt each other because their +definitions differed.... What an amazing fate to overtake the most +beautiful thing that ever was seen on the earth! ... A Borgia sits on +the throne of St. Peter; Calvin burns Servetus; the Jesuit exterminates +his opponents; the Covenanter proclaims that he prefers to die than to +live and see 'this intolerable toleration'; and all the time the Lord +Jesus Christ is shut out. Not wholly shut out, however, for He has in +every age found a shelter and a welcome in the stables and the sheds, +among the ragged, the mean, and the outcasts of humanity. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +II +</H4> + +<P> +It is not only in the great organisations that bear His name that there +has often been found no room for the Christ; but still less has there +been found room for Him in the social order. This great revolutionary +identifies Himself so closely with humanity, that He declares that +whosoever receives a little child and loves it receives and loves Him. +How then do we deal with the Founder of Christianity as He comes to us +in the form of a little child, saying, 'Receive Me'? ... This is the +way we deal with Him. Every five minutes of the day a baby dies +somewhere in the United Kingdom. There are districts in great cities +where two hundred out of one thousand perish in the first year of life. +A third of the possible population die in the years of childhood. The +horrors of war are small compared to the horrors of peace, to which we +have become so inured that we scarce notice them. We have taken the +sunshine and the fresh air and the starlight from millions of our +fellow citizens and shut them up in barracks and surrounded them with +forces of degeneration, and have provided them a narcotic for their +misery, so that womanhood becomes degraded and childhood pines and +dies. Still, after nineteen centuries, Jesus Christ is shut out from +the social order we have laboriously created. And we celebrate +Christmas Day without so much as a sense of incongruity between our +beliefs and our actions. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +II +</H4> + +<P> +One of the weirdest symptoms of decay in our day is the way the whole +social system seems to have conspired to shut out the child. In the +last years property-owners had one condition that was unaltered: they +would not let their houses to tenants with children. 'How many +children and how old are they?' was the deciding question that always +shut the door. The coming of a baby was often the signal that brought +an ejectment warrant. The penalty for bringing a child into the world +was being thrown into the street. The men who filled the inn at +Bethlehem with mirth nineteen centuries ago have had a mighty multitude +who shared their spirit. Rents have been to them more to be desired +than babies. +</P> + +<P> +Here is an advertisement that appeared in the <I>Daily Chronicle</I> of 29th +May 1917: 'Chapel-keepers, man and wife (no children), for large +Congregational church, Central London; must be total abstainers ... 5 +rooms, coal and light provided.—Write ———, hon. secretary, ... E.C. +4.' I forbear giving the name of the Christian church that provides +five rooms for its 'keeper' and slams the door in the face of the +child. (The curious can find it in the files.) Even in this day, when +the child is so precious to the race, one can see unblushing +advertisements for gardeners and lodge-keepers with the clause 'no +children.' That the children of this world should act so is +deplorable; but that the children of the light should have 'five +rooms,' and in them all no place for a cradle—that suggests doom. +Think of that congregation hailing, with songs of rapture, the coming +of the Child; the preacher getting dewy over the callousness of the inn +in Bethlehem—and their own servants forbidden a child! ... It was +something like that which caused a prophet of old to exclaim—'Judgment +begins in the House of God.' +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +IV +</H4> + +<P> +At this Christmastide what we need most is to make room for the Child. +People are ever ready to make room for that which they recognise to be +precious. The most precious thing on earth is goodness. Give any +mother her choice of her son being rich and a rogue, or poor and good; +she will choose poverty. There is no power that builds up men and +women in unselfishness and goodness but the power that is radiated from +Him whose life on earth began in a manger. We must, if need be, cast +away our costliest treasures that we may make room.... In very truth +He cannot now be shut out altogether. No contumely will drive Him +hence. It is different now from the day when a woman groped her way in +agony to the asses and the stall. Different now, for He comes in +through the closed doors. That is how the world has not been able to +destroy Christianity; and that is how the Child conquers at the last. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap10"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER X +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +DOMINION FROM SEA TO SEA +</H4> + +<P> +No part of the Empire rendered the cause of the world's soul in the +world war greater service than Canada. When the clouds of chlorine gas +were let loose it was the Canadians who stopped the gap through which +the torrent of destruction was flowing. And the question the wounded +men gasped out of tortured throats and lungs was not 'Shall I live?' +but 'Did the Huns get through?' In the great host that at last swept +the wolves back to their lair, the Canadians were foremost. 'We pledge +ourselves solemnly before God to keep faith with our fallen comrades,' +wrote General Currie to Sir Robert Borden, and nobly did they fulfil +the pledge. To-day when a citizen of the States begins to demonstrate +how his countrymen won the war, a Canadian produces the official +statistics from his pocket and shows how the ten millions of Canada +gave more of their sons over to death and wounds than the total +casualties of the one hundred and ten millions in the States. And it +is not surprising that Canada should have a clear vision of the ideal +of duty. The very name that their country bears lifts that young +nation into the fellowship of the highest ideal. When a name was +discussed for the new confederation an inspiration came to Sir Leonard +Tilley as he read the eighth verse of the seventy-second psalm: 'He +shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the +ends of the earth,' and on his initiative the name Dominion was +adopted. Not for Canada alone but for the whole Empire that name sets +forth the only ideal. The cry of 'World-dominion or death' can only be +overcome at last by the watchword 'God-dominion and Life.' +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +I +</H4> + +<P> +It is difficult for men to learn the lesson of their own most bitter +experience. Only when the Cross stands far back across the years does +its meaning and purpose faintly gleam on the minds of men. It need be +no matter for surprise that men who did not themselves stand in the +breach of death should be unable to articulate the master-word of the +future. That great word will be—Spirit. What the world gazed on for +four years of woe was the triumph of the spirit. To the men who, +footsore and limping, marched back from Mons, defeat was +incredible—their souls knew not the word. And because victory, even +as they retreated, was in their souls, they swept the enemy back from +the gates of Paris. For four years in mud and misery and defeat the +soul endured and triumphed. It was the greatest of all the soldiers of +France who said to his body as it shrank in his first battle: +'Tremblest thou? If thou knewest the dangers into which I shall this +day carry thee, thou wouldest tremble!' Often and often in these four +years the poor worn suffering body said, 'I have had enough—enough of +mud and vermin—I am fed up; I will do no more,' but when the call of +duty came the soul said to the body, 'I will make you face it, make you +go through with it'; and the soul compelled the body to charge into the +very face of death. It was the spark of the Divine in the soul that +enabled our brothers to conquer the shrinking of flesh and blood and so +to conquer the foe. It is in the measure that armies are souls that +armies conquer. And it has been the same at home in castle and +cot-house. We have but to think of the wives and mothers. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +'They let them go forth at the wheels<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Of the guns and denied not. But then the surprise</SPAN><BR> +When one sits quiet alone! Then one weeps, then one kneels,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">God! how the house feels.'</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +However deeply the iron pierced, there was never a thought of defeat +being even possible. And when the call came the women toiled in the +factories, and the ammunition dumps were their spirit materialised. At +home and in the battle-line the final destiny of every nation depends +upon the soul. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +II +</H4> + +<P> +Still more is the mastery of this word apparent when we consider the +future destiny of the world. One result of the world's blood-bath is +that all thoughtful men are asking, How can the world be saved in the +future? And multitudes discuss the way of the world's salvation by a +League of Nations or other method. By parchments and signatures the +world is to be saved! All that is but the folly with which men have +deceived themselves in all ages. The folly is apparent when we ask, +Whence do wars spring? They spring from greed and lust and +ambition—from the life surrendered to evil. We speak of the horror of +war; what we should speak of is the horror of wickedness. For war is +only a symptom, not the disease. What all these weary discussions +about 'Leagues to make an end of war,' and the new watchword 'No more +war,' aim at is the doing away with the symptom—leaving the disease to +run its deadly course. To suppress symptoms without removal of the +hidden cause is the way of death. What the nations must face is the +disease and its healing! +</P> + +<P> +It is with nations as with individuals! How can a man protect himself +against a thief. He can do it in three ways. He may (1) use force; or +(2) he may make an agreement with the thief—enter into a treaty with +him; or (3) he may endeavour to reform the thief. The first method is +militarism and, whether in the form of armies or policemen, is costly +and uncertain. The second only protects so long as the thief finds it +convenient or in his own interest to keep it. Neither a burglar nor a +robber-state can be warded off by treaties. The third alone provides a +certain protection; the only safety is that the thief experience a +change of spirit—be, in short, converted. 'Admirable,' said Cardinal +Fleury, when a scheme for 'perpetual peace' was submitted to him; +'admirable, save for one omission—I find no provision for sending +missionaries to convert the hearts of princes.' The day of princes is +over, and the day of democracy has come. The first requisite of +perpetual peace is that the nations of the world experience a change of +heart and spirit—should repent. But in all the schemes for ending war +there is no suggestion of sending missionaries to convert the world's +democracies. France has 'extinguished the lights of heaven which none +shall rekindle'; England, if the number of worshippers in the churches +be any gauge, is rapidly sinking back into paganism; and across the +Atlantic the United States is resolved to live unto itself alone, +separating itself from the perishing nations; while on the Continent of +Europe there is but one ritual: 'We did no wrong: we did not begin the +war.' Missionaries to convert the democracies of the world—they are +needed in legions. But such a need is not in all the thoughts of the +orators. They can only think of forming leagues to abolish the +vultures that swoop down on the carcases. They cannot realise that the +only way to make an end of the swooping vulture is to make an end of +carcases. Unless the world experiences a spiritual and moral renewal, +any league that would secure it peace in the midst of its depravity +would only secure its moral doom. It is manifest then that the only +way to abolish war is to bring the body into subjection to the spirit. +The way of salvation is the way of spiritual renewal. Love does not +kill or poison, and humanity's feet need to be guided into the way of +love. Along that road there is but the one guide: He who said 'I am +the way.... Love as I have loved you.' The measure of that love is +the Cross. And that is why the way to salvation leads through +Calvary.... Peace will only come when the kingdoms of this world shall +submit to that kingdom of the soul whose dominion is from sea to sea. +'I find a hundred little indications to reassure one that God comes,' +writes H. G. Wells. 'The time draws near when mankind will awake ... +and there shall be ... no leader but the one God of mankind.' But +though Mr. Wells writes sentences so vital as that, yet when one asks +him what God is—he is silent. Is He holy and righteous? Though Mr. +Wells' God is but an abstraction, yet the truth remains. The coming of +the Kingdom of God is the one hope of mankind—that Kingdom which Jesus +preached. And the entrance into that Kingdom is by way of repentance +and love and faith. When the soul of the world awakes to that, the day +of deliverance shall have dawned. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +III +</H4> + +<P> +This, then, must be the goal of human effort, to bring the nations of +the world into such a unity of spirit that war will no longer be +thinkable. But we, as a nation, can only do this if we ourselves bring +our lives into conformity with the laws of righteousness. It is +manifest that no amount of oratory will enable us to raise the world to +any higher level than we have attained ourselves. +</P> + +<P> +The first duty, then, is to see that we base our own lives on +righteousness. The problem is how to bring to bear on the human heart +those motives that will move it irresistibly towards righteousness. +That road is not easy to travel and the choice of it means effort and +travail. It means a battle against selfishness and self-seeking—a +battle long-drawn-out. Why should men choose that conflict rather than +ease and self-indulgence? There can be no reason save this: that God +wills and enjoins righteousness. But does He? We know very little +about God, and the strange thing is that the more knowledge that comes +to us regarding Him, the more mysterious He becomes. But there is one +thing that we do know with absolute certainty regarding God, and it is +this—that all down the thousands of years of recorded history the +power of the Unseen Ruler of the universe can be traced fighting +against iniquity, burying corrupt nations under the avalanche, digging +the grave for tyranny and corruption. The history of the world is the +history of God making an end of crime. The way to destruction has been +the way of iniquity. That God should have so ordered the universe that +the stars in their courses fight against the Siseras, that all its +forces are at last arrayed for the destruction of evil, is the proof +that God is righteous and holy and that the passion in His heart is +that His children should be righteous and holy. The world, as God +means it, is the school for the training of men and women in +goodness—and so in the image of God.... It is only the call of the +Unseen Ruler as He summons His children to bring their lives into +unison with Himself, that can turn the feet into the way of +righteousness. There is no impelling force equal to the choice of good +rather than evil except this—that God wills goodness. No other motive +save that can turn the faces of men towards the heights. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +IV +</H4> + +<P> +The greatest of all questions then is this—how most efficiently to +bring that motive to bear upon the nation. It is in the early and +plastic years that the destiny of individuals is fixed. If anywhere, +it is in our schools that our children shall learn the things out of +which are the issues of life and death. What atmosphere shall we +surround our children with in our schools? is the supreme question. +'To educate without religion is only to produce clever devils,' +declared the Duke of Wellington in his downright way. And as a nation +we have made sure of everything being taught—except religion. No +government-inspector ever asks about it! +</P> + +<P> +What a waste it all is and what a travesty—this pumping of facts and +figures into the weary, jaded brains of little children. Only five per +cent. or so of the people are capable of benefiting by a long process +of education—yet everybody must be confined in dreary barracks from +five to fifteen years, learning things that will never be of use and +are straightway forgotten. We ordained that all the children should be +taught, but in our usual blundering fashion we never settled what we +should teach them. The child looks out on a world of wonder, and +proves its wisdom by peopling every grove and every hill with fairies. +For the child the world is spiritual. And it comes to us and asks how +came it and why came it? But our legislators decreed that, so far as +they were concerned, the child should be taught geography and the names +of rivers and hills, but not about the God who made the rivers and +hills and the world; botany, but not about the God who made the grass +and the flowers; physiology, but not about the God who fashioned man; +dates of kings and of battles, but not about the God whose providence +is written over all history; about laws, but not about the Source of +all law—the divine commands that regulate human action. The only part +of man that the educators considered was the brain. If they +intellectualised the race they deemed that the millennium would come. +They did it. But the millennium is further off than ever. They caused +all the people to go through the mills where knowledge was ground out; +they learned to read and write. The only consequence was that they +became the victims of every charlatan. They turned their arithmetic +into roguery and their literature into lust. They became the victims +of the gamblers and the betting touts. They pursued the missing words +and became the disciples of demagogues. And salvation has tarried +though the brain has been nurtured. Yes! there has come a vast +progress! London in the next war can be completely destroyed by +spraying it with gas bombs—in eight hours! Education, with God left +out, will, then, have come to its fruition! +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +V +</H4> + +<P> +National education will only become a means of deliverance from evil +when our schools shall have been transformed into the nurseries of +goodness. For after all, what we need is good men and women. Clever +men are as common as berries; what the world cries for is men who can +be trusted, men whose motive will be the welfare of others and not +their own. 'His fame was immense,' was the verdict on a Roman patriot; +'his private property was so scanty that there was not enough to pay +the expenses of his funeral. He was buried at the public cost. The +matrons mourned him as they mourned Brutus.' Ah! the terrible thing is +not to die poor but to die with a character no man honours. To train +our children to love and desire goodness is our need. The history of +the ages is the proof that goodness cannot flourish apart from +religion. And the Bible tells the story of the dealing of God with +men—of the evolution of religion. It is that which constitutes the +supreme value of the book. +</P> + +<P> +But no book has suffered more at the hands of its friends than has the +Bible. The Bible is an Eastern book, and it is filled with glowing +metaphors and parables. Dull, unimaginative Western minds said: 'These +are literally true, and unless you believe them so you are lost.' The +writer of the beautiful book of Jonah wrote a story rebuking the narrow +spirit of the Jews, and his book has become the citadel of all the +narrow souls who see nothing in it but the whale. Children should be +taught that science and religion cannot contradict each other, because +they both are revelations of the one God; that the Bible is full of +poetry and parables which the writers never meant that any should +mistake for treatises; that the slaughter of the Canaanites and the +psalms of cursing are no more of the essence of religion, than the +Stuart tyranny the essence of Scotland; that the serpent in the garden +and Jonah in the whale are parables; that religion, in short, is a +flowing and deepening river and not a stagnant pool. But religion as +too often taught in our schools is only the teaching of things which +the growing boy discovers to be untrue. So far from doing good, it is +the destruction of religion. +</P> + +<P> +When the Bible is taught as the record of the evolution of the +revelation of God, it will move the hearts of men towards goodness +while time endures, for it enshrines the figure of Him who based a +Kingdom on love and meekness—a Kingdom that endures for ever, because +no guns can fight against a Spirit, nor any frontiers bar it. The +education that has not this as its base may produce the chlorine +gas—but it will never produce that goodness which alone maketh great. +But the course is so crowded that something must be jettisoned. And as +inspectors take no note of religion—let it be thrown overboard. Its +total omission in Secondary Schools is declared necessary, because the +syllabus is too crowded already! It is as if a man having a ship laden +with dross were offered some nuggets of fine gold and answered, 'My +ship is overloaded already, I cannot take more.' But he wouldn't be +such a fool. He would throw everything overboard, if need be, to make +room! +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +VI +</H4> + +<P> +In the last year of the Great War a new Education Bill was passed for +the Northern Kingdom, and provision was made for everything but the +teaching of religion. At every election the voters who desire that +religion be continued must have another spell of sentry-go to secure +it—all except Roman Catholics and Episcopalians! Truly we are of the +race of the Bourbons. The expense of teaching has been trebled; the +futility of what is taught remains as before. I heard the Chairman of +an Education Authority being asked whether provision was made in the +schools for teaching the children the scientific facts about alcohol. +He replied that the syllabus was too crowded already! Alcohol has +claimed more victims from humanity than all the wars and famines of all +the centuries; and yet our children were not to be taught the truth +about it because the syllabus was so crowded! What is it they teach +that could compare in value with the truths of temperance and +self-discipline? Through a course of training so expensive that the +countryside is well-nigh bankrupt because of its cost, the children +pass and they go forth into the world unwarned of the rocks and shoals +on which the millions have perished.... That, at this time of day, we +should shut the doors of our schools against the knowledge of God, in +whose love alone men can find their healing, and against the teaching +of truth and temperance, which alone can make children grow in +character and goodness, seems possible only on the supposition that we +have been bereft of our judgment. 'If they do abolish God from their +poor bewildered hearts,' said Carlyle, 'all or most of them, there will +be seen for some length of time, perhaps for some centuries, such a +world as few are dreaming of.' +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap11"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XI +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +THERE WERE IN THE SAME COUNTRY SHEPHERDS +</H4> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +'He would denounce the horrors of Christmas until it almost made me +blush to look at a hollyberry.'—EDMUND GOSSE'S <I>Father and Son</I>. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +The world is moving so fast that, before each nightfall, yesterday is +forgotten. Sitting here before the fire I have been stirring up my +memory, and, out of the subconscious, queer recollections have emerged. +I can see now the grim-faced Highland minister demonstrating in the +month of December to his perfect satisfaction that the Founder of +Christianity was born in midsummer, and that Christmas was but a pagan +festival sprinkled over with holy water so-called. I think it was the +first time I heard of Christmas. That good man denounced the horrors +of Christmas with such zest that I, too, would have blushed to look at +a hollyberry—only no holly grew in that part of the Isle. And that +was so not because the Isle was remote and the folk spoke there an +ancient and little-known language that segregated them from the great +life of the world. It was the same in great centres very conscious of +their own culture. It was really only yesterday that Walter Smith was +dealt with by his presbytery for holding the first Christmas service in +his church in Edinburgh. But we have travelled far since that +particular yesterday, and I am glad that the children of to-day will +never need to blush before a hollyberry. For from the Solway to the +Pentland Firth the church bells everywhere to-day summon the people to +keep holy day and go on pilgrimage to Bethlehem. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +I +</H4> + +<P> +There was never a time when the people of this land needed more to go +on such a pilgrimage. There are ample signs that Mammon has captured +the hearts of this generation. The day is gone on which Ruskin +declared that there is no wealth but life. We have outlived that. A +full bank account and an empty house—that is our modern wealth. The +rich flaunt their riches in a world seething with discontent. And the +aforetime quiescent masses now demand that Mammon should smile on them. +Society may perish, but they must have their full share in the largesse +of Mammon. On the altar of that god duty and patriotism are laid as +the meet offering. 'Great is Mammon,' is the burden of the praise of +our day. And what a god before whom to bow the knee! +</P> + +<P> +It is only when I go on pilgrimage to-day to the grotto in the rock in +which the asses were stabled in Bethlehem and to the stall where the +Child is laid that I can realise the vulgarity and the meanness of +Mammon. Out of that manger there issued a power compared to which all +other influences that moulded men are as the rushlight to the sun; in +that stable lies the fountain out of which sprang the river that has +borne on its bosom for nineteen centuries all of beauty and of truth +and of love wherewith humanity has been blessed; and yet all that came +out of the direst poverty. Mammon had no smile for the greatest and +most radiant thing in all the world's history. Money secures at least +food and shelter, and it was because they had none that the innkeeper +shut them out. If they could have showed him a purse full of gold +pieces, he would soon have made room. And all the life of this Jesus +was woven after that pattern. The cheapest food sold then were +sparrows. It was because He was often sent to buy them that He knew +that two of them were sold in the market place for a farthing. The +patched garment is the symbol of poverty—or used to be! And He knew +all about garments being patched and patched until they were past +mending. At the eventide when the boy James brought a coat to be +mended He heard His mother say with a weary sigh: 'I have mended this +again and again: nobody can keep boys in decent clothes; so different +from girls; a new patch will just tear a bigger hole in the old.' +Often He saw His mother cast a half-farthing into the treasury, for she +had nought else. The tax-gatherer comes, and there isn't a coin to +pay. Jesus gave much, but He never gave any money, for He had none to +give. He was homeless for three years, deemed mad by His family, with +no place where to lay His head. A grave given in charity receives Him +at the last. The place of Jesus from the manger to the grave is among +the poorest of the poor. He belonged to the great class of the +disinherited. If the greatest thing on earth sprang from poverty such +as this, then surely Christmas pours the contempt of heaven upon Mammon. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +II +</H4> + +<P> +We have only to look at him with eyes cleansed by gazing at the Child +in the manger and we realise how tawdry a god this Mammon is. What can +he do for us? Nothing of any worth. He has never minted a coinage +which can buy the inspiration of a noble thought, which can purchase +love for the starved heart, or can endow a man with the vision and the +faculty divine. One has but to consider a moment and he will realise +the poverty-stricken condition of Mammon's devotees. They can command +speed on earth or in the air; they can fly a hundred miles an hour; but +what is the good when at the end of the hundred miles they are as at +the beginning—sated, restless, and dissatisfied? They can command no +speed by which they can escape from themselves. And it is vain to wing +a flight upwards through the air if heaven be empty overhead; vain to +alight five hundred miles away if on earth there be no temple, no holy +day, no shrine at which to worship. 'You own the land,' said the poor +painter to the new-rich who boasted his land: 'you own the land but I +own the landscape.' The great gift is to own the landscape. And no +money ever bought that. The only thing Mammon can do is to secure +food, shelter, and clothes. It can also secure freedom from work—but +that is a freedom shared with the tramp. Life is greater far than +livelihood; and the worshippers of Mammon lose the very essence and the +end of life in a vain pursuit of the means of living. +</P> + +<P> +That is the witness raised by Christmas as it calls the nations to +realise the true greatness of man. To a generation that has made life +a hectic rush after money and pleasure, Christmas testifies that to +estimate any man by the money he owns is to blaspheme against the Child +laid in the manger. The wealth of Croesus makes him but the prey of +the conqueror, and the dust of centuries has buried the pomp and glory +of emperors. But this Child, cradled in poverty, reigns from +generation to generation. The voice of an Alexander or a Napoleon +would to-day cause no heart to beat quicker; but millions would die for +Him. And that because He alone revealed to men the things that are +unpurchasable, the riches that are unseen. He alone made men realise +that a man's life consisteth not in the things that he possesseth, but +rather in the thoughts that he thinks, in the motives that sway his +action; in the ideals towards which he presses; in the God whom he +worships and makes his own. How great a revolution He made. That one +hour in the manger has changed the world. Every time I sit down to +write a letter and head it 1922 I bear witness to the truth—that the +world I know began when a Child laid in the manger brought to earth the +realisation that all the great and noble things in life can be +mine—though my raiment be shabby and though my banker never thinks it +worth his while to throw me even a word when I reluctantly pass in +through his swing door. What a wonderful new wine He brought, and how +generously does He pour it into our bottles. Still new—after nineteen +centuries! Still bursting the old bottles on all sides! I can be +quite patient. There is no need for passionately tearing them in +pieces. Nineteen centuries! What are they in the arithmetic of +eternity! Give the Child time—and all the bottles of Mammon and +vulgarity will at last be burst. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +III +</H4> + +<P> +No wonder Christmas sends a glow of warmth round the heart, and causes +joy bells to ring in the souls of even the drooping. It is to-day as +it was of old, when the disciples—poor, dull, purblind men—were +disputing even near the end as to which of them would have the greater +position and the greater wealth and honour. And Jesus placed a little +child in the midst and said, 'Except ye be converted, and become as a +little child, ye cannot enter the kingdom.' And in a world weary of +disputing, sated with strife as to who is to have the higher place and +the greater portion, Christmas places the Child in the midst and says, +'Except ye be converted...' What men need is not the sharing of a +booty, but the regenerating of a Spirit. The faith, the trust, the +purity, the love of the childlike spirit—that's what we need. What we +do or what we get matters nought, if only that spirit be in the heart. +One man may whirl past in a Rolls-Royce, befurred, bejewelled, and may +be the most pauperised soul on earth; while the stone-breaker at the +roadside may be the inheritor of all things and rich beyond all dreams. +Christmas is the surety of that. That was the wisdom of 'Stonecracker +John,' who sang:— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +'The good Lord made the earth and sky,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The river and the sea—and me!</SPAN><BR> +He made no roads, but here am I<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">As happy as can be;</SPAN><BR> +For it is just as if he said—<BR> +"John, that's the job for thee."<BR> +And so in my appointed place,<BR> +By God's good grace,<BR> +I work, according to his plan,<BR> +And would not change with any man.'<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +To-day, as it has done for the centuries and the years that are so many +that one wearies in counting them, Christmas throws the halo of beauty +over all shepherds abiding in the fields calling on their dogs; over +all toilers in mines and workshops; over all stonebreakers and +street-sweepers; over all mothers and all babes. It proclaims to-day +with a voice whose certainty changes not that the man who serves Mammon +and gains the world while he loses his soul makes a grievous and a +profitless barter. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap12"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XII +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +THE FULNESS OF THE TIME +</H4> + +<P> +If there be no will guiding the affairs of men towards a predestined +end, what a meaningless welter it all is! What a record of wars and +feuds, of rising and of perishing empires, of civilisations born and +civilisations overwhelmed: in very truth +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 4em">'A tale</SPAN><BR> +Told by an idiot: full of sound and fury<BR> +Signifying nothing.'<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +There is unity and a new dignity in the tale when one gets up on a hill +and sees it in far perspective. Things did not happen by chance. +There was through it all a purpose at work, welding humanity together +with the cement of blood, throwing down the barriers of race and +language, silencing the sound of tumult and war until at last the song +is heard on the plain of Bethlehem that has sung itself into the hearts +of men, ushering in the dawn of peace and goodwill. In the fulness of +the time the Child was laid in the manger. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +I +</H4> + +<P> +Every advance of humanity in its upward struggle has sprung from some +divine dissatisfaction. It was the fulness of the time in that the +world, disillusioned and dissatisfied, realised its need. The Greek +found no answer for their moral needs in the pantheon of gods that +filled the heart with the passion for beauty alone. Socrates before +drinking the hemlock advised his disciples to search for another +teacher; but that other could not be found. The only remedy for the +ills of man that they discovered was that he should cut himself loose +from the world—a gospel of suicide. The Roman made a god of power. +But when he had conquered the world, invested it with roads and bridges +and by force had imposed peace on it, then he confronted the awful +mystery of his own personality, and his questioning was baffled by a +silence in which there was no voice nor any that answered. His gods +became objects of derision. In the gratification of his bodily +cravings he sought to lull the hunger of his soul. At last Rome +presented the dread spectacle of a Nero who was at once 'a priest, an +atheist, and a god.' There is preserved a record which visualises the +awful depths to which that pagan world descended. Nero had murdered +his mother, and he comes back to Rome nervous as to how the people will +receive him. But the citizens poured out to meet him in their +thousands, and rent the welkin with their shouts of welcome—'Hail, +Nero, the god!' If that world was to be saved, it had to be saved +then. If God was ever to intervene in the affairs of men, He had to +intervene then. The extremity of man was God's opportunity. The +Unseen Ruler must either come and deliver a world such as that or +abdicate. The coming of the Child was a necessity. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +II +</H4> + +<P> +It is very hard to understand how things do happen; and our only +comfort is that we really understand nothing. We have in these last +years been mesmerised into thinking that we understand a great deal +when in reality we understand nothing at all. We camouflage our +ignorance by speaking of law—but what is it? Why do like causes +produce a like result always? No answer. We used to explain the +heavens by gravitation. What is it? No answer. We ushered in the new +age of electricity. What is it! Silence! There is no reason, then, +for rebelling against the fact that we cannot understand the greatest +of all mysteries—the coming of God more fully into the lives of men. +All we can hope to do is to realise how natural it is that God should +so come to men. As the years pass that thought becomes more and more +natural. In other days God was thought of as dwelling far removed from +the world. That is not now the great thought regarding God. 'Whatever +sort of being God may be,' writes William James, 'He is nevermore that +mere external inventor of contrivances intended to manifest His glory +in which our great-grandfathers took such satisfaction.' (The +conception of our great-grandfathers may have been limited; but it is +more important that we should try to be as good men as they were.) +This conception of 'an absentee God outside the world watching it go,' +has given place to another. The world is now realised as spiritual +through and through; the shrine of an indwelling life. God is in the +world, has always been in the world, and man's reasoning and loving is +but a reflection of his Maker's reason and love. Through all the weary +centuries God has been with men, in men, striving with their spirits, +never absent from them, the source of all their aspirations, visions, +and dreams. If that be so, it is the most natural thing in all history +that in the fulness of the time, when the need was greatest, God should +come in fuller measure into the lives that He had made. Surely natural +that the glows and flashes preceding the dawn should at last break +forth into the glory of the sunrise. God, who has been with man from +the dawn, guiding and leading, at last in the noontide speaks with the +articulate Word, making His purpose clear. If once we realise that +there has never been an impassable chasm between God and man, then the +incredible becomes credible. For this is not an isolated event; it is +rather the beginning of another great stage in man's spiritual +evolution by which God comes and dwells more and more in the hearts of +men, becoming incarnate in lives risen from the dead; in souls renewed +after His image. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +III +</H4> + +<P> +With us, too, it is the fulness of the time. If God intervenes when +the need is sorest, and when man realises the need—then we can well +cherish the expectation that another manifestation of God is at hand. +Nineteen centuries ago He came to a world whose religion was dead. +With us it is not dead; it is sore stricken. The glow has vanished, +and those who bow down in the house of God in our day do so largely +from force of habit, and not because they believe. Religion to-day +curbs few evils, and is powerless against the selfishness that +sacrifices the well-being of nations on the altars of self-interest. +And, just as in Rome the unrest of soul made the degenerate a prey to +every charlatan and soothsayer that came out of the East, so the +spiritual hunger of our day brings men and women to crystal-gazers and +table-rappers, bowing down before every superstition, however gross. +And if the Rome of the Cęsars sought to allay its soul hunger at the +banquets of pleasure, so also with us. Low forms of pleasure have led +the multitudes captive. The London of Charles II. could not hold a +candle to the London or Glasgow of to-day in the way of refinements of +material sensation. The old cry of 'bread and circuses' has given +place to the cry of dancing-halls and doles! In that old world at last +there was no room for the cradle in the family life—the babe was shut +out. And so to-day. There is every sign that God must again intervene +and save, or the civilisation we know will be buried with the +civilisations of all the past. The fountain of inspiration, of +cleansing, of righteousness must be opened afresh, and its reviving +waters sent flowing over all the land. Unless God does so come there +is no hope. But all history is the proof that He will so come. We can +hear the rumble of His chariot wheels as He comes. Here and there the +Spirit is moving on the face of the waters. Of old it was shepherds +and fishermen who first received the glad tidings. That fishermen +should be the first to feel the coming outrush of spiritual power in +our day is wholly natural. The glad tidings of Christmas is that God +is ever coming to His own. The duty laid upon us is that we prepare +His way, and make room for Him. It will be a new Edinburgh and a new +Glasgow when the renewing Spirit shall have swept through them. It is +the one hope. In Melrose Abbey there is an old inscription, 'When +Jesus comes the shadows depart.' Some monk who felt the shadows +gathering round him realised Christ as a living presence—and the +shadows were wafted away. And he carved the words. And our shadows +will vanish when He who lay in the manger will come again, in the +fulness of His reviving and quickening Spirit. Then God will again +work marvels in transfigured lives and in nations reborn. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +IV +</H4> + +<P> +There are some good people to whom the word Revival is anathema. There +have always been such people. 'Their doctrines are most repulsive, and +strongly tinctured with impertinence and disrespect to their +superiors,' wrote the Duchess of Buckingham to Lady Huntingdon, +regarding the early Methodists. 'It is monstrous to be told that you +have a heart as sinful as the common wretches that crawl the earth. +This is highly insulting, and I wonder that your Ladyship should relish +any sentiment so much at variance with high rank and good breeding.' +Yet it was that same Revival of religion in the days of Wesley and +Whitefield that saved England when the evil days befell in the end of +the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth. There is +no nobler figure in all history than that of John Wesley riding over +the whole country, reading as he rode, contesting all England for God, +everywhere wakening the dead. To duchesses and highly refined folk +that Revival seemed to be 'repulsive' and 'monstrous.' Religion was +good enough in its own place, but it must not interfere with their +amusements. They wanted their religion well iced. To-day when only +another such outrush of spiritual energy can save a poor sick world, +there is no need to trouble about the mocker. There is only reason to +rejoice that there are manifest stirrings in the depths of human life +which no earthly theory can explain. Often and often on wearied men +there comes the breath of a new life, and armies, long worn out, arise +and snatch redemption out of ruin. The prelude to these triumphs of +the Spirit has always been a sense of expectation springing up +mysteriously out of the depths. That expectation is wholly natural. +We have come through the most awful carnival of blood and tears in the +world's history, and so far there has been no result commensurate with +the sacrifice. The old world is dead and the new tarries while men are +left +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +'Wandering between two worlds, one dead,<BR> +The other powerless to be born,'<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +If man's extremity be God's opportunity, then, once more, it is the +fulness of the time. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap13"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XIII +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +VICTORY OUT OF RUIN +</H4> + +<P> +The world has always been a hard place for minorities. Majorities are +capable of crimes which, as individuals, they would shrink from in +horror. And no crimes that stain the pages of history can equal in +ghastly cruelty those which have been perpetrated under the influence +of religious passions. The Founder of Christianity was crucified at +the frenzied call of those who were the most devout and religious of +their day. The Pharisees prayed nine hours a day! Their cry, +'Crucify! Crucify!' still rings in the ear. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +I +</H4> + +<P> +Human nature has not changed very much in these nineteen centuries. +And the majority of mankind are still pretty much as they were. There +is not much good in getting suffused with sentiment over a minority of +one crucified so long ago. It is more important to realise that the +grim tragedy is for ever and for ever being repeated. It is a grim +thought to think that the very passions of self-righteousness and +self-interest which crucified the Galilean are now operating in His +name. In a little village in the Hebrides well known to me, four +Presbyterian churches celebrate the Communion in August. Here they +are—the Parish Church; the United Free Church; the Free Church; the +Free Presbyterian Church! If you attended a service in any of these +you would not know any difference between them. On all vital matters +they are at one. But there they are in the very name of Christ +negating His purpose and breaking His law. For His purpose is to unite +men together; bring them into the fellowship and unity of love. And +they break up that small community into four fragments—and they do it +from the highest motives and under the sanctions of the name of the +Highest. They act exactly as the Pharisees acted nineteen centuries +ago. They too were moved by the highest motives; they too had a +passion for the Sabbath. The Christians to-day, like the Pharisee of +old, make the gospel vain by their traditions. If He came Himself and +said to them, 'You are wrong: my law is that ye love one another: the +sign of my faithful followers is the love their lives evince,' ... He +wouldn't be listened to. They would not cry 'Crucify.' ... No! They +would only give Him a nickname and declare that He had no right +principles! ... But it isn't in remote villages one beholds that. It +can be seen anywhere. Moderators and bishops and dignitaries have met +for a quarter of a century in Edinburgh to knock at the door of heaven +with petitions asking God to unite them! And they will meet +anywhere—in licensed premises even—except in a church; they will do +anything except have the Communion together.... And they go on +praying! To-day the very bigotry that sent the Lord stumbling to +Calvary under a Cross is glorified by the name of Christ. That to-day +is His crucifixion. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +II +</H4> + +<P> +That, however, is but half a truth. When we take long views we can +realise that there is no day in the year when we have more right to +cherish the spirit of hope than on this day when the world waits for +the Easter joy bells: Rejoice, Rejoice. The message of a day such as +this is that no cause that has in it the seed of righteousness, however +feeble it may be and however overwhelming its opponents, need give way +to despair. There never was a minority so feeble on the face of the +earth as these Galileans whose Master had been crucified. The cause +was lost. They had not even understood what He had tried to teach +them. While He spoke of a kingdom not of this world they could think +of nothing but pitiful thrones such as Herod's! They left Him in a +minority of one—and that minority was crucified. Nobody in all the +wide world knew or understood why He hung there.... He who was to +smash the Gentiles, as the Jew believed, was there crucified by +Gentiles; He who was innocent was stamped for ever with the criminal's +brand—done to death with two thieves. If ever there was an end made +of any cause there was an end made of that personified by the Carpenter +of Nazareth. The majority trampled the minority into extinction. +</P> + +<P> +The body can be crucified and can be sealed up in a tomb, but +majorities are powerless against the spirit. When his disciples asked +Socrates where they would bury him he replied: 'You can bury me +anywhere if you can catch me!' The soul can never be caught; can never +be sealed up in a tomb. The wind bloweth where it listeth; and no +walls, however high, can imprison it; no tomb hold it. Out of the dust +the new life arose—the life of the spirit. And suddenly men realised +that a kingdom not of this world—an empire without legions—was not +only thinkable and possible, but was actually established. So has it +always been since: the perishing of the body has been but the +triumphing of the spirit. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +III +</H4> + +<P> +One of the miracles of history is the way in which that crucified ideal +arose and conquered; in which peasants and fishermen went forth to sow +the seed of an invisible kingdom beneath the feet of militarists and +tyrants, who though they rooted it up could never destroy it, until at +last the minority was transformed into a majority. And that same +miracle is for ever being repeated. What happened then happens now. +And there are two reasons for that. The first is that man is much +nobler than he is himself aware of. Beneath the subliminal +consciousness there are untold riches—golden ore waiting to be mined. +Under the influence of the herd-instinct and of crowd-psychology a man +can on Friday yell, Crucify! Crucify! but on Saturday he may enter the +valley of repentance and be made anew. Memory awakes in him when he is +alone. He recalls the face and the words of the Crucified; doubts +arise as to whether it was right—that cry of Crucify. No malefactor +could have borne himself like that.... Long-forgotten feelings are let +loose. Truly that Man had a regal spirit. However much a man may +sink, he never sinks below the capacity of feeling the contagion of a +triumphant spirit. Where is the man who cannot thrill as he hears +Livingstone say, 'I'll go anywhere, provided it is forward'? It is in +that hidden depth the hope of humanity lies. The cause that seems lost +rallies to its side the multitudes that no sooner do the wrong than +they are smitten with shame therefor and repent thereof. From the +ranks of its enemies the cause of righteousness ever recruits its most +valiant fighters. The Sauls are transformed into Pauls, and powerless +minorities into triumphing majorities. +</P> + +<P> +Not only are the laws of the spirit on the side of the righteous +minority, but also the laws of the universe. The cause of reform +cannot ultimately be defeated because the unchanging laws of nature are +arrayed against evil. The great ally of every righteous minority is +death. That was how Christianity conquered at the first. The +Christians lived righteous lives, and by the very laws of life outlived +the Pagans. So is it now. The life of self-indulgence and +self-interest has no vitality to resist. Death removes it. The ranks +of the devotees of pleasure are being swiftly depleted. Death is the +great ally of righteousness. The multitude, who wanted to turn back to +Egypt, 'died by the plague before the Lord' in the wilderness. Some +virulent influenza came—and they hadn't the stamina to resist! ... +That's how majorities vanish and room is made for the vigorous and +healthy minority to possess the land. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +IV +</H4> + +<P> +The Calvaries of Christ are to-day everywhere. Wherever a child +hungers or perishes, wherever men and women decay and die, there He, +who identifies Himself with men, is again crucified. Where little +babies die, 200 out of every thousand; where in proportion to the +number of licensed premises is the death-rate among the babes—there He +is crucified. Here, in this capital city, an hour in the evening has +been added to the hours on which the monopolists in alcohol prey on the +people, that more homes may be ruined and more children perish. It +seems utterly hopeless. What is the use of trying to arouse people so +dead to the decencies of life as this? But, to-morrow, the city will +begin to be ashamed. The Church will begin to rouse itself. When Lord +Shaftesbury was toiling to free 35,000 children from five to thirteen +years in Lancashire alone from the Moloch of the factory he wrote—'The +sinners are with me and the saints against me.' That is indeed weird: +how often has the Church looked on, indifferent, while wrong triumphed. +There is nothing more pathetic than to see the Church mustering up +courage to condemn what the world has already judged and set aside! ... +But to-day the message that comes across all the centuries to the heart +of all minorities struggling for the right is this—'Be of good cheer: +victory is on the way: though it tarry, wait for it!' The darkness of +Calvary is but the prelude to the triumph of Easter morning. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<HR> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap14"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +STAND UP, YE DEAD +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +3rd Edition, 3s. 6d. net. +</H4> + +<P STYLE="margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%"> +'It is a book that shakes the heart.... We know no man who has seen +into the heart and verity of things more clearly, "Awake thou that +sleepest...." In the hands of a master in Israel the same thrilling, +disturbing cry will wake men from their apathy and complacency.'—<I>The +British Weekly</I>. +</P> + +<P STYLE="margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%"> +'One of our prophetic voices is Norman Maclean.... Some people do not +know how dead they are, and others do not know how much life there is +in the apparently dead. Let both sorts read this book and awake.... A +terrible chapter is called "The Slum in the Man."'—<I>Public Opinion</I>. +</P> + +<P STYLE="margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%"> +'Unless you have the heart of a Kaiser it must thrill you through and +through.'—<I>From Defeat or Victory</I>, by ABTHUR MEE and J. STUART HOLDEN. +</P> + +<P STYLE="margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%"> +'There are few writers in whom sympathetic insight and uncompromising +moral judgment, mystic intuition and prophetic fire, are so perfectly +blended.'—<I>The Christian</I>. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +HODDER AND STOUGHTON LTD. LONDON +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<HR> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="noindent" STYLE="margin-left: 10%"> +<I>BY THE SAME AUTHOR</I> +<BR><BR> +DWELLERS IN THE MIST<BR> +HILLS OF HOME<BR> +CAN THE WORLD BE WON FOR CHRIST?<BR> +THE BURNT-OFFERING<BR> +AFRICA IN TRANSFORMATION<BR> +THE GREAT DISCOVERY<BR> +STAND UP, YE DEAD<BR> +GOD AND THE SOLDIER<BR> +LIFE OF JAMES CAMERON LEES<BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Victory out of Ruin, by Norman Maclean + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VICTORY OUT OF RUIN *** + +***** This file should be named 33637-h.htm or 33637-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/3/6/3/33637/ + +Produced by Al Haines + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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