came a wave of emotion. He flung his head back, and his eyes glowed. His voice vibrated through the church. "When I think," he exclaimed, "of the things that have been done with the name of God on men's lips; of atrocities such as the unspeakable Turk never perpetrated; of war waged not upon to-day but upon the centuries of faith that reared great cathedrals now in flames; of women and children laid upon the reeking altars of human passion; and all this in the name of culture, the culture of the superman who deems himself superior to the Ten Commandments—then, I say, may God grant that the culture which beareth such fruit may perish from off the face of the earth. Prayer for the triumph of such a cause cannot be in Christ's name...."

But the preacher never got any further.

This was what happened, and I am afraid some will not believe me, for a Scotsman in church is a stoic, motionless and dumb, as he listens to the Word. But all the traditions of the parish were snapped in a second. In the side gallery sat the General, sitting as he always does with his back to the minister. This he does that he may mark who are in church of his servants and tenants, and who absent.

When I read of the nobles in France who went to the scaffold with a jest in the days of the Terror, I always think of the General. He is that sort of man. To-day, little by little, as the sermon went on, he turned round. At last he was facing the pulpit. His gleaming eyes were fixed on the preacher. His son was dead. And when the words rang through the church, may God grant that such culture may perish ... the General sprang to his feet. "Amen" rang his voice through the church.

There was a sudden movement; as one man they all rose to their feet. Hands were lifted up to heaven. "Amen," "Amen," they cried—and then there rose a cheer—muffled, but still a cheer. In the pulpit the words died on the preacher's lips. He seemed as one suddenly stricken. He gazed bewildered over the sea of faces. They sank back into the pews as though suddenly ashamed.

The last man to sit was my friend, who stood to the last with uplifted hand. I think it was he who cried "Hear, hear"—the only sign he gave of his long absence from church. The sermon was never finished. The preacher in a low voice said, "Let us pray." And he humbled himself as one who enters the valley of humiliation. And then he gave out this psalm:—

Now Israel
May say, and that truly,
If that the Lord
Had not our cause maintained;
*     *     *     *     *
Then certainly
They had devoured us all.
*     *     *     *     *
But blessed be God,
Who doth us safely keep,
And hath not giv'n
Us for a living prey
Unto their teeth,
And bloody cruelty.
*     *     *     *     *

This psalm as we sang it that day was a pæan of triumph. The clouds suddenly broke. We heard our fathers singing it in their dark days. The melody wedded to the words soared in exultant triumph, wailed like the cry of the shingle swept by the surf; the sighing of the wind over the heather was in it, and the hissing of the storm through the spray. It was fierce as devouring death; it was gentle as a mother crooning over her child. It put iron into the blood of our fathers as they sang it.

It was nerved by such a hymn that the sailors of Queen Elizabeth swept the main, that the Puritans wrestled with principalities and powers, that a handful of moors-men levelled despotism and tyranny to the ground. It swept through our blood like flame as we in our day of stress now sang it. We, too, would pull down strongholds and turn to flight the armies of the alien. In all ages the cause of freedom triumphed, and that cause was ours. We had entered on conflict with clean hands and, God helping us, we would wage it with clean hands. The clouds suddenly broke and the light of victory irradiated our faces. There came overwhelmingly the realisation that there was a power behind us mightier far than sword or shell—even the Lord God Omnipotent. And that was how we made the greatest of all discoveries—we found God.

Yesterday morning I went early to the station, and there in the booking office I found my friend talking to the ticket-collector. The ticket-collector is a philosopher, and he comes to church, because he loves the old psalm tunes. But when one of our parishioners who goes now and then to Keswick comes to the booking office, the ticket-collector calls him in and reasons with him gently.

"Mahn, there's naething in it," he says; "I can tell you for a fact there's naething in it—all a whack of fables." "Some day you'll find out to your cost that there's something in it," flashes the man from Keswick. "If ye wad only reid philosophee," says the ticket-collector, "ye would ken better." But to-day my friend and the ticket-collector had their heads close together, and I only heard the conclusion of their argument. "Mahn," said the ticket-collector, "I am beginning to think there may be something in it."

And in the evening near the top of the brae I saw the General standing erect with his little cane in his hand. He was talking to the shoemaker, the greatest Radical in the parish—one of a party with which the General has no dealings. But they talked like brothers. For the shoemaker has a son fighting at the front, and his heart is sore troubled within him. And the General's son is dead. And as I came up the brae I saw the General putting his hand on the shoemaker's shoulder and turn away, walking slowly up the brae. The old shoemaker saluted and came down the brae. There was a tender look in the old man's eye as he greeted me.

In our parish we have truly made the greatest of all discoveries. We have found God, and, finding Him, we have found each other. The man who in his madness kindled the lurid flames of war little dreamed of this fire which he kindled.

II

The Revival of Patriotism

II

There has come to us in these days a revival of the spirit of patriotism. That revival has come when it was sorely needed. In days of unclouded prosperity other gods called forth our devotion and enthusiasm, but the God of our Fathers who made us a great nation and sent us to sow the seeds of righteousness beside all waters, bestowing upon us empire and might, was well-nigh forgotten.

For the new man "words like Empire, Patriotism, Duty, Honour, Glory and God" had little or no meaning. Causes for which the fathers died could not evoke an added heart-beat from their sons. They cared so little for the mighty empire which they inherited that they contemplated the bloodshed of civil war—so hot was their zeal for party and so cold their love for the state.

It was necessary that discipline should come. And that discipline came, shaking the very foundations of our national life. Its first fruit is that the smouldering fires of patriotism have broken forth once more into bright flame; and that everywhere the hearts of the people have been stirred by the call to arise and endure hardness that the goodly heritage of empire perish not. And preachers in a thousand pulpits have sounded the trumpet-note of duty and of patriotism.

It has been said that preachers should aim at making the churches sanctuaries of peace, within whose walls the echoes of the guns and the cries of the perishing should not penetrate. Some have even said that Christianity, so far from fostering the spirit of patriotism, is in reality hostile to it. "Patriotism itself as a duty," says Lecky, "has never found any place in Christian