all in all, it stands for righteousness as no other on earth. It stands for the freedom of the soul and the freedom of the body all over the world.

Think of India, whose three hundred millions have been rescued from tyranny and ceaseless bloodshed, whose widows have been saved from the flames, whose starving have been fed in famine, and to whom the British race brought security and peace. "When I think," said ex-President Taft, "of what England has done in India ... how she found those many millions torn by internecine strife, disrupted with constant wars, unable to continue agriculture or the arts of peace, with inferior roads, tyranny, and oppression; and when I think what the Government of Great Britain is now doing for these alien races, the debt the world owes England ought to be acknowledged in no grudging manner."

No work ever done on earth for the elevation of humanity can compare with that wrought in India by our race for the uplift of humanity; and it is the same wherever the standard of Britain waves. In our own day we have seen in Egypt a whole race rising out of the mud and clothed anew in the garments of self-respect. Through Africa, wherever the sway of Britain extends, though yesterday the land reeked with blood, to-day mercy and kindness are healing the woes of men, and millions who knew not when death lurked for them in the bush now sleep in peace under the palms. It was the might of Britain that destroyed the slave trade, and it is nothing except the might of Britain which prevents the slave raider resuming his nefarious traffic, and slavery under the guise of other names being imposed on the natives of Africa. Wherever you go, to the tropics or the Orient, there the great power for righteousness is the British Empire. It does not exploit inferior races for gold; it is the trustee of the helpless native.

When one thinks of these little islands floating in the western sea, of the power that has gone forth from them to heal and bless, of the vast multitudes to whom the King-Emperor is the symbol of justice and security—his is a poor heart which cannot feel the thrill of gratitude for citizenship in an Empire girdling the whole earth, whose foundations are thus laid in righteousness.

Patriotism is not, however, a mere sentiment. It was not sentiment which built up the Empire. It was self-sacrifice—the spirit that faced and endured death. For us, too, patriotism must be more than sentiment; it must be action and the self-sacrifice which action requires.

What our fathers reared we must defend. And the startling thing is that there are still so many of our people who shrink from the burden which patriotism imposes. Many thousands refuse to prepare themselves for war; who are as the Romans who could not leave their baths to go and fight.

Vast multitudes congregate to gaze on football matches and gamble on the issue. The call of King and country falls on ears grown deaf. We thank God for those who, hearing the call, have gone forth to fight, counting everything but loss as compared to their country's gain. But these others, they cannot have paused to think. They have not pictured these fair lands, that have not heard the sound of war for seven generations, given over to that devouring enemy which has made Belgium a wilderness.

They have not thought of Oxford and St. Andrews sharing the fate of Louvain; of London and Edinburgh become as Brussels; of the millions of Glasgow and Birmingham thrown on the mercies of the world, women and children fleeing, driven by nameless fears, with no place to flee to but the mountain fastnesses of Wales and the Highlands of Scotland—the last refuge of the miserable and the broken. And yet these miseries would surely befall were all the manhood of the race such as these.

Think what it would mean were the walls of our defence broken down. Supposing that a shattering blow were struck at the heart of the Empire and our fleet crushed. What would follow? The crumbling of the Empire in a week! It is not we alone, with our wives and children in these little islands, who would be swept to ruin, and on whom despair would fall. From the far north-west to the long wash of the Australasian seas the shadow of devouring misery and death would fall on humanity. The millions of India would be forthwith swept into the whirlpools of war and mutiny. Egypt would be thrown back into chaos. Africa would be left to Islam and the merciless rule of a nation which knows but how to smite. Australia and New Zealand would be at the mercy of the yellow races.

It would not be a calamity for us in these islands alone. It would be a calamity whose withering blight would be cast over all the world. The ideals of righteousness which this Empire upholds would be trampled everywhere under foot. Covetousness and the lust of gold would hold the field of the world.

There is only one thing to be done, one duty summoning us with an irresistible call—the duty that calls us to stand between our country and destruction. Were the fate which has overtaken the Low Country to overtake us; were this fair land to be made a wilderness, our women and children driven into the wilds, and the Empire wrested from our hands, the men who failed in their duty would never be able to hold up their heads again.

What a terrible load would lie on him who, beholding the ruin of his native land, could say, "This might not have happened if I, and others like me, had done our duty." That would be a hell from which there would be no escape. "Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell."

There can be no limit to the sacrifice which patriotism requires, so great a heritage is our native land. It does not require of us as Christians to engage in wars of conquest for the gratification of pride and greed, but it does require of us even the sacrifice of our lives in the defence of our homes or in the defence of our brother's home.

There are those who find themselves faced with difficulty. They are called upon to fight with every force in their power, to slay, withholding not their hand, while they hear the commandment, "Thou shall not kill," ringing in their ears, and across the centuries the voice of their Lord saying, "Resist not evil; whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also." They are bewildered. Is not the attitude of non-resistance that which Jesus Christ enjoins? If they fight with sword and shell are they not lowering themselves to the level of Nietzsche, Bernhardi and Bülow, and submitting to the arbitrament of the sword, which decides nothing except its own sharpness. The call of patriotism summoning to resist even unto blood comes to them, and they are uncertain whether to obey.

But we must interpret the will of God, not by isolated sentences, but by the whole content of the divine revelation. The commandment, "Thou shalt not kill," does not mean that we are not to kill in any circumstance whatever. If the commandment is to be taken literally, then no limit is to be set to it, and we must not kill any animal—not even the parasites of uncleanness. There is, moreover, another law which runs: "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God created He him." So far from the mere physical life being for ever sacred, the very altar of God Himself was to be no sanctuary for the murderer. The man who owned a vicious ox and knew him to be vicious, and the ox killed a man, the owner thereof was to be slain. There are therefore circumstances in which the law, "Thou shalt not kill," is abrogated, and its place is taken by the law, "Thou shalt kill."

The law demanding the conservation of life rests on this foundation, not that physical life itself is sacred, but that human life bears the image of God. There are things far more sacred than the physical life—even those things which constitute the image of God stamped upon man. There are things for which men in all ages have been content to die—truth and loyalty to truth, the principles which are dearer than life. Those