VICTORY OUT OF RUIN

BY

NORMAN MACLEAN

HODDER AND STOUGHTON LTD.
LONDON — NEW YORK — TORONTO
MCMXXII

Printed in Great Britain by T. and A. CONSTABLE LTD.
at the Edinburgh University Press

PREFACE

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.

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.

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.

N. M.
EDINBURGH, September 1922

NOTE

Chapters I, II, III, IV, VIII, IX, XI, XII, and XIII appeared in The Glasgow Herald, and Chapters VI, VII, and X in The Scotsman. Chapter V is based on an article in The Glasgow Herald, but it has been rewritten.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

THE ONLY HOPE

CHAPTER II

THE SUPREME NEED

CHAPTER III

IN THE SACRED NAME OF LIBERTY!

CHAPTER IV

THE GREATEST OF TYRANNIES

CHAPTER V

THE LAST DELIVERANCE

CHAPTER VI

THE PERIL OF THE CROWD

CHAPTER VII

LET US HAVE PEACE

CHAPTER VIII

THE WAY OF PEACE

CHAPTER IX

NO ROOM

CHAPTER X

DOMINION FROM SEA TO SEA

CHAPTER XI

THERE WERE IN THE SAME COUNTRY SHEPHERDS

CHAPTER XII

THE FULNESS OF THE TIME

CHAPTER XIII

VICTORY OUT OF RUIN

CHAPTER I

THE ONLY HOPE

'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.

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.

I

'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