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OUR OUTLOOK AS 
 CHANGED BY THE WAR 
 
 BY 
 
 ALICE GARDNER 
 
 Associate and lately Fellow and Lecturer of Newnham College. 
 
 A PAPER READ IN NEWNHAM COLLEGE, 
 ON SUNDAY, 25th OCTOBER, 1914. 
 
 1 
 
 CAMBRIDGE: 
 
 p 
 
 W. HEFFER & SONS, LTD. 
 
 11 
 
 LONDON: SIMPKIN. MARSHALL & CO.. LTD. 
 
 1914. 
 
 PRICE TWOPENCE NET. 
 
OUR OUTLOOK AS CHANGED BY 
 THE WAR. 
 
 IT cannot be a dubious statement that no one of us 
 wlio has returned to work for this academic year 
 is in a frame of mind resembling that in which she 
 went down for the vacation. Things have happened 
 which have brought us great changes : changes of a 
 kind beyond our control, though not such as reflection 
 and effort may not in some way modify for the general 
 good. Not only have we all been suffering : we have 
 been and are encountering dangers ; some of us, it may 
 be, are receiving unexpected opportunities. All of us 
 are forced to face the past, present and future under 
 new lights, and with newly realized possibilities. As 
 intelligent beings, we feel bound to know whither this 
 all tends, that we may both be prepared for what may 
 come and may not lose hold on what we value in the 
 present. But that we should understand our position 
 intelligently is hardly to be expected. In crossing a 
 stream amid shoals and currents, one cannot accurately 
 mark the course of one's motion. But we are, I think, 
 likely to be more serviceable to others and more confident 
 in our own minds, if we try to analyze the change that 
 has come upon us — though it has not yet had its full 
 effect on our lives and minds. 
 
 The first element in the change — one under which 
 most others might be comprehended — is a general un- 
 settling and resettling of our sense of proportion. 
 Things that seemed important to us a cou])le of months 
 ago now count for nothing at all, and vice versa. To 
 a certain extent this is undoubtedly good, especially as 
 it has led us to put in the background those personal 
 
preferences and idiosyncrasies which are wont to loom 
 large. Many people to whom it would have seemed a 
 great hardship to curtail a summer holiday or to go 
 without a new Aviuter gown would now regard such 
 small deprivations as coming in the day's work — un- 
 worthy of the name of sacrifice. Interest in larger 
 things has tended to make all but very small-minded 
 people less sensitive to imagined personal affronts — less 
 regretful for the loss of small pleasures. Apart from 
 the causes at stake, we have had — in the exposure to 
 danger and death of our near kinsfolk and friends — a 
 sharp reminder of the transitoriness of life and of oui" 
 dependence, for health and efficiency, on conditions 
 which defy calculation. We have been, as it has l)een 
 said, startled into the sense of great realities. But 
 however wholesome this may be, we do well to beware 
 of exaggeration. We may pause and ask ourselves 
 whether the things that seem now most rc((1 to us 
 deserve that title more than some of the things that 
 we placed highest in quiet times. It may be well to 
 remember our mortality, though, after all, the feeling 
 of watchers at a distance is different from that of soldiers 
 in the field, who become indifferent to the ajDproach of 
 death. But even granted that the facts of warfare have 
 brought death and disaster within the limits of common 
 probabilities, it might still be expedient, as some 
 philosophers have held, to avoid mental occupation with 
 such subjects. Yet the seriousness of life, however 
 brought home, it is well for us to discern. 
 
 This is in great measure because to man}- of us the 
 great change has meant the loss of a false security — the 
 destruction of a fool's paradise. We had all been liearing 
 a good deal lately about the growth of tendencies whicli 
 were bound to bring all wars to an end. War has been 
 stamped as contrary to the spirit of progress, M'liich has 
 of late been making us all more and more cosmoj)olitaii. 
 The culture and industry, the religious and social move- 
 
3 
 
 ments which are dominant in widely separated regions, — 
 the delicate financial system by which no material dis- 
 tress can he confined to one area alone, but must spread 
 like ripples from a centre — these have brought us to the 
 alternative: either tiiere can be no more a great intei-- 
 national war, or if there is such a war, it will surpass in 
 the misery and destruction it causes anything that the 
 mind of man can at present conceive. Almost every one 
 would have thought the former alternative the more 
 probable, but the second has come upon us. There is, 
 as any but a blind o[)timist must acknowledge, no 
 mechanical and automatic force of social progress.* We 
 had no right to believe in such, and ought not to be 
 consternated now that it is gone. History shows us 
 none, nor is it countenanced by our religion. It is not 
 the first time in the world's history that universal peace 
 seemed to be at hand, but fled away to give place to dark- 
 ness and tumult. Peace after bitter struggles seemed 
 assured under the aegis of the Roman Empire — in the 
 days when the Temple of Janus was closed, and when 
 23ious shepherd folk heard the message from Heaven " in 
 terra pax." The Roman Government had a mighty task, 
 and to a great extent it achieved it, in the only way in 
 which peace over a wide area and loyalty to a central 
 power can be maintained, by a prudent — sometimes even 
 a generous — regard for local liberties and diversities. But 
 the Empire made mistakes, and by these rather than 
 purely by moral delinquencies, it lost its power to main- 
 tain peace and order, or to regain its prestige over the 
 encroaching tribes that still reverenced its name. Amid 
 the multitudinous conflicts of the Middle Ages, which 
 ecclesiastical and secular authority were powerless to 
 prevent, and the yet more destructive struggles of modern 
 times, if war has always been denounced as evil, it has 
 yet been regarded as a necessary evil. In the resettk - 
 
 • This thought was well developed in Dean Inge's sermon in St. 
 Paul's, Oct. Ifith. 
 
ment after the suppression of Napoleon, there were in 
 some quarters hopes of a peace to be maintained on 
 Christian princijjles by the joint action of the leading 
 powers, or rather of the monarchs at their head. But the 
 rulers failed to discern the signs of the times, and the 
 Holy Alliance became a by-word for interested hypocrisy. 
 Later, many began to hope that the enlightened self- 
 interest of the peoples would accomplish what neither 
 the principles nor the state-craft of governments had 
 been able to obtain. It is curious to read now the high 
 hopes expressed at the time of the first Great Exhibition 
 — of 1850 — when it seemed to many as if national rivalries 
 for the future would be gratified in innocent industrial 
 competitions. That was only three years before the 
 Crimean War, and the first Great Exhibition of Paris 
 was held on the eve of the terrible Franco- German War 
 of 1870. It became evident that intimate industrial 
 relations, common interests in science, art, and literature, 
 and even the growth of humanitarian principles in morals 
 and religion availed no more to keep the states of Europe 
 in mutual harmony and good-will, than did the Olympic 
 Gaines and the common treasure of Hellenic culture lead 
 to any permanent establishment of peace among the 
 ancient Greeks. Nevertheless there was the hope that 
 democracy and enlightenment would lead to the recog- 
 nition, at least of the costliness and consequent futility 
 of war. But we know now that Demos may be led 
 captive by a military caste or by a national panic. 
 Purely dynastic conflicts seem to be out of date, but the 
 influence of powerful persons is hardly less great now 
 than ever. The appeal to self-interest and the demon- 
 stration of the loss entailed even to the victorious party 
 in any war, were urged with force by Mr. Norman Angel 
 and his followers. Their practical error seems to lie in 
 the fact, that both rulers and people acting in masses, 
 may fall below as they may rise above considerations of 
 pecuniary gain. Scorn was thrown by Mr. Norman Angel 
 
on the veiy idea that Germans might conceivahly. if the}' 
 occupied London, loot the Bank of Enghmd. Does 
 anyone now doubt whether they would hesitate to do so if 
 ever they had the chance, even if they might lose thereby 
 as much as the English? 
 
 Wo have had a rude awakening if we were sleeping 
 in the hope of a Utopia based on the recognition of the 
 common interests of all civilized peoples. But after all, 
 the cause of peace, being identical with the cause of 
 righteousness, rests on a nobler foundation. The Stoic 
 principle that "we Avere made for one another" — that 
 the kosmos is as a living body compact of mutually 
 dependent members: — the Hebrew assertion that "The 
 Earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof": and the 
 Christian conception of all men as children of the 
 Father that is in Heaven, remain and are potent. But 
 for ages they may seem to run counter to the spirit and 
 tendency of society. 
 
 The change in our general mental perspective, with 
 the collapse of our over-great security for the future, 
 has been the more painful and intense because it has 
 laid bare the elemental nature of man on the animal 
 and anti-social side. This has been a specially bitter 
 revelation to those of us who have realised most strongly 
 our moral and mental debt to the nation whicli now 
 stands convicted of having sanctioned something like a 
 lapse into l)arbarism aggravated by adhesion to the most 
 modern scientific measures and efficient organisation. 
 There has been a good deal of loose talk about " brute 
 force " and " modern Huns."='= By a curious confusion of 
 comparisons, we read descriptions of "the hordes of Attila 
 with their heavy artillery' and the "barbarism" of most 
 elaborately organised tactics. \Ye have not always 
 realised that the primitive element in man is not in 
 
 * The expression is, of course, due to the Kaiser himself, in his 
 instructions to the army in China. But he was hardly speaking as a 
 historian. 
 
itself so dangerous or terrible as long as man remains 
 in a primitive state. It is where it is deliberately 
 fostered and allowed the scope which civilised and 
 humane institutions have continually curtailed, that we 
 have something far w^orse than the brutal element in 
 man — what we may fairly call the diabolical. If we are 
 surprised at this — as we most of us are — it is due, 
 probably, to the survival in us of the one fallacy of 
 Greek ethics (though not unqualified even there) by 
 which virtue was identified with knowledge, or the 
 kindred modern fallacy that systematic education is 
 sure to eradicate vice. I have said that those of us 
 who love and believe in German culture feel sadder 
 than those who do not, and appreciate more fully the 
 bitter irony with which our enemies claim to be fighting 
 for culture's sake. But perhaps there is at the bottom 
 of the heart of some of us a lurking fear lest we with 
 similar training and in similar circumstances might 
 possibly prove capable of some of the ghastly deeds 
 which we abhor in them. The thought brings humilia- 
 tion and urges caution — "let him that thinketh he 
 standeth take heed lest he fall" — but there is in it 
 something of consolation. These elemental passions — 
 this original sin, if we like to call it so — may be, and has 
 been, held in abeyance so as to become weakened and 
 unlikely to explode except under great provocation. And 
 again, Avith the very worst of human feelings and springs 
 of action, war brings to light unexpected traits of 
 generosity, self-sacrifice, devotion to ideals, even in 
 commonplace persons. It is inspiring, if we must view 
 human nature at its worst, to turn and beliold it at its 
 best. 
 
 But perhaps the change in our outloolc comes home 
 to most of us chiefly in a directly pi'actical way. All the 
 coiulitions of life are so clianged, all tlie future so un- 
 certain, that we hardly Iviiow what- to he ahout. It is 
 impossil)le to look far ahead in making ))hins, either for 
 
ourselves or other po()i)lt\ without leaving ii wide margin 
 for eventualities. Our ultimate ideals may remain as 
 before — but the subordinate ones, and the means we 
 must take to reach them, are often different. 
 
 In practical life we have to follow two alternative 
 courses: to carry on "business as usual," and to be 
 always ready to adapt ourselves to changing conditions. 
 The former maxim is excellent as far as it goes, as it 
 implies the obligation to keep one's head cool and to be 
 ready to resume normal life when normal conditions 
 return. There was something heroic in the conduct of 
 the Liege students who went on quietlj^ with their 
 examination papers during the bombardment of the 
 town, and when they had finished their answers went 
 out to fight. But there are necessary limits to this 
 kind of heroism. Thus the need of economy prescribes 
 many restrictions and additional tasks for most of us, 
 though we are bound to economize reasonably, and with 
 a view to avoiding more dislocation of labour than is 
 necessary. There is something of the nature of bravado 
 in pursuing recreations with a sick heart, or in labouring 
 to produce something for which there is now no demand. 
 But a good many people need to be warned against 
 acting on sudden and generous impulse without calm 
 deliberation on future probabilities. In this connection 
 I may remark how satisfactory it is to find that here, in 
 our college, so few women students or their parents have 
 thought it necessary to cut short an academic career 
 for the sake either of saving money or of gratifying a 
 desire for immediate usefulness. For those who are 
 not suffering from pecuniary pressure, learning and 
 mental discipline are good things to be pursued and 
 valued for their own sake, whatever may be in store. 
 For those who know the future to be full of risk, uni- 
 versit)' education is, if we take the lowest ground, a 
 safeguard against helpless unemployment. Meantime, 
 in our various pursuits, we have to consider both the 
 
8 
 
 intrinsic value of the objects in view, and the expediency 
 of devoting more or less time and attention to them 
 at the present moment. 
 
 Here I may say, though I fear that some may not 
 agree with me, that though strongly desirous of both 
 the political franchise and of the opening up of further 
 opportunities in public life for women, I should heartily 
 desire that till the crisis is over, all efforts to these ends 
 should be discontinued. It is not only that patriotism 
 bids us all present a united front to the foe, leaving all 
 party or sectional questions to be solved in quieter times, 
 but also that war time is distinctly not a time for press- 
 ing the claims of women to share in the privileges as in 
 the labours of men. Of course no reasonable person of 
 either sex would disparage the splendid work now 
 being done by women in nursing, in organising relief, 
 and in trying to keep the work of the world on its 
 usual lines until life as usual can recojnmence. But 
 if we rate the amount of women's work, and its quality 
 likewise, as high as possible, the fact remains that we 
 are not all wanted in order to do what is required, that a 
 great many of us are, for public purposes, supertluoiis. 
 Briefly : — many of us are generally trying to extend that 
 part of life in which men and women share alike. War 
 time tends to the differentiation of functions between the 
 sexes. Amid the clash of arms we receiv(» proleclion and 
 much consideration. For liberty and progress we must 
 wait till quieter times. 
 
 Meantime in the sphere common to mou ami anoukmi 
 and open to ns without question, there may Ix' (>])[)or- 
 tunities I'oi- our best efforts. To take one local ilhis- 
 tration : in i\\o absence of so many young nu>n from 
 the University, sonu^ lectu]'es are attended and some 
 examinations Mill be taken by women students only. 
 It would be a jdeasant thing, and one helpful to our 
 cause, if in days to come, it wei-e recordinl tluit in this 
 ci'itical year our Women's Colleges had prowd ('(pial to 
 
9 
 
 the bui'don laid on tlieni, and that the standard 
 attained had been at least as high as in ordinary times. 
 This, however, is a minor consideration, only to be 
 entertained because typical of a good deal more. 
 
 Generally speaking, onr life in war time should be 
 strenuous but not abnormal. We have to resist the 
 temptation to distract our energies on inultitarious 
 auxiliary occupations which may or ma}' not be service- 
 able, and to reserve our main strength for the kinds of 
 work that our abilities or training enables us to do best. 
 But whatever we do now, Ave cannot and we need not 
 avoid the great question as to what may lie before us in 
 the not very remote future. We all of us form a part — if 
 an extremely small part of public opinion, and tlie more 
 enlightened public opinion becomes, the fewer l)lunders 
 are likely to be made when we come to the final settle- 
 ment. 
 
 I fear that even if things go as well as we can dare to 
 hope, and if, Avithin a feAv years, the spirit of aggressive 
 iuiliturism — from the German side at least — is subdued, 
 we ma\' still be far from the goal of universal peace. 
 I have already referred to the disappointed dreams of our 
 forefathers as to that consummation. It will be some- 
 thing to strive for with all our might, but probably not 
 by such means as are already being advocated — general 
 disarnuiment aiul the end of secret diplomacy. The 
 latter seems almost insejjarable from a system of inde- 
 pendent states, and the retention of military force for 
 defensive purposes may prove the best preventive of 
 aggression. Certainly those advocates of peace who, till 
 the last moment, disparaged our danger and the necessity 
 for precautionary measures are not those to wbom we 
 should naturally go for counsel just now. I do not want 1o 
 decide whether the obligation of national defence should 
 be legal or moral. Personally I should mucli prefer that 
 it should be purely moral, though I see nothing contrary 
 to national freedom in the compulsory ti'aining of youths. 
 
10 
 
 As to the action of such training in fostering a militarj' 
 spirit, the opposite has, I think, heen proved by the 
 experience of some of the continental i)eoples and is 
 strongly asserted by the leaders of labour in France 
 and Switzerland.* If all the countries of the civilized 
 world were to form a kind of federal union — a remote 
 supposition at j)resent — we should require means to 
 coerce any member that declined to submit to the judg- 
 ment of tlie international tribunal. We should not need 
 huge armaments, with the costliest equipment, such as 
 are l)ound to lead to destructive wars. But we should 
 probably need national defensive forces for some time, 
 and we shall always need some forces to keep the society 
 of the future in peace and security. 
 
 How that society will be organised we cannot in the 
 least foretell. Similar political institutions everywhere 
 we should hardly wish to see, and we certainly shall not 
 see. International co-operation in social reforms we may 
 hope to see. But it is to be feared that for some years, 
 international intercourse of a friendly and helpful kind, 
 except among states that have been allied or neutral in 
 the great conflict, will not be easy. And there will l)e 
 the further difficulty of having to cope with the ambitions 
 and the aspirations of at least one great state that has 
 hitherto been regarded as representing a more backward 
 stage than the countries of Western Europe. Russia, 
 according to some experts, is likely to gain morally more 
 than any other state by the war. Her governors have 
 seen the necessity of conciliating disaffected peoples and 
 churches, and have made great sacrifices to put down 
 the national vice of drunkenness. But Russia, if she 
 advances to freedom, will not, probably, model her whole 
 system on western ideas. And her culture, however 
 much we may admire the minds of her greatest writers, 
 is undoubtedly more alien to us than that of tlie great 
 
 * See G. G. C'onlton : Workers and War. 
 
11 
 
 jjooplo from whom wc Imvr Ixmmi so suddenly .iiid so 
 bitt(M'ly (>straiig('(l. 
 
 This hi'iiiffs us to the (•<)iisi(hM'at ion of a <;i-('at danger 
 — moral and intollectual we are already beginning to 
 feel, -of an nnreasonabh' disparagement of our mental 
 and spiritual debt to the (jlermans. None of those 
 present is old enough to i-(Mneml)er the illuiiii- 
 nating and vivifying iutluence of German ideas, when 
 they were first introduced to us by Carlyle and the 
 great galaxy of Victorian writers. During the last few 
 months, Englisli people have felt suspicious of German 
 thought, believing that it has uttered its last word in the 
 anti-moral politics of Bernhardi, and in the curiously 
 unactual document addressed by German theologians to 
 "all evangelical Christians." Yet these tw^o expressions 
 of opinion, by the "way, have nothing in common but a 
 determined hatred of England. All Germans do not 
 think and feel alike, and, after all, there are a good many 
 utterances of English popular philosophy which it would 
 not be fair to take as expressing the best mind of England. 
 Bernhardi represents the German Chancellor's policy. 
 He has none of the depth and zeal for truth which marks 
 the genuine German thinker. I am inclined to think 
 that his admiration of power pure and simple as the 
 determinant force in history, and the mark of every 
 historical character, has had exponents among various 
 historians in our own country. It may be due to 
 reaction against a Rousseau-ish flabbiness w^hich errs 
 almost as much on the other side. But leaving Bern- 
 hardi apart — leaving aside also certain rather pedantic 
 tendencies in some branches of German scholarship, let 
 us honour and emulate the paticMice and thoroughness 
 which mark the sound sch()lai-slii[) of Lh(> German uni- 
 versities, and still more the boldness of thought that has 
 opened up foi- us new liiu's iji religion and philosophy. 
 It is almost ludicrously unfair to take the religion of the 
 Kaiser as the last word of German Protestantism. The 
 
12 
 
 influence of the Kaiser, as is well known, has not been 
 favourable to what is called the Higher Criticism. I 
 should not imagine that the Protestant churches in 
 Germany are as vigorous and efficient as they might be, 
 but this is not the fault of the sound studies which are 
 prosecuted under their protection. And if religion in 
 Germany has not been able to resist the prevalent forces 
 of secularism, of over-clericalism and anti-clericalism and 
 of conflicting interests, it yet has had and still has many 
 representatives who possess deep religious convictions 
 and a large fund of Christian charity. Perhaps we may 
 hope that in the^ future, the purely religious element 
 in these churches may prevail over the secular and 
 X)olitical. 
 
 This brings us to what is the most interesting part 
 of our whole subject, but one about which we can only 
 speak in a fragmentary and guarded way : how is the 
 religious outlook of Europe aft'ected by the war, and 
 what will be or ought to be the results of the subsequent 
 settlement with respect to churches and religious l)eliefs"? 
 Of course we cannot expect to see the same kind of 
 result everywhere, since parties, religious and anti- 
 religious, have been opposing one another or competing 
 under very different conditions in different countries. 
 On the whole 1 am inclined to think that there is good 
 ground for hope, though there are many dangers ahead. 
 It is well known that a time of war, in the stirring 
 effect it must needs have on men's deepest feelings, is 
 often accompanied or followed by a strong movement 
 towards religion. One remembers the concluding verse 
 of Clough's delightful summary of the conditions favour- 
 able to faith or to negation : 
 
 "Almost everyone when age. 
 
 Disease or sorrow strike him 
 Inclines to think there is a God, 
 
 Or something,' very lilce Iliin. ' 
 
 This ai)plies equally to individual and to public 
 diseases and sorrows. At the same tijne it is in davs 
 
V6 
 
 of stress and excitemont that emotion runs awaj' with 
 judgnuMit, that religion is apt to be associated with 
 mental crudity, and piety to become merged in fanaticism. 
 Doubtless a religion with sui)erstitious admixtures is 
 far better than either religious indifference or blank 
 secularism. But a religion associated with soundness of 
 mind is greatly to be preferred, and is the only religion 
 possil)le for persons of trained intellect, — except, of 
 course, in the abnormal though not infrequent cases in 
 which people keep their religion in some air-tight com- 
 partment, having no communication with their general 
 ways of thinking and living. 
 
 I suppose that those who have travelled on the con- 
 tinent have been impressed by the alienation — generally 
 speaking — of the intellectual classes from the churches to 
 which they would naturally seem to belong. The decline 
 may be rather in institutional than in personal religion, 
 bat the former is, under most circumstances, desired if 
 not required by the latter, and certainly the latter often 
 seems to be in abeyance. The reasons are not always far 
 to seek. Religious institutions and beliefs have come to 
 be associated with rejected systems of government and of 
 thought. The ministers of religion have been disliked as 
 political partisans, or despised as hostile to social and 
 intellectual progress. In England, we have happily 
 escaped an identification of Christianity with retro- 
 gression and obscurantism, though such an identification 
 is often asserted and — if the influence of some well- 
 meaning persons became stronger — would come to be 
 more generally held. In France, the Church, as an 
 institution, has been severely punished for the intoler- 
 ance and worldliness she showed in the days of her 
 power. Yet history seems to show that the French are 
 essentially a religious people — they certainly have pro- 
 duced some of the finest types of religious character, and 
 the most striking monuments of religious thought and 
 art with which Christendom has been enriched. It has 
 
14 
 
 always seemed to me rather by unhappy accident than by 
 natural development that the French people have — 
 generally sj^eaking — become almost religiously opposed to 
 religion altogether. But of late there have been many 
 signs of a revival of religious feeling, and an appreciation 
 of Christian ideas that may lead to good results. If it is 
 ever possible that the Church should cease to repel those 
 who strive to unite the causes of Christianity and of 
 ])rogress, other nations besides France will be gainers. 
 And even if this can never ha]3pen, Ave may at least hope 
 for more mutual respect and forl)earance between the 
 leaders of religion and of culture, which may put an end 
 to intolerance in the state and to perpetual grievances in 
 the Church. 
 
 In this respect, France is typical of many nations. 
 If the war is ended as we trust it will be, the Power to 
 suffer most morally will, of course, be Germany. She 
 will have to see her idols broken and to submit to a new 
 discix)line, more severe than that of imperial militarism. 
 If she is able to abide the ordeal, she will indeed become 
 " sadder and wiser." 
 
 Among ourselves, the strong feelings aroused have in 
 some quarters helped to fill breaches, and to draw to- 
 gether men and women who have much in common as to 
 religious feelings and principles, bat are generally held 
 apart by differences of church organisation, and by some 
 divergences as to interpretation of religious authority. 
 Most unfortunately, the tendency to insist on these 
 points of difference threatens in some quarters any 
 efforts towards reunion. But in religion, as in })()litics, 
 a crisis like the present makes any sectional or party 
 spirit appear not only mischievous but despicable. Let 
 us labour that any ground here gained may never be lost. 
 
 I have spoken generally as if we were all hopeful as 
 to the final result of the war. We have, I think, a right 
 to be so— though much patience may be needed before we 
 see our hopes realized, l^ut suppose, after all. that things 
 
went wliat we consider tlie wrong way, and tliat l)y tlie 
 use of unscrupulous force our enemies were able to 
 destroy all our national life and our sources of l)a})piness 
 and efficiency? That would indeed be a sore trial of our 
 faith — but not worse than that to which our predecessors 
 were subjected at the beginning of what we call the Dark 
 Ages. Yet they, or the true-hearted among them, did not 
 entirely despair. They were huoyed up by a hope wliicli 
 we can no longer share, that when the darkest day had 
 come, a sure judgment would follow, and a new lieaven 
 and a new earth he established that should remain foi- 
 ever. 
 
 But if such supposition is alien to our present modes 
 of thought, we are still able to hold to some kind of 
 " other-worldliness," and to acknowledge that visible 
 success or failure — whether to an individual, a nation, a 
 society, or a world — is not the one measure of good and 
 evil. We are bound to labour, fight, and pray for the 
 good of our country and of mankind. But if our 
 struggles seem ineffectual, it by no means follows that 
 they have not helped towards the attainment of a goal 
 which lies far beyond our ken. For the cause of truth 
 and righteousness is always triumphant, and does not 
 await the issue of events for its final crown. Such issue 
 is for us as sign and symbol — a partial manifestation of 
 the Eternal Good, which we are taught to recognise both 
 in sufferings for righteousness' sake and in the joyful 
 accomplishment of a divine creative work. We may hope 
 to behold such a manifestation as the issue of our piesent 
 troubles. But if we do not, we are still bound to go on in 
 courage and faith, and so shall we be prepared to play our 
 part in the great drama, of which the end is apparent 
 to no mortal eye. 
 
 24t/i Oct., 1914. 
 
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