D 524 .W55 1918 A 
 Wiggins, Cecil F. 
 
 Saved as by fire 
 
 )n\ 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
■*» 
 
4 
 
 
 w nil 
 
 
 = 
 
 UN 10 191R 
 
 
 SAVED AS BY FIRE 
 
 BY 
 
 / 
 
 CECIL F. WIGGINS, M. A., D. C. L. 
 
 ^06/CAl %V8®> / 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 THE GORHAM PRESS 
 
 MCMXVIII 
 
COPYRICHT I9l8, BY CECIL F. WlGGINS 
 All Rights Reserved 
 
 Made in the United States of America 
 
 The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 I think that an apology should be made for 
 permitting these sermons to appear in the press, 
 as they were hurriedly written and not in any 
 way intended for publication. Then too, they 
 have received little revision or fitting preparation 
 for the press, but are in the form they were de¬ 
 livered to a very small congregation. Therefore 
 they will reveal looseness of style and lack of 
 correct literary expression, but if only they 
 possess enough spiritual quality to be of use in 
 bringing somewhat of help and comfort to the 
 troubled souls this day, or serve in any way to 
 “bind up the broken-hearted,” or point out, 
 however imperfectly, God’s purposes of love in 
 this great sifting of the nations, the writer will 
 be most richly rewarded. 
 
 St. Paul's Rectory 
 
 All Soul's Day , 1917 
 
 C. F. W. 
 
I 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Chapter Page 
 
 I Tried by Fire. 9 
 
 II The Days are Evil. 19 
 
 III The Great Challenge. 27 
 
 IV The War and Its Needs and Pur¬ 
 
 poses. 35 
 
 V The King’s Business. 44 
 
 VI The Duty of Service. 53 
 
 VII Luke-warm Christians. 62 
 
 VIII The True Strength of a Nation.... 71 
 
 IX The Home Base and Its Duties... . 80 
 
 X God and Baal. 88 
 
 XI Love Thy Neighbour. 97 
 
 XII The Lord of Battles. 106 
 
 XIII On the Lord’s Side. 116 
 
 XIV All Things New. 125 
 
 XV Peace Through the Sword. 135 
 
 XVI Victory In Seeming Defeat. 145 
 
 XVII Quietness and Confidence. 153 
 
 XVIII He that Findeth His Life Shall Lose 
 
 It. 161 
 
 XIX The Gift of Gifts. 171 
 
 XX The Glory That Shall Be. 180 
 
 5 
 

SAVED AS BY FIRE 
 
\ 
 
 / 
 
 i 
 
SAVED AS BY FIRE 
 
 I 
 
 TRIED BY FIRE 
 
 For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which 
 is Jesus Christ. Now if any build upon this foundation, gold, 
 silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, every marl’s work 
 shall be made manifest, because it shall be revealed by fire, and 
 the fire shall declare every man’s work of what sort it is. 
 
 i cor. in: 11-15 
 
 W E must never forget what the Psalmist tells 
 us that “the earth is the Lord’s and the 
 fulness,” that “He has made the round 
 world so sure that it cannot be moved.” It is 
 important for us to remember this, for there are 
 times when we might be tempted to think that 
 it was more the Devil’s world than God’s, when 
 as today the very mouth of Hell seems opened 
 wide and all its power let loose. This might lead 
 us to suppose that if the great enemy is in any 
 bound, as we are told, he must have a long chain. 
 But we must remember that all this is a part of 
 God’s discipline. He tries us “as silver is tried. 
 This we know is true of life, we must pass through 
 the fire, to have confidence in ourselves or our 
 leaders. We never can know what it is to be a 
 soldier, if we remain in barracks, it is only in the 
 “battle’s wild alarm” we can know what spirit 
 we are of, whether we are men or poor, miserable, 
 
 9 
 
10 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 despised shirkers, with no courage, no manhood, 
 no loyalty, .no fire in the blood, that would bid 
 us live or die for truth and justice. It is the fire 
 of battle that proves us and proves too our com¬ 
 manders. So God is constantly proving men and 
 testing their faith. Testing it first in His Divine 
 ruling, that He not only made the world but 
 governs the world, this day and every day and 
 that “ the Most High ruleth over the kingdoms of 
 men ” “ be the earth never so unquiet. ” We have 
 the assurance that through all failures, shocks 
 and catastrophes, through all “wars and rumors 
 of wars,” however terrible, the guiding hand of 
 God is in and through them all, a Divine purpose 
 is manifested—they all move like the majestic 
 motion of the universe to “that Divine event to 
 which the whole creation moves.” 
 
 The second thought we must ever keep before 
 us concerning this great foundation that has been 
 laid (this immovable rock of God’s providence 
 in the world) is that His promises are unfailing, 
 “for though heaven and earth pass away, His 
 word must stand forever.” He tells us “When 
 ye hear of wars and rumors of wars, be not troub¬ 
 led for the end is not yet, in your patience possess 
 ye your souls. ” However sin may abound, He 
 tells us grace, that is, the power of God’s favor 
 and goodness does much more abound. If this 
 be so, we see there can be no such thing as calami¬ 
 ty in its true sense. There must be always an 
 element of good in everything that God permits, 
 or else it could not be His act and He is able to 
 
Tried by Fire 
 
 11 
 
 make “the wrath of man turn to His praise” and 
 bring good out of evil. Sin, He assures us, shall 
 “not have the dominion” “nor shall the gates of 
 hell prevail.” This then is our foundation, other 
 than which no man can lay, God’s great purpose 
 for the world must be fulfilled, for God is not a 
 man that He should lie, nor the son of man that 
 He should repent. Everything, therefore, must 
 proceed irresistibly to a divine event, the one 
 great purpose of God for man, for God cannot 
 fail in His work and will surely bring it to pass, 
 were a hundred kaisers arrayed against Him, 
 with the Devil himself in chief command. But 
 we must remember the warning of Christ, “The 
 end is not yet.” God will not “hasten His work,” 
 He will not cause peace and truth and righteous¬ 
 ness and love and brotherhood remain upon the 
 earth till the world is ready to receive it. How 
 can we in all reason have Heaven where Hell is 
 rampant? So how can there be love and brother¬ 
 hood, where men and women bite and devour 
 one another? Where every strategy of hell is 
 employed to crush and destroy those who ought 
 to be our brothers? Thus we see though the 
 foundation has been laid by the hands of the 
 great Master Builder, and although it is a founda¬ 
 tion that cannot be moved, and although the 
 great temple of His Church built thereupon must 
 reach its glorious completion; yet the materials 
 must first be proved, tested by the Architect. 
 They must be “tried stones” without fault or 
 blemish, “meet for the Master’s use.” Here we 
 
12 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 come to the most significant fact of our whole 
 life, a fact that we should keep continually before 
 us, that although both the founder and builder 
 of the Church in the world, is God and can only 
 be God, yet it is His fixed and unalterable law 
 and principle of action, that He will do nothing 
 for man except through man. So though God is 
 both the architect and the builder of the structure, 
 yet men as His fellow laborers are to do the work. 
 We see the manifest necessity of this, since the 
 structure is not one of wood or stone, but of 
 human lives. It is a supreme structure, it is 
 the labor of our own hands, of our wills and 
 purposes, it is in very fact ourselves. God is 
 ever present to help us, but hie will not work 
 alone, work is laid upon all men by a primal law, 
 written by the hand of God. We find it on the 
 very first page of our history, “In the sweat of 
 thy face shalt thou eat bread”—no man in any 
 condition of his life is exempt from this law, or 
 as our text says, “every man is to be tried by 
 fire, that is, in the heat of action, for there are 
 no idlers in the Lord’s vineyard. Therefore, we 
 see that every Christian belongs to the working 
 class, he is to be proved by labor. “If a man 
 will not work, let him not eat,” says St. Paul. 
 
 “No man has a right to sit down to the feast 
 of life without paying the reckoning.” It must 
 be work of head or hand or heart, but it must be 
 labor of diligence, such as entails sacrifice, for it 
 is written on the bond, in that the nature of the 
 work was such as to produce the sweat of the face. 
 
Tried by Fire 
 
 13 
 
 It was no mere perfunctory labor, of nerveless 
 duty, but an earnest, ceaseless striving. As the 
 great Edison has said “great achievement is one 
 per cent genius and ninety-nine per cent sweat. ” 
 We must remember that manual labor is not the 
 only nor is it the most exhausting kind of labor, 
 the works of mind or heart, are more serious in 
 their demands on our energies. The commander- 
 in-chief who sits at headquarters, far from the 
 scene of battle, but planning and directing every 
 movement, is consuming his energies more than 
 the brave men at the front, that are facing the 
 enemy point by point, and enduring the shock 
 of battle. So, too, the captain who stands on 
 the bridge during the peril of the storm, directing 
 the course of the ship, is giving out more of him¬ 
 self than the sailor, who far aloft risks his life 
 to reef the ship. 
 
 But whatever our labor may be, whether of 
 head or hand or heart, it must be one of sacrifice. 
 No real work can be done without it, for it is 
 only in the willingness to sacrifice that the spirit 
 of our work can be seen, that it is true and 
 real, that it is a work of the heart and mind, a 
 thing in truth, that we not only live for but are 
 willing to die for,—as the Apostle says, “the fire 
 shall try every man’s work of what manner it 
 is.” But we must remember that sacrifice means 
 strictly something given or offered to God, it 
 should always be a personal recognition that we 
 are conscious of being God’s workmen and fellow 
 laborers with Him. 
 
14 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 So we see that it is not how much we do, as 
 how we do it that is so important, it is the pur¬ 
 pose of our act that makes it good or evil. This 
 is clear, for it is quite possible that we build our 
 house on the sand of perishable material of which 
 the Apostle speaks “the wood, hay, and stubble” 
 of things that pass away. We have only to look 
 out into the world to see a self-sacrifice amount- 
 ing almost to a sort of heroism, by those who 
 have set themselves out like Cain of old to “build 
 themselves a name” upon the earth by piling 
 up money and building a fortune. From youth 
 to old age they subject themselves to the most 
 rigid economy and unceasing labor. Often they 
 will shut themselves out from all the pleasures 
 and recreations of life, intent only on the heaping 
 up of money that they cannot really possess. 
 They will do all this for a thing that cannot 
 profit them and compel them to die as spiritual 
 bankrupts and beggars for eternity. How neces¬ 
 sary then is this warning of the Apostle about 
 the wood, hay and stubble!” The wide spread 
 love of gain is one of the most prevailing evils of 
 our day, and it is one of the most ignoble of 
 passions, for it tends to crush out the mosr en¬ 
 nobling instincts of men; it is, in truth, the sin 
 of Judas, who took his price to betray his Master. 
 The sin of Judas was that he was an inordinately 
 greedy man, even as the grafters of our day, that 
 would enrich themselves at the expense of our 
 country, or indeed the safety and welfare of the 
 heroes that are fighting our battles today and 
 
Tried by Fire 
 
 15 
 
 giving their lives that these same scabs of earth 
 may live. 
 
 Human speech fails when we would speak of 
 the depth of their degradation and the hopeless 
 pit of evil into which they have fallen. There 
 would seem to be no hope for such men. We 
 must ever remember that the man who lives for 
 himself dies and takes his stand among the beasts 
 that perish. He is a blot on the face of God s 
 creation and he will be consumed in the fire that 
 his own hands have built. 
 
 While the man who is filled with the true spirit 
 of sacrifice is fitted to survive all trials and diffi¬ 
 culties, to meet all dangers, aye, to meet even 
 death itself with a smiling face. Who can look 
 out over the battlefields today and not thank 
 God for what we are permitted to behold? For 
 think of the glorious record of courage, loyalty, 
 and of faithfulness unto death, of our heroes of 
 Ypres, Langemarck, of Festhubert, and Vimy 
 Ridge, who “loved not their lives unto death,” 
 and offered the glorious sacrifice of their life blood 
 for home, King and country, and have made the 
 name of Canada a praise in the earth. They 
 have consecrated the land of their birth, and we 
 may say have fertilized the whole future of our 
 history by the richness of their offering. 
 
 Ah, my friends, these are the golden spots in 
 our history that never will grow dim. These 
 are the things that make angels rejoice, they have 
 been tried in the fire and they have proved them¬ 
 selves pure gold. Men that are willing to live 
 
i6 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 and die for something more enduring than the 
 “wood, hay, and stubble” of the things of time. 
 They may not have had gold in their pockets, but 
 they had the love of truth and justice in their 
 hearts. They were fellow workers with God and 
 died like men and have won their crown. We 
 talk and hear a good deal of success and “mak¬ 
 ing good,” but who that believes in God could 
 picture a greater or more glorious success than 
 this? These noble souls have done more for the 
 true glory of Canada, and for the future establish¬ 
 ment of their native land than if our millionaires 
 had been multiplied a thousand fold, kings may 
 sit high, but no man sits higher or on a mightier 
 throne than he who is privileged to die for his 
 country, and no crown is so bright as the crown 
 of him who gives his life for men. They have 
 shed a glory on the name of Canada that shall 
 never die while men are found to write her history, 
 for whatever her future history may be, it can¬ 
 not be denied that once she was glorious, through 
 the dauntless deeds of her sons. Nor is the glory 
 of their bravery only in the past or present, for 
 it will be a future glory; for as a people, this vast 
 struggle not only has opened the pockets of our 
 people to support this great struggle for freedom 
 and truth, but it has opened their eyes and hearts 
 to the vital importance of these things, and so to 
 see that there are some things more precious than 
 gold and silver, more noble than mere eating 
 and drinking, more honorable than sloth and 
 ease. The influence of this discipline must re- 
 
Tried by Fire 
 
 *7 
 
 veal itself, in the future history of our people and 
 nation. Indeed, this war will leave the whole 
 world different from what it found it. It has 
 come as a mighty spur to our best energies and 
 noblest qualities, it has fired our loyalty, deepened 
 our love of our people and nation, widened our 
 sympathy and sense of brotherhood, and has 
 done much to draw men to closer union and 
 fellowship. It has a sobering and correcting 
 influence upon that reckless spirit of indifference, 
 seen in our gay and frivolous, pleasure seeking, 
 mammon-worshipping age, and must profoundly 
 influence the destiny and welfare of the whole 
 world. 
 
 The war came like a bolt from the blue on the 
 motherland, torn by strikes, discord and strife 
 of party and danger of civil war. Every man’s 
 hand seemed turned against his brother; but at 
 the first rattle of the sword, turmoil ceased, dis¬ 
 union ended. The high and the low, the rich and 
 the poor, the prince and the plebeian, arose as one 
 man to meet the foe, to stand shoulder to shoulder 
 against the inhuman barbarism that would leave 
 the trail of its infamy in our peaceful borders 
 and crush out our liberties by the iron heel of its 
 insolent might. We never must forget that all 
 the ideals that we cherish as a people and nation, 
 rest upon the foundation of liberty, we are this 
 day fighting our very existence as a free people. 
 The rule of Germany would strike out the light 
 of freedom from the earth, bring us to the level 
 of the savage. Peace will come in God’s good 
 
i8 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 time, but if it is “not yet” as Christ warns us we 
 must learn that we still have to be provedby fire, 
 but there can be no staying till victory is ours, 
 for our cause is the cause of humanity. But we 
 may rest assured that those who are fighting or 
 who are about to fight are God’s noblemen, His 
 chosen knights of renown. They must look upon 
 themselves as His fellow laborers, consecrated to 
 do a holy work and offer a real sacrifice, it may be 
 of life itself that truth may remain upon the earth, 
 that love and brotherhood may still bind human 
 souls in a fellowship Divine. So we say this day, 
 “All hail to our brave men who are so highly 
 privileged as to stand in the rank and file of the 
 noble defenders of our country! May the panoply 
 of God be their protection and give them faith and 
 courage to be His soldiers tried and true!” And 
 God grant that those of us who may be alive to 
 see the end of this dread struggle, may see a 
 Christian nation conscious of its past shortcomings 
 and resolute and determined to enter on the new 
 life of a people that fears God, abhors evil, and 
 reaches forward to a life consecrated to fellow¬ 
 ship with God and devoted to the furtherance of 
 the brotherhood of the race. 
 
II 
 
 THE DAYS ARE EVIL 
 
 See then that ye walk circumspectly , not as fools , but as wise, 
 redeeming the time , because the days are evil. 
 
 eph. v: 15-16 
 
 I F it could ever be said in the history of the 
 Christian world, that the days are evil, it surely 
 can be said today. Everywhere we hear 
 that the gates of Hell are opened, and the most 
 depraved passions of men are employed to do their 
 evil work. The heart sickens when it attempts 
 to picture the awful harvest of this world-wide 
 butchery and of the terrible aftermath of misery 
 and wretchedness that must follow, as the in¬ 
 evitable result of this chaos of destruction. We 
 see the cream of the nation’s manhood snatched 
 from our midst, we see widowed homes and 
 fatherless children, we see, too, crippled industries 
 and wasted treasure. Then, looking to the scene 
 of battle, we see the hopeless destruction of town 
 and country, the devastated fields, the cities laid 
 waste, the nameless sufferings, the cruel indignities 
 of the people, driven from home and fatherland 
 subjected to the ruthless barbarity of worse than 
 heathen war lords. 
 
 Then surely to our eyes, “the days are evil,” 
 but we must never forget that God rules and that 
 
 19 
 
20 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 He has not left the world to take care of itself. 
 We must ever keep in mind those grand words 
 of the Psalmist, we have never had so much need 
 to remember them as today—that “the Lord is 
 King,” that “He sitteth between the cherubim, 
 be the earth never so unquiet.” He works out 
 His mysteries in His own way. Though “ Heaven 
 and earth shall pass away, His word must be 
 fulfilled.” His purpose is the only thing that 
 cannot fail. Hence it comes that in the history 
 of the world, and in human life, it must be ab¬ 
 solutely and definitely true that nothing comes 
 by chance, a sparrow cannot fall to the ground 
 outside God’s purpose, or without the Father’s 
 knowledge. 
 
 But we must remember that the evil that is 
 in the world, is not His making but man’s. God 
 has endued man with the awful power and re¬ 
 sponsibility of a free will, he can choose good or 
 evil, his life depends on the exercise of this free 
 will. If he wishes to do evil, God permits him 
 to do so, to his utter loss and confusion. He 
 makes sin its own avenger, and bring its own 
 punishment and so reveals to man not only the 
 sin but the folly of disobedience to God’s law. 
 Thus it is that “He maketh the wrath of man 
 turn to His own glory” and brings good out of evil. 
 
 There can be nothing without a cause, and like 
 begets like. If there is evil in the world, we may 
 be sure that it is because man has sinned, which 
 has called for God’s judgment, not merely for the 
 retributive punishment of sin, but for the re- 
 
The Days are Evil 
 
 21 
 
 demption of the race. Sin must always bring 
 its own revenge, and prove, in the end, a curse 
 to any people, and must be in itself destructive, 
 since it is the rejection of God’s law, which is the 
 law of the universe. 
 
 Hence it is, when the days are evil, and sin has 
 the dominion we learn, thereby that God’s laws 
 have been transgressed, and that God is working 
 out His remedy by making sin its own taskmaster, 
 and making it bind the workers with its own 
 chains, weighing them down with the burdens 
 that they themselves have made, scourging them 
 with the whips of their own making. 
 
 God is ever pleading with His people that they 
 may turn to Him and live, that they may walk 
 as wise men and not as fools. He gives them 
 earthly blessings, fills their barns with plenty, 
 and makes “their presses burst out with new 
 wine,” or—in the language of our day—He 
 makes industries flourish, wealth increase, business 
 boom, trade develop; till the world is our market 
 place. With what result? Lo, our wealth has 
 become our poverty. God has spoken to us in 
 our prosperity, but we did not hear. 
 
 Yes, we do not hear. This has been the great 
 sin of the world this day, for we must face the 
 bitter truth that the more we get, the less we give; 
 for our “heart goes after our coveteousness.” 
 Instead of being the worshippers of God, we be¬ 
 come worshippers of mammon, and practically 
 say to the things which our own hands have made 
 “ye are our gods.” So the things of time and 
 
22 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 sense become our masters, and the whole earth 
 becomes reeking with the pestilence of material¬ 
 ism and therefore tottering to its fall. 
 
 But God’s mercy “is over all His people,” He 
 does not leave them alone in their sin. They 
 have rejected His mercy in the day of their pros¬ 
 perity, so in His great love, the day of adversity 
 comes. God pleads once again with His people, 
 but it is with fire and sword that they may learn 
 righteousness through His judgments, if not 
 through His blessings. As God says through the 
 mouth of His prophet Isaiah, “For behold I will 
 come with fire and with chariots like a whirlwind, 
 to render my anger with fury, and my rebuke 
 with flames of fire; for by sword and fire will the 
 Lord plead with all flesh and the slain of the Lord 
 shall be many. ” 
 
 Hence it is that this present evil day has come 
 upon us, and our foes as He foretold, they are of 
 “our own household.” Yes, it is the voice of God 
 that we hear this day pleading with His people, 
 saying “why will ye die, Oh House of Israel, and 
 not turn to me and live?” But it is in mercy He 
 pleads, not in anger; He is speaking in the words 
 of Christ. “If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, 
 and if thy foot offend thee cut it off; for it is better 
 for thee to enter into life maimed than having 
 two feet to be cast into Hell. ” 
 
 So though the days may appear to us as 
 evil, yet these are days pregnant with mercy to 
 the whole world. Germany, in the very midst of 
 her pride and arrogance and ruthless barbarity, 
 
The Days are Evil 
 
 23 
 
 though going to her destruction, because of her 
 sin of the idolatry of human might, is only an 
 instrument in the hands of God, working out His 
 purposes for man. For “God fulfills Himself in 
 many ways” that are unseen by man, and His 
 ways are not as our ways, nor His thoughts as 
 our thoughts. His mysteries are beyond human 
 thought, but they are surely safe in His hands, 
 and our wisdom is seen in leaving them there 
 for we may be assured that He doeth all things 
 
 well.” 
 
 We are living in what we may call a grave 
 crisis in human affairs, we have come to a most 
 momentous epoch in the world’s history, when 
 God is opening doors in almost every corner of the 
 earth to the entrance of those who would do .His 
 work. The ancient heathen religions are being, 
 one after another, wholly discredited. The great 
 Moslem power, has largely heard.its death knell 
 through this war, while the great kingdoms, India, 
 China and Japan (as also darkest Africa)—are 
 like sheep without a shepherd, and are all calling 
 to us, “come over and help us.” And this cry, 
 we may say, comes to us of today with especial 
 significance, since it was the cry of that very 
 country of Macedonia, which at the present time 
 is in the possession of British troops. 
 
 Thus the great question of missions is thrusting 
 itself more and more before the eyes of the Chris¬ 
 tian world, it is realized, that if we would save 
 ourselves, we must endeavor to save others, for 
 “he who loveth not his brother abideth in death. 
 
24 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 How can we love our brother, if we deny him the 
 blessing of Christian light and knowledge? In¬ 
 deed, we have no choice in the matter, for Christ 
 has said “all the world,” and into all the world 
 we must go, if we would be His disciples. We 
 can never call ourselves a Christian nation, in 
 true sense, till we make the cause of missions, 
 the one great activity of our people. 
 
 We believe that this is one of the great things 
 that God is preparing the world for through this 
 great war, first through its unifying influences in 
 establishing the brotherhood of the race, and by 
 bringing men from the ends of the earth to fight 
 and if need be, to die together for one common 
 cause. The struggle, too, has been so fierce, so 
 terrible, so deadly, that it has put a most severe 
 test on the moral qualities of the men and officers 
 and has so appealed to their heroism that it has 
 strengthened their noblest qualities. We may 
 thank God that the appeal has not been in vain. 
 Never in all history has such a spirit of seriousness 
 so pervaded an armed host, every man, we may 
 say, seems conscious that he is fighting for a holy 
 cause that demanded his unshrinking fidelity and 
 the cheerful performance of whatsoever he might 
 be called upon to bear. Nay, further, the offer¬ 
 ing of the supreme sacrifice of life itself, seems 
 in many cases to have been their highest joy. 
 Indeed, the steadfast valor and heroism, under all 
 possible conditions of the men who are fighting 
 our battles, have been the wonder of the world. 
 
 The sacredness of our cause has another proof 
 
The Days are Evil 
 
 25 
 
 from the widely spread conviction felt by the 
 troops that they were not fighting alone, but 
 that the warriors of an unseen host were fighting 
 by their side. This may tell us that they were 
 conscious that they were fighting the Lord’s battle. 
 
 It is surely of the deepest significance that the 
 spontaneous consent of men decided that every 
 resting place, should be signed with the sign of 
 the cross, and may we not hope that Christian 
 people will follow their example and remove 
 heathen symbolism from their graves. Think 
 of the millions that have worn this sacred symbol 
 upon their breasts when they went forth to battle. 
 How fitting then, that this same sign should mark 
 their resting place, since they like their Master 
 have died for men and for the welfare and re¬ 
 demption of the world. 
 
 So we may say, that the influence of this vast 
 struggle, has tended largely to deepen the spirit¬ 
 ual sensibilities of men, for it has brought them 
 face to face with the stern issues of life. It has 
 awakened men and women from the fatal sleep 
 of indifference and mere bodily indulgence. Such 
 surely can be in no sense “redeeming the time” 
 (as the apostle would bid us) but they are wast¬ 
 ing the precious hours to their own destruction, 
 they are preparing themselves for an “evil day” 
 that will surely come upon them. 
 
 Let, then these terrible object lessons that 
 are being presented to us each day, serve to open 
 our eyes to the real things, to the things that 
 count to ourselves and to the world. Let us see 
 
2 6 Saved as by Fire 
 
 to it that all the heroism and devotion and spirit 
 of sacrifice for these same real things, are not 
 reserved to those who are fighting our battles 
 for the freedom of the world in this present evil 
 day. 
 
 Let not the precious blood of our sons that has 
 been shed for us and for the world, be shed in 
 vain, but that we too will join in this upward 
 movement of the race, and resolve to do our part, 
 if not at the front, at the base. For these are 
 the days of sacrifice, the man who refuses to do 
 “his bit” on the field, is called a “slacker” and he 
 rightly meets with our contempt and we despise 
 him from our very hearts. Who then can measure 
 the disgrace and humiliation of the spiritual 
 slackers? Those who are afraid to meet their 
 spiritual foes and refuse to put on their spiritual 
 armor, who are satisfied with being mere camp 
 followers in the Christian army, but are prepared 
 for no sacrifice, willing to share in the spoils of 
 the battle field, on which others have given their 
 lives, but too cowardly to fight, or to offer any¬ 
 thing in sacrifice for God—such surely must be 
 eternal slackers, who will receive swift judgment 
 from the Lord of battles. 
 
 Oh, then, while we have opportunity, let us 
 redeem the time that is given to us, and walk as 
 wise men for “the days are evil” 
 
THE GREAT CHALLENGE 
 
 And God called unto Adam and said , “ Where art thou? ” 
 
 GEN. Ill, 9 
 
 I N the infancy of our race, when sin first entered 
 into the world, through the disobedience of 
 our first parents, we are told that Adam 
 strove to hide himself” in the trees of the garden. 
 This was but a picture, a vivid type and symbol 
 of something in the desire of man, that would evei 
 be impossible,—to blot out through our own 
 effort the results of sin; for sin, is its own avenger. 
 “The soul that sinneth it shall die” and this by 
 an unchangeable law; for sin is an alien in God s 
 world, it is a discord in the harmony of His ordei. 
 In its final result, it must be as a jarring note 
 would be in the harmony of the universe, it must 
 lead to chaos and destruction. This is because 
 the effects of sin become a part of pur very nature, 
 woven into the texture of our being, as the warp 
 and woof of our thoughts, words and deeds, and 
 help to mould all our efforts, ambitions and 
 desires. They are, indeed, a part of our very 
 being. We can no more separate ourselves from 
 our sins, nor the remembrance of them, than we 
 can separate ourselves from our shadows, "Y et 
 how men ever since Adam’s day, have been at- 
 
 27 
 
28 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 tempting to do this impossible thing! That, 
 too, in the self same way,—“in the trees of the 
 garden,” that is, by endeavoring to surround 
 themselves with the things of this present world,— 
 to have their ears so dulled with the din and noise 
 of things seen and temporal, their hearts so over¬ 
 charged with “the lust of the flesh, the lust of 
 the eye, and the pride of life” that they cannot 
 hear the voice of God saying to them, day by day, 
 “This is the way, walk ye in it. ” We must never 
 forget that nothing just happens in God’s world, 
 eveiything to the insect’s wing, to the numbering 
 the hairs of our head or the sparrow’s fall, has 
 a Divine purpose. 
 
 Hence we see that events of our life are as 
 monitors of God, hints and foreshadowings of 
 things that must be hereafter, they are all tokens 
 of God’s deep love and concern for His children. 
 Sometimes God speaks to us in the still, small 
 voice, of health and prosperity, of quiet hours, 
 of peaceful homes, of fruitful fields, of thriving 
 industries, and well-filled treasuries. Then again, 
 when hearts become cold, and sin has the domin¬ 
 ion, then do “ His judgments appear on the earth;” 
 mighty winds “rend the mountains and break 
 in pieces the rocks before the Lord,” floods and 
 cyclones and earthquakes sweep over the earth 
 without a moment’s warning leaving death and 
 destruction in their ruinous pathway. These, 
 as well as the still, small voice of our ease and 
 comfort and prosperity, of our quiet nights and 
 peaceful days, are equally the voice of God. 
 
The Great Challenge 
 
 29 
 
 They are foreshadowings of eternal things, of 
 judgments saying to us as He did unto Adam, 
 “Where art thou?” 
 
 These terrible visitations, however, are not 
 signs of God’s anger towards His children, but 
 testimonies of His love. As we are told, “whom 
 the Lord loveth, He chasteneth, and scourgeth 
 every son whom He receiveth.” In no way 
 could His want of Love be more clearly seen than 
 by permitting men to continue in sin and so 
 allow the world to get more and more the dominion 
 over them, till “the things belonging to their 
 peace should be hidden from their eyes.” So it 
 is that along the road of life, God puts up His 
 sign-posts saying, “this is not your rest.” 
 
 We must never forget, that love and discipline, 
 go hand in hand; love without discipline is mere 
 selfish sentimentality; while discipline, is the very 
 basis of character and of moral virtue. The son 
 or the daughter, that knows not how to obey, 
 will be the child of many sorrows, and often 
 bring down the gray hairs of their parents with 
 sorrow to the grave. And this for the simple 
 reason that he who knows not how to obey, does 
 not know what obedience is and therefore cannot 
 govern himself. Thus he is the poor slave of his 
 own will and evil desire. “What son is there,” 
 the apostle asks, “whom his father chasteneth 
 not?” “Now no chastening, for the present seem- 
 eth to be joyous, but grievous, yet afterward it 
 yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness to 
 them that have been exercised thereby.” So he 
 
30 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 tells us that “God chasteneth us for our profit 
 that we may be partakers of His holiness. 
 
 We believe that the looseness, frivolity, spirit¬ 
 ual indifference, and lack of moral fibre, which are 
 so characteristic of the youth of our day, are 
 largely due to the lack of discipline in the house¬ 
 hold, and the absence of parental authority. If 
 ever the apostolic injunction of “children obey 
 your parents,” needs to be enjoined it is today. 
 But let us not fail to mark that this serious evil 
 is more the fault of the parent than of the child, 
 it has its foundation in the lack of moral courage 
 in the parent and his indifference to sin. It takes 
 its cue from that spiritual sloth and enervated 
 softness which also are characteristic of our day, 
 which attempts to hide itself under the spurious 
 name of love, and which produce so much of the 
 mawkish sentimentality of our time. We must 
 realize more and more, that it is only through 
 much tribulation that we can enter into the king¬ 
 dom of God, and therefore without discipline we 
 dead, because we are the slaves of our own will, 
 are Hence it is, that we need to be continually 
 roused and warned; yes, sometimes bruised and 
 broken, by the events of our life, that our eyes 
 may be opened to see our dangers. 
 
 Thus it is today, as we turn our thoughts to 
 the bloody fields of Europe, hear the thundering 
 boom of cannon, the trampling of the mighty 
 host, see the awful carnage, the rivers of blood, 
 the windrows of the slain, we hear the voice of 
 God, speaking to us as He did to Elijah in the 
 
The Great Challenge 
 
 31 
 
 wilderness, or as He did to Adam in the trees of 
 the garden. Yes, in trumpet tones He is speaking 
 to us in this awful war. He is not only speaking 
 to Germany, stamping on her this worse than 
 barbaric slaughter, but He is speaking to us, to 
 the nations of Europe, yes, to the whole world 
 He is summoning them before the bar of His just 
 judgment to consider their ways. He is saying 
 to them what He said to Adam, “ Where art thou ?” 
 He speaks to us through this storm of passion, 
 this riot of destruction, this wild conflict of human 
 wills, even as He speaks in the cyclone’s wrath 
 and the earthquake’s destruction. We must re¬ 
 member that God has given to us the fateful gift 
 of freedom of will, the power to do good or evil 
 in our little sphere. But though He does not 
 dethrone our wills, He does not abdicate His 
 power over them, nor us. We may disobey Him, 
 as Adam, and destroy ourselves; but we cannot 
 defeat His purpose. He overrules, even our evil 
 doing to His own ends. We would attempt, as 
 the world has done, to overthrow evil by evil; 
 but He would overthrow it by good, and turns 
 evil to His own glory for the “Lord is king, be the 
 people never so impatient, He sitteth between 
 the cherubim, be the earth never so unquiet.’ 
 
 What, then, is God saying to us in this dread 
 catastrophe? First, Fie is showing to us and to 
 the world, as it has never been witnessed before 
 in all man’s history, the madness, the horrible 
 cruelty, and the unmeasured wickedness of war 
 in general but especially between Christian na- 
 
32 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 tions. He is making us see what we are so often 
 told today, that “war is hell” and therefore never 
 can be of His ordering. He may and does permit 
 it because of man’s sin, but He can never order 
 it it never can be in accordance with His will, 
 for “He is not the author of confusion, but ol 
 peace.” War is always the result of man s sin, 
 
 of human pride and selfishness. . . 
 
 It is true that under present conditions, it is 
 sometimes necessary and right for even a Chris¬ 
 tian nation, in its own defence or inthe defence 
 of others, to take the sword in hand when their 
 rights and liberties have been rudely overthrown 
 and trampled under foot by the tyranny o a 
 stronger power. But there is a wide gulf fixe 
 bv God, between the war of human wrath and 
 that of righteous indignation. We are com- 
 manded of St. Paul “to bear not the sword in 
 vain,” and His counsel is “if it be possible, as 
 much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. 
 War is not always the expression of anger, it is 
 often the self-sacrificing desire for peace and rule 
 and order. So today, had England refused to 
 imperil the nation by remaining neutral in this 
 present war, had she permitted the iron heel of 
 Prussian cruelty to stamp out the liberty of heroic 
 Belgium, she most surely would have played the 
 nart of a poltroon and a coward, and would no 
 longer be able to lift up her head as leader amongst 
 Christian nations. Never in her history could 
 she so clearly claim that her cause was just, never 
 could she more confidently feel, humanly speak- 
 
The Great Challenge 
 
 33 
 
 ing, that her “ battle was the Lord's . ” We 
 believe that the priceless sacrifice that she has so 
 freely poured out in this great struggle, will be 
 as an atonement for her many sins and the sins 
 of her people; that the blessing of God will descend 
 upon her because of this noble sacrifice for truth 
 and righteousness, and that she will arise from 
 this “agony and bloody sweat” a renewed and re¬ 
 stored people. The scriptures must be fulfilled 
 and so we must not forget the warning of Christ 
 that He “came not to send peace but a sword.” 
 This most surely shows us that the sword must 
 come before peace, the sword must cut away the 
 false before the true can be revealed. To give 
 liberty to the oppressed, help to the fallen, rescue 
 to the crushed and down-trodden, as well as 
 retribution to the tyrant and the oppressor,—all 
 this becomes a Christian duty even though it is 
 maintained by the sword. 
 
 “Be ye angry and sin not” is the apostle’s 
 summary of Christian teaching. We see, there¬ 
 fore, that there is an anger that is not sinful but 
 virtuous. When Christ condemns him who is 
 “angry with his brother without a cause,” He 
 clearly implies the truth that one may have good 
 cause for anger against his brother. Indeed, we 
 cannot but think of His own anger in the temple 
 courts as He drove from the sacred place the 
 sacrilegious mob that would profane the holy 
 House. He drove them out like hunted swine 
 with the besom of His wrath. War then, we see, 
 may have its altogether sacred side. It is the 
 
34 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 scourge of God, and His rebuke of sin, it is the 
 forecast of His final rebuke at the day of judg- 
 ment. There we must all appear, we must all 
 hear His voice as Adam did at the cool of the 
 day,—at the ending of our life, when He will say 
 to us also, “Where art thou? Give an account 
 of thy stewardship for thou mayest be no longei 
 
 steward. ” 
 
IV 
 
 THE WAR AND ITS NEEDS AND 
 PURPOSES 
 
 THE DAY OF INTERCESSION 
 
 The Lord is King , be the people never so impatient, He sitteth 
 between the Cherubim be the earth never so unquiet. 
 
 PSALM XCIX, I 
 
 T HE purpose of this Day of Intercession is 
 expressed by The Times: 
 
 Another year is drawing to its close under the shadow of 
 war; and today the King, the Head of the Church and the 
 Defender of the Faith, summons his people throughout the 
 world to set aside the first Sunday in the coming year as a 
 special day of prayer and thanksgiving prayer that we 
 may have the clear sightedness” and “strength necessary to 
 the victory of our cause,” and thanksgiving “for the Divine 
 guidance which has led us so far towards our goal. Amid the 
 clash of arms and the daily insistence of material or mechanical 
 tasks, it is not always easy to remember that we are banded 
 together to establish, with brain or muscle or life, the cause 
 which to all of us is the noblest of all causes.. In the knowledge 
 that all his loyal subjects have faith in the justice of that cause 
 the King bids us to recall, with the solemnity of a day set 
 apart the ideals which we are striving to uphold. If the call 
 comes at a time when we cannot fail to remember that the 
 mills of God grind slowly, it comes also at a time when .we 
 Englishmen and all those united with us in a common.service, 
 were never more conscious of our strength or of the rightness 
 of the endeavor in which it is being used to the utmost. Thank¬ 
 ful, therefore, for the height of our calling, and that our women 
 
 35 
 
 i 
 
36 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 and children have been spared the full horrors of war, we may 
 humbly renew our strength and welcome the King’s command: 
 
 “England, on thy knees tonight 
 Pray that God defend the right. ” 
 
 We as members of God’s Church are gathered 
 together here this day, for prayer and supplica¬ 
 tion to the Ruler of the earth and the great Arbiter 
 of the nations, in a supreme crisis of our history. 
 
 Never before in the history of our people has 
 the peace and the material welfare of our race 
 been so seriously threatened. That reign of 
 peace which the English speaking world fondly 
 hoped for and labored, has been cruelly dashed 
 to the earth, by hands that are red with blood. 
 Yes, the ruler of the German people stands before 
 the world this day as the representative of a 
 nation that has brought the deepest reproach 
 that has ever rested upon the Christian world, 
 and has proved itself unworthy of the name of 
 Christian. Her haughty ruler, though he has 
 not scrupled to take the name of the God of love 
 upon his lips, has had war in his heart, and has 
 wilfully and wantonly taken upon himself the 
 responsibility of the wholesale slaughter of his 
 fellow Christians, establishing hell upon earth. 
 But God be praised he can at worst kill only the 
 body, he cannot snatch from that martyred Host 
 the unseen medal of the cross which lies upon the 
 breast of him who dies for truth and justice and 
 offers his blood as sacrifice on the altar of his 
 country and the welfare of the land that gave him 
 birth. For the God of battles, before whose eyes 
 
The War and its Needs and Purposes 37 
 
 not a sparrow falls unseen shall surely note witn 
 joy the fall of him who dies that the tyrant may 
 be vanquished and liberty and truth may remain 
 upon the earth. Yes, those fair dreams of peace 
 which so gladdened our hearts, and filled us with 
 hope for the welfare of the world and led many 
 optimists to think that a general war amongst 
 Christian nations in our. present state ol en¬ 
 lightenment was simply impossible, have been 
 rudely dispelled, the labors of our statesmen to 
 preserve the peace of Europe have proved un¬ 
 successful and we have been drawn into a strugg e 
 which we have provoked in no. way and from 
 which we seek no personal gain. A military 
 despotism, similar to that of Napoleon has once 
 more (we believe for the last time) been revived 
 in Europe and has been advanced by methods oi 
 cruelty and tyranny which have long since been 
 discarded amongst, civilized peoples, in this 
 unprovoked aggression and in an unsought quar¬ 
 rel, England for the cause of peace, justice, and 
 liberty, for the sanctity of most solemn pledges 
 given between nation and nation, has thrown 
 herself into the most terrible struggle of her his¬ 
 tory, both by sea and land. Indeed we know 
 that the whole continent of Europe is one vast 
 battlefield, empurpled with the blood of millions 
 slain as the price of a tyrant lust that would be 
 ^ratified, so the hope of peace had for the present 
 vanished, and the progress of the world gone ten 
 degrees backward. Yes, you may be ready to 
 say that is all true, but if the question of your 
 
38 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 text be true, why is all this? If the God of the 
 sparrows is our God and if He still “sitteth be¬ 
 tween the Cherubim, be the earth never so un¬ 
 quiet,” why has this blessing of peace which the 
 world so sorely needs, been denied? Why has 
 He permitted it to be dashed to the earth by 
 unholy hands? Why this cruel carnage? Why 
 these awful windrows of death? Why the untold 
 sufferings of the wounded, and the tears of the 
 widow and the orphan? In short, why this terri¬ 
 ble baptism of blood, and death of the world’s 
 peace? The answer is, “because the world was 
 not ready for peace.” It has not yet been taught 
 the need for righteousness, and the utter barbar¬ 
 ism of war. Let us not think that it is the German 
 of only that has sinned, let us not point the finger 
 scorn only at him for this war. We too must veil 
 our faces and hang our heads in shame and say 
 “our sins have taken such hold upon us that we 
 are not able to look up,” both we in Canada and 
 those of our blood in the motherland have given 
 ourselves over “to the lusts of the flesh and the 
 lust of the eye and the pride of life.” We had 
 well-nigh forgotten” the Lord our God who had 
 done such great things for us.” For previous to 
 the war it was an age of feverish instability and 
 unrest and disquietude. The political life in the 
 motherland had become a hopeless muddle oj 
 incapacity, a seething chaos of party strife, which 
 made effectual government a farce and a byword. 
 The law of the land seemed powerless to punish 
 or restrain deeds of violence and wholesale destruc- 
 
The War and its Needs and Purposes 39 
 
 tion of most valuable property and beautiful 
 works of art, the priceless treasures of the nation, 
 even the sacred monuments of the peoples’ de¬ 
 motion, the venerable Churches of the land, were 
 not safe from destruction by the hatchet or bomb 
 in the hand of a crazy mob of fanatical women, 
 who not only confessed their crime, but gloried 
 in it. Yet the law of England seemed “as a 
 lamb led to the slaughter” to this foe that had 
 arisen in their midst, and the whole land was 
 terrorized by criminals that a sane justice would 
 have kept behind prison walls. Nor was it in 
 dealing with factious, silly women only that the 
 might and majesty and old time justice of British 
 rule and government, seemed weak and vacillat¬ 
 ing and wanting in its ancient dignity, for it was 
 seen also in its manifest injustice and its desire 
 to pander to popular prejudice in despoiling the 
 Church in Wales of its sacred heritage and by its 
 shilly-shally, uncertain policy, fomenting religious 
 strife in Ireland, which nothing but a common 
 danger allayed and only a foe at our gates pre¬ 
 vented from ending in civil war. 
 
 Nor was it only here that England had sinned 
 —in which we too have our share—for with, her 
 as with us, an insane hunger for the great things 
 of the earth ruled the hour, since all around us 
 were men, whose loftiest ambition seemed cen¬ 
 tered on wringing out of this world, its pleasures 
 and its honors and its riches. Social unrest was 
 wide-spread, the strife between capital and labor 
 was ever existing, millions were crying for bread, 
 
40 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 while millions were feasting and ruining their 
 souls through indolence, luxury and ease. The 
 very foundations of the Christian faith were con¬ 
 fidently questioned, and a science falsely so-called 
 had deceived many, revealing to us how little 
 after all the so-called culture and refinement and 
 the manifold discoveries, and material progress of 
 this wonderful age can, in themselves, do for the 
 elevation of the race. Sin still stalked trium¬ 
 phant. Lust, crime and moral degradation reared 
 their heads with amazing insolence. The old 
 time respect for law, order and the sterner virtues, 
 which at one time were the marked characteristics 
 of the English people, were wanting.. The Esaus 
 were abundant, willing to sell their birthright 
 for a mess of pottage, even sport had become 
 mercenary, and had lost its virility. Men grasp¬ 
 ed at luxury and ease, and spurned the sterner 
 virtues of manly endurance. So the whole life 
 of the people had become lax and enervated for 
 they were losing sight of lofty ideals and reverence 
 for truth and God and His service. They were, 
 in truth, endeavoring to live without Him and 
 the knowledge of His ways. 
 
 Since this is we believe, a true record of our 
 life at this time, of which we have spoken, if 
 “God still sitteth between the Cherubim,” can 
 we wonder that His wrath is abroad this day? 
 And here let us mark that in this evidence, of 
 God’s chastening hand, that history is repeating 
 herself, in that His people of old were brought 
 to a similar condition. They too had forgotten 
 
The War and its Needs and Purposes 41 
 
 God their Saviour and had turned to Egypt, 
 that is, to military organization to defend them, 
 till as today, “their enemies set in upon them 
 like a flood” even till “there were no widows to 
 make lamentation.” When they came, we are 
 told, with our question today on their lips “why 
 is this evil come upon us?” God answers them 
 in terms exact, “Because ye have robbed me, 
 this whole congregation. ” So we too have robbed 
 God, not only in tithes and offerings but in the 
 honor due unto His Holy Name. Robbed Him 
 through our coldness and luxury and ease and 
 indifference; through our failure to realize our 
 responsibilities to the great heathen world, who 
 are this day looking on our deep shame and 
 humiliation and asking in wondering amazement, 
 is this all that Christianity can do? Is this how 
 Christians love one another? Surely, this day 
 is a day that calls for our intercession to the God 
 of battles, that He would be pleased to crush 
 oppression, give liberty to the slaves of imperial 
 power, that He would subdue the arrogant^ and 
 humble the proud, who put their trust in the 
 spear and the shield,” in dreadnaughts and 
 machine guns. But we must go further this day 
 and pray that God would have mercy upon our 
 own sins. The sin of this war does not, thank 
 God, lie at our door, though we through our wilful 
 sin have been, in part, responsible for it; so its 
 lesson is needed for us as well as the Germans. 
 It is a call to us to mend our ways, for in spite 
 of former chastisements, notably the Boer war, 
 
42 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 we had grown careless and indifferent. As a 
 people, we were fast becoming the Godless nation 
 that were trying to live without God in the 
 world. Therefore this evil has come upon us 
 and the wrath of God is abroad in the land. 
 Whether we like it or not, we must face stern 
 facts. We are in death grips with a relentless 
 foe that will fight to the last gasp. Let us not 
 fail to remember that Britain’s life is ours, and 
 when she dies, we die. 
 
 Let us remember that each one of us has his or 
 her duty to perform as a contributor to the 
 nation’s well being. A calamity such as this 
 which is now hanging over us, is a call to every 
 single soul to do its share for the nation’s victory. 
 May we and our mother land and our noble allies, 
 combine to form a serious, sober, God-fearing, 
 reverent nation, whose watch-word is duty, and 
 whose banner is truth. Let us banish our political 
 puerilities and childish bickerings, as well as our 
 shameless indulgences! 
 
 England calls to us, the world calls to us and, 
 above all, God calls to us to be men , to be on 
 the side of truth, integrity and honor. May God 
 preserve the right! Should we then not lift up 
 our hearts this day? Yes, lift them up to the 
 Great Lord of battles, for the occasion has no 
 parallel in the history of the world. Never has 
 the call to prayer rung out so clear, so wide, so 
 imperative as today. The great Church of our 
 mother land is on her knees, daily prayer and 
 daily Eucharist is the rule in many of her churches. 
 
The War and its Needs and Purposes 43 
 
 The quiet hush of the spiriCofjprayerJis the pre¬ 
 vailing note of her people. 
 
 So we come before Him today to pray for our 
 king and our statesmen and our soldiers and 
 sailors and our noble band of nurses, those Red 
 Cross heroines who have gone with the ministry 
 of mercy in their hands. But let us continually 
 lift up our prayers for our brave volunteers, 
 both the fighting and the fallen, who have gone 
 forth on this blessed crusade, and have pledged 
 their faith to fight for home and country. May 
 God give them His strength and protection to 
 fight the good fight that may win for them the 
 Crown of Glory that fadeth not away. Amen. 
 
V 
 
 THE KING’S BUSINESS 
 
 The king’s business requireth haste. 
 
 I SAMUEL xxi, 8 
 
 T HE sword of the Lord and of Gideon” was 
 the great battle cry of that consecrated host 
 who went out, under the leadership of 
 Gideon, to fight against the uncircumcized host 
 of Midian, the old time enemies of the Kingdom 
 of God, who suffered, we are told, a most inglori¬ 
 ous defeat, and were utterly wasted. 
 
 This, we believe, was but a type and a fore¬ 
 shadowing for all time of the final overthrow of 
 God’s enemies and the final establishment of 
 His kingdom in the world. Therefore, have no 
 shadow of doubt, that those fell powers that have 
 bound themselves under an oath to rob humanity 
 of its life, by which we mean the principles of 
 truth and liberty, freedom and brotherhood, must 
 be through God’s help crushed and overthrown 
 this day. 
 
 So “the sword of the Lord and of Gideon,” is 
 once again the slogan of a consecrated host. Yes, 
 those of our own blood, those loyal sons of ours, 
 who have gone forth from their comfortable 
 homes, to endure untold privations, to face un¬ 
 moved all the powers of hell for the love of home 
 and king and country, these men are most surely 
 
 44 
 
The King's Business 
 
 45 
 
 worthy the highest honor, and are in truth King’^s 
 men, and if they are not fighting for the King’s 
 business, then it is nowhere to be found. For if 
 we are in any sense Christian people, we must 
 acknowledge that the great business set before 
 the Christian world this day, is to build up the 
 kingdom of God in the world. We may say 
 that never since the world began, was there such 
 a splendid opportunity; for from east to west, 
 from north to south, the cry goes up, “ come over 
 and help us.” We see a wide open door in every 
 land, the ancient cults are languishing as things 
 of the past. There is a general awakening in 
 heathen lands, civil, social and educational. As 
 with St. Paul of old, scales have fallen from the 
 eyes of the countless millions of the East. They 
 are having new visions. They are desiring new 
 things, and, above all, they are beginning to 
 learn of Christ. They are looking forward to us 
 to “expound unto them the way of God more 
 perfectly.” 
 
 All this was seen and known of all men, yet 
 what was the action of the Christian Church 
 previous to this war? Did it act as if it was the 
 King’s business to be done above all things and 
 at every cost? No, surely the very best they did 
 was to make it “a side show” and not their busi¬ 
 ness. They let their hands hang down, they 
 hugged their gold and kept back their sons from 
 the ministry, so allowed this vast opportunity to 
 pass by. 
 
 This we believe to be the colossal sin of our 
 
4 6 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 time, like Ananias and Sapphira we have lied to 
 God, we have called ourselves Christians and 
 have kept back the price of being Christians, we 
 have absolutely failed to recognize the solemnity 
 of the King’s command to go into all the world, 
 that this call of God was and must be, the great 
 business of the Church, the very pledge of her 
 existence. We have called ourselves soldiers of 
 the King and have proved traitors to His cause. 
 
 This we may believe is the great sin for which 
 we are being called into judgment this day. We 
 have, as we have said, “kept back part of the price” 
 by robbing God and now God is making us pay a 
 hundredfold, by our gold and the untold sacrifices 
 of our choicest sons. 
 
 In the pouring out of these sacrifices, we believe 
 that God has awakened the whole world to an 
 intense seriousness, has lifted the whole race to 
 loftier ideals and to the nobility of sacrifice, of 
 living, or, if need be, dying for a great cause. 
 Selfishness has ever been the world’s greatest 
 curse, but one of the great features of this terrible 
 war has been self-sacrifice, the forgetting of self, 
 it has developed in a marked degree love for 
 others, it has inspired men to the loftiest heroism, 
 the most unswerving devotion to the welfare of 
 men and the willingness to die that men may be 
 free, and that truth and righteousness may remain 
 upon the earth. 
 
 Who can tell the effect of this great awakening ? 
 Who can estimate the fruit that will be gathered 
 from the sowing of this precious seed of the blood 
 
The King’s Business 
 
 47 
 
 of our sons? Must it not remain to nourish the 
 earth? How can the men who are permitted to 
 return, who have fought so nobly for truth and 
 righteousness, wholly disregard it in their after life? 
 Mustn’t the desire for it remain to bless their 
 lives? Think of what it will do to advance the 
 brotherhood of men and how it will tend to break 
 down the barriers between nations, and prepare 
 the way for the unity of the race! 
 
 Let us think, then, how all these combined 
 influences will work together for the development 
 of God’s Kingdom and the promotion of the 
 King’s business? Those too of the non-christian 
 races, who are permitted to return from this vast 
 strife, to the several corners of the earth, will 
 carry back the deep impressions they received 
 from association with men of noble impulses and 
 lofty aspirations that will act as leaven to the 
 heathen world. 
 
 Hence, may it not be that God will turn even 
 this frightful carnage to His own glory, and make 
 it a way for opening the whole world to the com¬ 
 ing of Christ and the preaching of the Gospel? 
 
 Should this be so, it would be the fulfilment of 
 our Saviour’s words, when He tells us that He 
 came “not to send peace but a sword,” because 
 through His Divine knowledge of human nature, 
 He knew that the cross must come before the 
 crown, that men must pass “through much tribula¬ 
 tion before they could enter the kingdom.” This 
 tells in other words that the religious life is a life 
 
4 8 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 long battle, we learn to quit ourselves like men, 
 to be strong in the presence of the enemy that 
 would seek to gain the victory over us, in a word, 
 that we should prove ourselves good soldiers of 
 Jesus Christ. Do we not see how all these quali¬ 
 ties are learned on the field of battle and become 
 the very marks of the true soldier? 
 
 Oh, for the heroism, the courage, the loyalty 
 of our brave boys in the king’s colours at the 
 front 1 Why is it that men can be such heroes 
 in khaki and such cowards in the Church? Ought 
 not this splendid heroism in the battlefield put 
 us to shame in the Church? We can be brave 
 and self-sacrificing about anything else except m 
 our love and duty to God. We heed no hindrance 
 in our pleasures, we brave storms and tempest 
 in our social gatherings, yet they chill our hearts 
 when we are called to God’s House. 
 
 May it not be that a brighter day is dawning, 
 that this consecrated host that has gone forth to 
 fight the battle of the Lord, and have fought so 
 bravely, and so many have given up their lives 
 as soldiers of the King of Kings, may it not prove 
 that in the Providence of God, they will be 
 amongst the greatest missionaries of our time, 
 and by their noble examples lift up the minds to 
 nobler things than hoarding money and accum- 
 ■ lating bonds? For we do surely know, if we have 
 any reason or true knowledge of life, that these 
 things cannot truly enrich us, for say what 
 you will, or think as you may, you know in your 
 heart that the King’s business is the only business 
 
The King s Business 
 
 49 
 
 that can meet its creditors and pay, not only 
 dollar for dollar, but a hundredfold at the great 
 balancing day, since “there is nothing that a man 
 can give in exchange for his soul.” Do not the 
 noble lives of these men who are fighting our 
 battles and, if need be, dying for us make us 
 hang our heads for shame, if we lead selfish lives 
 today? If we give ourselves to selfish ease and 
 pleasure, when our own flesh and blood are 
 bleeding and dying that we may live? 
 
 Let us remember that no true Canadian father 
 or mother can hold back any son that is physically 
 fit, from this great struggle, without lasting dis¬ 
 honor to that son and to themselves. Yes, let 
 Canadian mothers and wives know that they could 
 do no greater injury to their sons and husbands, 
 than by holding them back. It is an injury that 
 will be stamped on them through all their lives, 
 the history of the future will point the finger of 
 scorn at them and will mark them as ingrates and 
 cowards and as traitors to their country and 
 compel them to hang their heads. Never in our 
 history has there been such a trumpet call for 
 men to prove their manhood, such an opportunity 
 to claim the highest honor as heroes in a noble 
 cause, to a dignity, to an honor, that all the titles 
 and honors of earth, are as nothing, to an honor 
 that outlasts the stars,—that of living or dying 
 for truth. 
 
 Some of our brave lads may never come back, 
 but what of that? Let us remember that they 
 will have their names and their graves marked 
 
50 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 with the sign of the cross, to tell us that they died 
 as men and not as selfish cowards. They died 
 fighting for principles they loved more than life. 
 They died that truth and liberty might remain 
 to those they loved in the sacred land that gave 
 them birth, and they have their reward. They 
 realized, each in his own way, that the thing he 
 was fighting for was the King’s business for the 
 establishment of the rule of Christ in the world. 
 They were not fighting for their own temporal 
 welfare, for nothing but temporal discomfort and 
 disaster awaited them. They knew that most 
 probably death was before them; yet they faltered 
 not, they faced death in its most awful and most 
 sickening forms for the prize of their high call¬ 
 ing. ' 
 
 Here I cannot but quote the words of one who 
 has added much to the world’s gladness, and has 
 made millions laugh. Harry Lauder shows that 
 he has the true heart that his humor indicates, 
 and love of his fellow man. In speaking of this 
 awful strife, he asks, “Is it all for nothing that 
 these sojer lads go off to the front laughing and 
 singing, aye, laughing and singing to. the very 
 end? What is it,” he asks, “what gives them 
 the power?” I believe it is God; take God out 
 of it, then what our soldiers have done, and. are 
 doing, would be sheer lunacy.. They might 
 better have stayed at home, with those lofty 
 souls that were afraid to fight,—men who had 
 learned what was done to the women of France 
 and Belgium and might be done to the women 
 
The Kings Business 
 
 5i 
 
 of our own country, and yet tried to persuade 
 themselves that it was wrong to kill the vermin 
 of earth that would do such things. 
 
 No, those whom we see in our trenches are 
 m n, they put away all thoughts of profit or 
 safety. 
 
 They chose a life of certain hardship and 
 hourly danger; they walked shoulder to shoulder 
 with death. Then I say, either they were fools, 
 or else God reigns and holds in His hands earth, 
 Heaven and Hell. 
 
 They died for us, they died for their mothers, 
 they died for their sweethearts or for their help¬ 
 less children. They died for the old home and 
 all the memories that cling around it; for the 
 lighted hearth, the clean board, and the prattle 
 of the bairns; for the thought of those far-away 
 days when a dear mother happed them round, 
 and crooned them to sleep with her baby song! 
 “Was it worth while?” he asks, “Are any or all 
 the noble deeds of life worth while? Or is this 
 world a hideous nightmare where those who call 
 themselves men struggle blindly for their own 
 selfish ends; Yes! thank God, it is worth while; 
 the sacrifices that have been wrought are not in 
 vain, it is not; for nothing we suffer. ” Then shall 
 we falter with the blood of our dearest unavenged? 
 Shall Canada betray her sons? Shall we parley 
 with Hell? Shall we make base bargains with 
 those whose hands are red with the blood of our 
 sons? 
 
 It is for all or nothing we fight; either we slay 
 
52 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 this evil beast, or let it live to curse the world; 
 either we keep faith with our dead, or betray 
 
 them. There is no half-way house, no com¬ 
 promise possible. Treaties, Pledges, Terms, what 
 are they to a German? No, there is only one 
 thing to be done, and that is cut him down , for 
 what is our most precious possession? Is it not 
 our faith in Christ, which is truth and freedom 
 and brotherhood, in a word the King’s business? 
 For this our sons have fought and died, for this, 
 
 then, let us live or die. Shall our sons of the 
 future be ashamed of their sires? Then let us 
 buckle on our harness. Whatever sacrifices are 
 demanded, make them bravely, cheerfully. Stand 
 fast to the end. Let us be worthy of our name 
 as soldiers of the King, engaged in the King’s 
 business. Victory is our word today; if we falter 
 before the debt of our dead sons is paid, then 
 we are a degenerate stock, unworthy of our sires. 
 Let us prove today of what stuff we are made, 
 the blood of our ancestors stirs us on, our Honor 
 Roll points the way. Let us give as they have 
 given,—their best that final victory may be ours 
 and so secure the triumph of the King’s business. 
 
VI 
 
 THE DUTY OF SERVICE 
 
 Take heed to the ministry 
 that thou fulfil it. 
 
 which thou hast received of the Lord, 
 
 COLL. IV, 17 
 
 M AN has but one life, and it is a life that can¬ 
 not die. What is called death,, is but a 
 phase of life, a means of transition to an¬ 
 other and more exalted condition of life. So it 
 comes that time and eternity are really the same 
 thing, indefinitely extended, they belong to each 
 other, as the seed belongs to the tree, or the fruit 
 to the flower. Time is the soil out of which 
 eternity springs, the harvest is as the sowing, 
 the future is determined by the now , everything 
 centres on the living present. The future can 
 have no influence on man’s character or history. 
 This shows us that the future and the present 
 are indissolubly connected by a vital union which 
 never can be broken, and that the coming life‘ 
 is not something which is somehow to begin when 
 the present is past, but something that is to 
 spring out of the present, to succeed it as the 
 harvest succeeds the sowing. Hence it follows 
 that all life is sacred, is really a consecrated ser¬ 
 vice which really has but one end, which is, in¬ 
 deed, the one purpose of life, the one thing we 
 were created to do. Therefore, everything how- 
 
 53 
 
54 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 ever great or however small that does not in some 
 way tend to further this great end; as far as we 
 are concerned, is not only useless and vain, but a 
 positive hindrance to our real advancement. 
 And this comes from the fact that this life, has, 
 as we have said, but one purpose,—to be used 
 as a preparation for another. Eternity is the 
 only measure of time, it is its guardian and 
 keeper. 
 
 Hence, when we attempt to shut up our life 
 in compartments, divide it up into times and 
 seasons, talk about secular and sacred duties, or 
 desire in any way to separate our daily life from 
 our religion, we are attempting to do an impos¬ 
 sible thing, since it is quite impossible to perform 
 a neutral act. It must be religious or irreligious, 
 it must have been done through faith in God, 
 or through lack of faith in Him. This brings us 
 to notice the fact of man’s stewardship from 
 which he cannot escape, which is at once his 
 highest good or his most extreme danger: his 
 highest good, if fulfilled, the loftiest dignity that 
 man is capable of receiving, an insignia of honor, 
 that is unfailing and imperishable and higher 
 than any king or potentate of earth is capable 
 of conferring. It is, moreover, an honor ‘high 
 and mighty as it is—that is open to, and within 
 the reach of all. The humblest may strive with 
 the mightiest, and receive an equal reward, 
 though the advantage is always on the side of 
 the weak, the humble. Yes, the king and his 
 meanest subject work side by side, the rich and 
 
The Duty of Service 
 
 55 
 
 the poor labor in the same field. God is. no re¬ 
 specter of persons, so the commander-in-chief 
 and his humblest subaltern are comrades on the 
 same battlefield. Aye, they and the little drum¬ 
 mer boy that keeps up his inspiring tattoo, in the 
 face of the enemy, may each by his faithful ser¬ 
 vice, make angels rejoice and have, the sign of 
 the cross eternally implanted on his breast by 
 the King of Kings. 
 
 But on the other hand, we must remember that 
 the use of time which may bring us imperishable 
 honor, may if abused bring upon us hopeless 
 disaster through an eternal dishonor. This is 
 true no matter how great may be our effort to 
 attain distinction on any field of contest, no 
 matter what position we may have secured, wealth 
 we may have gathered, or again, the high sound 
 ing titles we have attached to our name, though 
 it took the whole alphabet to tell of our titles 
 they are in themselves but as dross, empty bau¬ 
 bles, telling of failure and eternal disaster. . Why ? 
 Because we have failed in our stewardship, our 
 perspective has been foreshortened to view things 
 only from an earthly standpoint, we have made 
 things of earth an end not as means to an end, 
 they have not been done through, or because of 
 faith in God, but because of faith in ourselves 
 and in things of time. We must never forget, 
 whoever we are or whatever we may be, whether 
 high or low, rich or poor, ignorant or learned, 
 general or subaltern, that we stand absolutely 
 equal in God’s sight, all entrusted with the same 
 
 i 
 
Saved as by Fire 
 
 56 
 
 stewardship, all His ministers, each in our several 
 place and calling, with talents measured by the 
 unerring hand of God, talents which are entrusted 
 to us to be employed in the Master’s service. 
 
 These talents, moreover, are, we are told, ex¬ 
 actly suited to our use; for it was. “every man 
 according to his several ability” in the terms 
 expressed. It is important for us to remember 
 this, for we are often tempted to think we could 
 have done better work in some other condition, 
 but to make this true, we would need a wisdom 
 superior to God. No, my friends, let us be 
 assured that there are no misfits, nor short reckon¬ 
 ings about life and its conditions; it is a part of a 
 divine plan. As the sun in the Heavens, we have 
 to go forth each day to our daily labor, to the 
 doing our “little bit ” in God’s vineyard. Wheth¬ 
 er that bit be in our peaceful homes in Canada, 
 or in the roaring, shrieking din and blinding 
 vapor of the battle-scarred fields of France or 
 Belgium; an equal glory awaits the faithful labor- 
 er. Yes, a fitting reward to every man; it may 
 not be from his comrades, it may not be that V. C. 
 is pinned on his breast by the command of .his 
 king and country; but a loftier honor awaits him, 
 pronounced by the King of Kings, “well done, 
 thou good and faithful servant, enter thou into 
 the joy of thy Lord.” The watchword of the 
 Christ was meant to be the watchword of our 
 lives, for He was our example. He had but one 
 ideal in life and that was His Father’s business. 
 “I must be about my Father’s business;” it was 
 
The Duty of Service 
 
 57 
 
 the one thought of His life. It is most significant 
 for us to remember that His ministry was largely 
 connected with things of earth; for twenty-seven 
 years He wrought and labored as man, His 
 Father’s business took Him into the field of 
 common toil, to the carpenter’s shop and the 
 ordinary vocations of men, that He might sanctify 
 them and fit them for man. Thus it was that He 
 endeavored to prepare all fields of labor for the 
 Master’s use and do His work. And what was 
 all this to us but to teach us the value of time and 
 labor because they were so instrumental in work¬ 
 ing out God’s purpose in the world? So it was 
 that Christ summoned every man to work in His 
 vineyard, promising every man a reward pro¬ 
 portioned to his labor—yes, even though he came 
 at “the eleventh hour.” There was hope of reward 
 for every man except for him who remained “idle,” 
 —who was not employed in the Master s work, 
 those who utterly failed in their ministry, in the 
 stewardship of the Master’s goods. How signi¬ 
 ficant it is that we are told that the unfaithful 
 steward of old, “buried his talent in the earth! 
 Just what unnumbered millions, in their consum¬ 
 ing blindness, are doing this today, planning and 
 thinking only of earth, forgetting the purpose and 
 glory and dignity of their high calling,—that was 
 not to be mere earth workers as the ox or the 
 ass, but Divine laborers, fellow-workers with 
 God,—engaged in laying foundations of a great 
 work which will outlast the stars and go on, in¬ 
 creasing in beauty and glory as the ages pass. 
 
Saved as by Fire 
 
 58 
 
 Thus it was that our great Master taught us the 
 value and end of time and bid us mark the beauty 
 and value of each passing hour. He would bid 
 us reverence today because of tomorrow, in order 
 that we might each day be “a day’s march nearer 
 home.” Yes, the present is sacred, every moment 
 of it, because of the glorious future. Today we 
 must fulfil our allotted task as God’s workmen in 
 the position in which we stand, whether bending 
 our backs in the field of labor, or standing behind 
 our counters, or in the trench, armor clad, waiting 
 for the enemy, ready to do our bit for God and 
 humanity. It is all one service, to which we are 
 called in the work of our ministry. There is 
 nothing that we need more continually to remind 
 ourselves than this,—that there are no neutrals, 
 nor camp followers in God’s army. We must 
 be either fighter or traitor for we are distinctly 
 told that those who do not labor actively for 
 Christ are laboring actively against Him. There 
 is then, we see, no halfway house between Heaven 
 and Hell, as many seem to think who would live 
 without a religious purpose and lose sight of the 
 sacredness of time. 
 
 We have a most telling instance of this given 
 in the gospel of “the certain rich man who was 
 clothed with purple and fine linen and fared 
 sumptuously every day. ” He was, it would seem, 
 no active transgressor, no brawler nor intemper¬ 
 ate man, “no remover of his neighbor’s landmark” 
 He was no doubt, indeed one of the most respected 
 members of the community; in short, he was the 
 
The Duty of Service 
 
 59 
 
 man of the big house, and of the long bank ac¬ 
 count. He was the one man whose death spread 
 a gloom over the whole place in which he dwelt* 
 The praise of him was on every lip. He was the 
 one man whose happiness and good fortune 
 every one envied. This we may well believe, 
 yet when he passes through the transitional door 
 of death, we are permitted to know of his eternal 
 condition, for it was “ in hell he lifted up his eyes.. 
 Here we may pause to ask what caused this 
 terrible catastrophe in this most respectable man’s 
 life? What was his sin? There was only one 
 lodged against him, and that was spiritual in¬ 
 difference, he had forgotten the purpose of life. 
 He had neglected his ministry, he had passed by 
 the sick and the wounded. Like the Levite, he 
 had gone by “on the other side.” His brother 
 Lazarus lay at his very gate, his pathetic appeal 
 for help and succor moved the very dogs in the 
 street, while the rich man sat in his palace. Like 
 Gallio of old, “he cared for none of these things.” 
 Not until his eyes were opened in another world, 
 was the depth of his folly revealed to him. 
 
 And how important it is to remember that it 
 was only when he “lifted up his eyes” that he real¬ 
 ized what he had lost! On earth he had looked 
 down, his thought was centered on earth, he saw 
 only what earth could give him. “Moses and the 
 prophets” had spoken to him of God s service and 
 had bidden him “worship the Lord thy God and 
 Him only shaltthou serve.” Yet he turned a deaf 
 ear to everything but time and self, and so was 
 
6o 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 placed behind the bar of God’s judgment, as an 
 unfaithful steward; while the humble Lazarus, 
 though clothed in rags and covered with sores, 
 was considered worthy of His Kingdom. All 
 literature fails to give us a more striking and 
 effective parable, telling us of the value of time 
 and the purpose of life. It shows us the utter 
 inability of earthly things, even in their most 
 lavish abundance, to supply our need. It tells us 
 too most truly, of our ministry, our stewardship 
 in the sight of God, that we never can be ozvenrs , 
 only servants under a master to whom we must 
 give an account of what we have done, the way 
 we have employed our talents that He has placed 
 in our hands. 
 
 Let our last thought then be, concerning the 
 sacredness of the “common round of our daily 
 task,” we are each one on a divine mission, 
 whether we be citizens or soldiers, we have been 
 called by God to do a holy work; especially, I 
 may say, those who have the high privilege and the 
 lofty dignity of being permitted to enter into this 
 holy war, in which we and our beloved allies are 
 now engaged. All the forces of cruelty and op¬ 
 pression are arrayed against us. The welfare of 
 humanity at large is at stake. May we not 
 thank God that our noble sons “have done their 
 deed yet scorned to blot it with a name?” They 
 are the unseen heroes of that “thin, red line” 
 that ever has been the glory of the British race 
 among the nations of the earth, because that line 
 ever has fought for truth and righteousness, for 
 
The Duty of Service 
 
 61 
 
 right and justice between man and man. May 
 those who are now fighting, or are now putting on 
 their armor to fill the ranks of those who have 
 fallen in the tide of war, remember to emulate 
 the deeds of those who have gone before and 
 never forget that they are Christian soldiers, 
 sworn to fight for God and king and country, 
 consecrated for a sacred work and therefore may 
 “take heed to the ministry which they have 
 received of the Lord, that they fulfil it.” 
 
VII 
 
 LUKE-WARM CHRISTIANS 
 
 Because thou art luke-warm , 
 spew thee out of my mouth . 
 
 and neither cold nor hot , 1 will 
 rev. in, 16 
 
 T HESE words indicate a contemptuous loath¬ 
 ing, an absolute disgust and unspeakable 
 contempt, for a type, of religious life, that 
 the great seer of Patmos found existing at Laodi- 
 cea. They remind us of those words of ringing 
 scorn and of absolute condemnation which came 
 from the lips of the Master of the mock religion 
 of the scribes and Pharisees of His day. Nothing 
 seemed to arouse His indignation and contempt 
 so much as lip-service. To the diseased and the 
 fallen, He was ever merciful. For the penitent 
 sinner, His heart was overflowing with tender¬ 
 ness and love, ready to stretch forth His hand, 
 to receive them and bid them “go and sin no 
 more. But for those who would make their ser¬ 
 vice of “mint, anise, and cumin,” take the place 
 of holiness of life, His withering indignation knew 
 no bounds, His words of wrath burnt like fire, 
 He spake as if the very gates of Hell were open 
 to receive them. 
 
 These words of Christ, as well as those of His 
 loved disciple, in our text, show us the shudder- 
 
 62 
 
Luke-warm Christians 
 
 63 
 
 ing profanity of an insincere profession, of a 
 service in which the heart has no part. St. James 
 tells us that “a double-minded man, is unstable 
 in all his ways, let not that man think that he 
 shall receive anything from the Lord.” Indeed, 
 this is the very kind of man for whom we have 
 no use ourselves, in the most common scenes of 
 life; those who are ever halting by the way, who 
 have not the courage of their convictions, no 
 definite course of action; those who have no grit 
 in them to stand up for what they believe to be 
 right in the face of public opinion; yes, we despise 
 them in our hearts, and have no hesitation in 
 saying “out with them” and we as it were “spew 
 them out of our mouth.” No, we don’t want 
 men that are “on the fence” to do anything we are 
 interested in, we want men of positive action, 
 who say what they mean and mean what they 
 say. 
 
 Now this was the very spirit which animated 
 the mind of St. John, he saw that these men of 
 Laodicea had no definite purpose in their religion. 
 It was to them an unmeaning form, there was 
 nothing which they really desired, in that they 
 were quite content as they were, they were satis¬ 
 fied with their present condition. The words 
 which he puts in their mouth are “thou sayest I 
 am rich and increased with goods and have need 
 of nothing.” Oh, with what a ruthless hand 
 does the Apostle strip off the mask and bid them 
 look at themsehes in the mirror of God’s truth I 
 In the light of eternity, he reveals their utter 
 
6 4 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 blindness to their real state, and the festering 
 rottenness of their fancied self-sufficiency. He 
 shows them that their boasted wealth was as 
 “moth and rust,” their “purple and fine linen were 
 as filthy rags, their wealth was poverty, their 
 fulness was want, their comfort and ease, were 
 but misery and wretchedness. They were in 
 reality “poor, blind, naked,” while all the time he 
 showed them they were standing at plenty s door, 
 food eternal was at hand for their acceptance, 
 for they had been invited to God’s banquetting 
 house, yet “like the sow that was washed, they 
 had returned to their wallowing in the mire.’ 
 
 So the apostle would bid them awake from 
 their fatal slumber and seek their fulness where 
 it might be found. Speaking as an ambassador of 
 Christ, he says “I commend thee to buy of me 
 gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; 
 white raiment that thou mayest be clothed, and 
 that the shame of thy nakedness may not appear; 
 and anoint thine eyes with eye salve, that thou 
 mayest see,” that is, be no longer “luke-warm, 
 neither cold nor hot, but zealous and whole¬ 
 hearted and repent and I will give thee light.” 
 The apostle goes on to show them, that though 
 they had erred from the right way, though they 
 were “poor, blind, and naked,” that the door of 
 hope was not closed to them, for He reminds 
 them of the loving words of the IVIaster, Behold, 
 I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear 
 my voice and open the door, I will come in^to 
 him, and will sup with him, and he with Me.” 
 
Luke-warm Christians 
 
 6S 
 
 Yes, the fulness is ever waiting whatever be 
 our sin, if we will only turn seeking it, be it only 
 the first earnest appeal of “ Father I have sinned 
 against thee and am no more worthy to be 
 called thy son.” As we are told, even when his 
 son was “a great way off” the Father ran towards 
 him, put His arms around his neck, and kissed 
 him, and restored his sonship, and recognized in 
 the prodigal a “son thatwas lost,” butnowfound. 
 Yes, for the repentant sinner, though “feeding 
 on husks the swine might eat,” there is mercy 
 and forgiveness, but for those who love their 
 swine husks more than the Father’s House, for 
 the “luke-warm, ” for the half-hearted, for the 
 lip-server; there is naught but contempt and re¬ 
 jection. God must be first or not at all. 
 
 All this shows us the tyranny of love, and its 
 absolute nature. It suffers no rivals. It de¬ 
 mands all or it will have nothing. It claims heart 
 devotion from the object loved, luke-warmness 
 is fatal, so Christ says, “He that loveth not, 
 knoweth not God, for God is love.” 
 
 This is the great truth that is being brought 
 home to us today,—that is, the intensity of love; 
 for love of home and country is only another form 
 of love towards God, and it means sacrifice ot 
 everything—if need be, of life itself. The love 
 of truth and righteousness, is “above rubies,” it is 
 “the pearl of great price,” that we must be willing 
 to “sell all that we have” to buy. “To him that 
 overcometh, I will grant to him to sit down on 
 my throne, even as I also overcame and sat down 
 
66 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 on my Father’s throne.” 
 
 There are perhaps no words of scripture more 
 searching than the words of our text. They bring 
 us face to face with real things, with the things 
 that count in our life. These are the things that 
 are brought home to us this day as never before 
 in the history of the world. 
 
 The value of the really great things is being 
 tested, as never before, in the crucible of a world- 
 war; the dross is being cast aside; the pure gold 
 revealed. For as it has been said, u war is the 
 great revealer,” it shows men as they really are, 
 not as they appear in their outward acts to men 
 and nations, it shows their inward impulses that 
 actuate their lives. The moral restraints that 
 influence us in times of peace, are in times of war 
 removed, show us exactly what we are, so it shows 
 men at their best and at their worst. In times 
 of peace, Germany was deemed one of the most 
 advanced nations of the world, she was first in 
 science, first in industrial skill, first in philosophy, 
 and in so-called “culture,” in music and poetry, 
 she was certainly not behind other nations, while 
 her perfect organization was the admiration of 
 the world; yet war has revealed her a whited 
 sepulchre hiding the most hideous corruption of 
 lust and cruelty and treachery and revenge.. She 
 has not scrupled to add to the world’s history, 
 new pages of horrors hitherto unknown; she has, 
 in truth, revealed herself absolutely inhuman; 
 for as St. James says, “to be set on fire of Hell, 
 being earthly, selfish, devilish.” 
 
Luke-warm Christians 
 
 67 
 
 On the other hand, we have seen nations that 
 were taunted, by their “cultured” neighbors as 
 a nation of “shopkeepers,” given over to com¬ 
 fort and ease, and “muddling” and grabbing 
 everything in sight in the way of money or terri¬ 
 tory, a nation that had settled on its lees and 
 had lost its old time vigor of action and strength of 
 moral purpose. Yet we find this same nation, 
 in time of war, the wonder of the world in her 
 mighty resourcefulness and untold sacrifices that 
 her people were prepared to make for the rights 
 of weaker nations, and for the rescue of the 
 fallen she was willing to stake her all that truth 
 and justice might remain to men, showing that 
 these were really the principles that governed 
 her life. Going across the channel, we might 
 have seen what was called “a nation of triflers” 
 and what appeared a frivolous people, bent only 
 on pleasure and excitement and lacking in moral 
 courage, but in the crucible of war, we find them 
 devoting themselves to heroic sacrifice for the 
 defeat of tyranny and injustice, and willing, to 
 the last man or woman to die for their country, 
 and for the cause to which they had put their 
 hand. And what may not be said for our own 
 Canada and the other colonies and our stalwart 
 brothers of the United States? Little did we 
 think of the loyalty and courage that lay hidden 
 in the breasts of their people, that generations to 
 come would tell of their mighty deeds and heroism 
 in the hour of danger, of their willingness to make 
 the great sacrifice, if need be to die for the life of men. 
 
68 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 Thus, we see, though war is in itself truly Hell, 
 yet even this, is better than lust and brutality 
 and the despotism of war lords; for it proves men, 
 and gives them opportunity to show what is in 
 them,—that they are neither cold nor luke-warm, 
 when the cause of Christ is at stake, and the wel¬ 
 fare of the world hangs in the balance. 
 
 So today, in all that welter of blood and slaugh¬ 
 ter across the sea, you see noble manhood and 
 womanhood standing out in bold relief against 
 the Egyptian darkness, not only in individuals, 
 but on all sides, a mighty host, who are ready 
 to be offered, marching to the front, each one 
 knowing, that if he attacks at dawn, that he may 
 die before night, yet “not a man dismayed,” nor 
 turning himself “back in the day of battle.” Yes, 
 God be praised, it has been the great searching 
 of the nations. So it comes that the religious 
 spirit, that has sprung out of the ruins of the 
 devastated countries of Europe, is now glowing in 
 the hearts and minds of our people, giving them 
 untold strength for heroism, and courage, and 
 sacrifice. Men are discovering, as a brilliant 
 novelist has just told us, “that religion is the 
 first thing and the last thing, and until a man has 
 found God, and has been found by God, he begins 
 at no beginning and he works to no end. ” 
 
 So it is that this war has been as an angel’s 
 trump, saying to the nations of the earth, “wake 
 thou that sleepest and arise from the dead, and 
 Christ shall give thee light. ” It has shown us our 
 true state, that we have been slumbering on our 
 
Luke-warm Christians 
 
 69 
 
 watch tower, and so it comes to us as a great 
 opportunity to lift us out of the pit of indifference 
 into which we have fallen, and make us try to 
 really accomplish some of those lofty ideals about 
 which we talk so glibly these times, but about 
 which we, after all, make so little sacrifice of 
 time or pleasure. We must realize more and 
 more that not a man nor woman amongst us, not 
 a soul so insignificant, nor a citizen so small, 
 that he cannot make a deep and important con¬ 
 tribution to the winning of the cause to which 
 we are pledged. 
 
 It is the commonplace things of life we know, 
 which are of the most importance at all times but 
 especially at such times as this when waste and 
 indulgence are simply criminal, and a noble spirit 
 of sacrifice can be shown at home, as well as by 
 those who go out to the front to make the great 
 
 sacrifice, if need be, of life. 
 
 But we may say that there is no way that 
 Christians in general have shown their luke¬ 
 warmness more than in the cause of missions, 
 that great cause that laid so close to the heart 
 of the Master, “those other sheep” which He bid 
 His Church to gather in. What, we may ask, 
 does the cause of missions mean? It means in 
 reality, ourselves , for it is only as we give to others 
 that we ourselves are blessed. Missions and 
 spiritual life go hand in hand, they stand or fall 
 together, the law of life is giving and receiving, 
 we must give if we would get. As the world has 
 
 o place for half-hearted men, so God has no 
 
70 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 place for the luke-warm. These are the greatest 
 hindrances to the cause of Christ in the world 
 today. 
 
 It is not the open transgressor whose evil life 
 is known to all men that works the most evil, in 
 that his sin bears its own condemnation, it is the 
 weak-kneed, half-hearted, double-serviced, the 
 good-lord, good-devil, sort of men and women, 
 that are afraid to confess themselves altogether 
 Christians. 
 
 What the Church is crying for today, so sorely 
 needs in this hour of peril when the very founda¬ 
 tions of the earth are being moved, is men and 
 women who have the courage of their convictions, 
 men who like our soldiers are ready for sacrifice, 
 for wherever there is true life, there is fulness and 
 progress, there is a consuming ambition for greater 
 things. 
 
 But how little of this do we see in our lives? 
 We have let Christianity appear to be a selfish 
 religion, practised only for ease and comfort in 
 the next world without sacrifice in this. 
 
 Selfishness is the devil’s hall-mark. In direct 
 proportion to the extent that self is present, 
 Christ is absent. As Christ gave Himself for us, 
 so must we give ourselves for others in Him. 
 
 God in the person of His Son, became Incarnate 
 and took our nature upon Him, so that His life 
 might be ours, and we might follow Him who was 
 THE WAY. 
 
VIII 
 
 THE TRUE STRENGTH OF A NATION ' 
 
 THANKSGIVING DAY 
 
 Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any 
 people. 
 
 prov. xiv, 34 
 
 C AUSE and effect are two things that are in¬ 
 separably joined and cannot be put asunder. 
 They belong to one another as the day belongs 
 to the night, and are the fixed sequents of each 
 other. Our whole life is governed on this prin¬ 
 ciple. Harvests of whatsoever nature, depend 
 on the sowing, we “do not gather grapes of thorns, 
 or figs of thistles.” So, too, is it with the law of 
 increase, this law is written large and plain, in the 
 penalty that comes to individuals, as well as 
 nations. 
 
 Think, for instance, of Russia today. For a 
 century she had denied liberty of thought and 
 freedom of speech to her people, she had kept 
 them in ignorance, and men were steadily exiled 
 for daring to teach the people to read and think 
 for themselves. The ruling powers of this vast 
 country gave but ignorance and superstition to 
 its people; who are now, therefore, true to the 
 
 71 
 
72 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 law of increase—giving back riot and bloodshed. 
 So, too, the Czar and his autocrats administered 
 cruelty and harshness, and so had returned by 
 the same law, hatred and revenge, till at length 
 they found that the prison walls of Siberia en¬ 
 closed the hotbeds of revolution and the seeds of 
 anarchy and bloodshed. Today it has burst out 
 in open violence, to sweep out of existence, the 
 system of tyranny which has perpetuated such 
 darkness and suffering. Thus we see that Russia 
 is reaping of her own sowing in the maddened 
 uprising of her people, in the overthrow of her 
 ruling princes, and in the exile of her Emperor. 
 
 Indeed, her latest revolution is an open testi¬ 
 mony to the law of which we have spoken, it is 
 the increase of a continuous reign of misrule and 
 injustice. Political corruption, greed, and brib¬ 
 ery, were openly employed; assassination was 
 made to take the place of justice, and oppression, 
 of equal rights; so that the whole government of 
 the country was in the hands of private com¬ 
 bines and wholesale plunderers, who robbed the 
 treasuries of the country to add to their own gain. 
 No wonder that the bells rang with joy at the 
 advent of the co-called “New Regime.” 
 
 Now the great question that comes to us at this 
 hour, is, “Has the history of this nation no word 
 of warning for us?” For we too, most surely, 
 must reap as we have sown. We may say that 
 the whole world realizes that Canada occupies a 
 wonderful vantage ground in the history of na¬ 
 tions. It may be said that never before have 
 
The True Strength of a Nation 
 
 73 
 
 greater possibilities been set before a people. She 
 has reached a crisis in the affairs of men,—the 
 great establisher of nations, in her hands possibili¬ 
 ties of material enlargement, hitherto unknown. 
 Thus we see that Canada has reached a very 
 critical moment in her political and material 
 history, as we have said, the eyes of the whole 
 world are resting upon her and watching her 
 progress as a nation builder, whether her people 
 shall prove themselves patriots or traitors. 
 Whether Canada shall show to the world that she 
 is a nation that fears God and loves righteousness, 
 or is a poor mean, selfish mob, that sees nothing 
 but what it blindly believes is its own interest, and 
 is willing to accept peace at any price and under 
 any conditions. 
 
 Hence we may say that the very life as a nation 
 is at stake this day, and in one sense is being 
 moulded by us, its future is largely in our hands, 
 for it is realized, as we have said, that she is lay¬ 
 ing the foundations of that which under God is 
 destined to be one of the largest and most in¬ 
 fluential nations of the earth. Indeed, it was 
 said a short time ago by one of the first statesmen 
 of England that he believed that a lapse of fifty 
 years would find Canada, the virtual centre of 
 British Dominions. The greatness of our task 
 may show the deep need, there is for Canada 
 and her people to realize, especially at this time, 
 the greater elements that combine to give strength 
 to a nation. What then, we may ask is her great 
 need? Now in seeking an answer to this ques~ 
 
74 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 tion, it may be well for us to consider what has 
 led to the wreck of nations in the past? Well, 
 at this present time, we have before us object 
 lessons that may enable us, in part, to answer 
 this question. Spain and Portugal, for instance, 
 were at one time among the foremost nations of 
 the earth, “their silver and their gold was multi¬ 
 plied/’ their ships were found on every sea, they 
 were among the richest in colonial possessions. 
 They were victorious by sea and land. They 
 left the records of their conquering might in al¬ 
 most every corner of the earth. Yet if we look to 
 these nations today, we find that their glory has 
 departed from them, they have fallen in the race, 
 their countries are but hotbeds of anarchy and 
 violence and the home of tyranny and misgovern- 
 ment. Cruelty and bloodshed are made to take 
 the place of justice and fair dealing. It is openly 
 confessed that at least from a moral standpoint 
 almost the whole great Latin race, which formed 
 at one time the most powerful race that ever 
 existed, is today practically dead. If we seek for 
 the cause of the downfall of this renowned race, 
 we believe we find it, first, in the greed, tyranny 
 and injustice of its ecclesiastical and political 
 rulers who first kept it in ignorance, then burdened 
 it with unjust taxation, and finally crushed its 
 life by denying it individual freedom, the liberties 
 of a free people, and the rights of an honest 
 citizenship. The result of this unjust oppression 
 was to crush the mental and moral growth of the 
 people, and to engender in them a spirit of an- 
 
The True Strength of a Nation 
 
 75 
 
 archy and rebellion, bringing about the present 
 overthrow of the temporal and spiritual powers, 
 which in the end we believe will lead to the final 
 divorce of the people from both Church and 
 state. We may have some ideal of the ignorance 
 of the common people, the criminal neglect of the 
 cause of education in these two countries when 
 we are told that in Spain with a population of over 
 16,000,000 only 2,000,000 can read or write, while 
 in Portugal eighty-seven per cent are in the same 
 condition. Can we wonder that this oppressed 
 and down-trodden people have risen in revolt 
 at the tyranny of their old time oppressors and 
 have proclaimed war to the knife, against church 
 and throne? 
 
 What then is the lesson we draw from the 
 practical wrecks of these nations which at one 
 time were so renowned among the nations of the 
 earth? Why, in the first place, let us learn of 
 the priceless value of freedom, which means 
 liberty of thought, liberty of speech, liberty to 
 worship God according to the dictates of every 
 man’s conscience. Next we learn the absolute 
 need of education. Our religious secular educa¬ 
 tion must ever hold the first position in the minds 
 of our people, for it is true today as it ever has 
 been that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning 
 of wisdom.” We must never forget that we may live 
 and grow and develop as a nation, without cruisers 
 or aircrafts or dreadnaughts. Yes, even without 
 millionaires, and indeed we hope to see the day 
 when a multi-millionaire will be impossible, but 
 
76 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 if we would build up our nation on a permanent 
 foundation, its great corner stone must be the 
 educational and religious culture of our people. 
 For we must remember that after all that is said, 
 or can be said about the establishment of a state, 
 or the building up of a people, there is only one 
 foundation that cannot be moved with regard to 
 any work, whether of a nation or an individual, 
 and that is faith in God , which the whole world 
 is learning this day as never before. This is the 
 only thing that can bind us together and hold us 
 secure, and we may say that the main use and 
 purpose of secular education is to so develop 
 our mind as to enable men to trace out more 
 fully the wonder of God’s law and the ways of 
 His working. St. Paul warns his son Timothy, 
 with a warning that never should be forgotten, 
 when he tells him that “the love of money is the 
 root of all evil,” for it has been on this rock that 
 nation after nation has fallen. The most subtle 
 deceit and cruel lie that the devil ever wedged 
 into a human heart, is that material possession 
 can give security or permanent strength to a 
 people or to a nation. When the great Satrap 
 of old set up his image of gold on the plains of 
 Dura before which he bid “all kingdoms, nations 
 and languages” bow the knee, he was but giving 
 dramatic expression to an insanity that is as old 
 as the race, the worship of materialism or that 
 which in some form or other represents money. 
 
 Thus it is that materialism spells the doom of 
 any people as is abundantly proved in the awful 
 
77 
 
 The True Strength of a Nation 
 
 catastrophe which has fallen upon the whole 
 world this day. In the case of Germany, we see 
 the moral iniquity to which it leads when it is 
 made the idol of a people. She had made it the 
 leading thought of her present generation. She 
 had set up the golden image of might before the 
 eyes of the world to which she would make all 
 nations bow the knee. In the furtherance of her 
 insolent designs, she has sunk to the lowest 
 degradation. In outraging every law of God 
 or man, she has aroused the moral indignation of 
 the whole world in such a way as to call forth the 
 most splendid response that the world has ever 
 seen in all its history. It is here that we find the 
 first note of our thanksgiving today, our thanks¬ 
 giving for material blessings, is we may be over¬ 
 shadowed by something that is higher than earth. 
 Yes, the circle of our thanksgiving takes a larger 
 sweep and we thank Him not only for our daily 
 bread for the year that is past, but for the count¬ 
 less evidences of His Almighty Hand in furthering 
 our cause and in giving our arms success and 
 inspiring our troops with that spirit of heroism 
 which is a household word in every land. 
 
 We may believe that the three years of this war 
 ha\e done more for the establishment of Canada 
 than a hundred years of her history; the story of 
 these years, it is true, was written in blood; but 
 Ah! my friends, they will turn to letters of gold 
 when the name of Canada is mentioned by the 
 generations that follow us. Yes, Canada has 
 
78 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 soaked the soil of Flanders with the blood of her 
 sons, yet in this glorious sacrifice she has proved 
 herself a nation that fears God and loves righteous¬ 
 ness and believes that it is better to die and be 
 free, than to live and be a slave. 
 
 With heart and voice we may thank God this 
 day that He has breathed His spirit into so many 
 hearts to fight His battles for truth and liberty, 
 and to overthrow those powers of darkness that 
 would enslave the world. Our heartfelt thanks¬ 
 giving goes out today not only for God’s con¬ 
 tinued mercies during these trying times in 
 supplying our temporal needs, but more especially 
 for His spiritual blessings seen in the loyalty and 
 devotion of our brave defenders in this awful 
 strife. It was a day of peril and of darkness, 
 the enemy had set in upon us like a flood, and it 
 was surely of the Lord’s mercies we were not 
 consumed. We believe that the victory will be 
 ours because it is, we believe, the Lord’s battle. 
 Right and might are drawn up in battle array, 
 right must win. 
 
 We are living in the midst of the world’s con¬ 
 vulsion, destined to set the course of the world’s 
 history for centuries to come. It is indeed the 
 hour of destiny for the world, for the nations, for 
 the Church; yet in the midst of all the peril and 
 bloodshed, it is not difficult to trace the foot¬ 
 prints of the Son of Man. Not if we look only 
 upon the outward aspect of the war and see only 
 the blood and the misery and the cruelty and 
 the barbarism, and hear only the boom and 
 
The True Strength of a Nation 
 
 79 
 
 terror of the guns; but if we look deeper and see 
 the noble sacrifices that are made for the princi¬ 
 ples of our holy faith, see the unshrinking heroism 
 of those who fight, we may be well assured 
 that this is essentially a great spiritual conflict. 
 On one side we see the last and the strongest 
 effort yet made in the history of men for the 
 establishment of the old pagan idea of holding 
 dominion by sword and spear, and on the other, 
 a world-wide league of free people banded together 
 for the crushing out of this adder’s poison and the 
 establishing a world-wide dominion of love and 
 brotherhood in which truth and justice must 
 reign supreme. Already we can see signs of its 
 coming by men’s being drawn into one common 
 struggle, shedding their blood for a common 
 cause, and giving their lives for the same undying 
 principles. It is for these things we thank God 
 this day that He is leading the whole world to 
 recognize the sanctity of His laws, and that it is 
 righteousness only that exalteth a nation, and 
 that service and sacrifice are the only things that 
 count in estimating the worth of men and the 
 wealth of nations. 
 
IX 
 
 THE HOME BASE AND ITS DUTIES 
 
 As his part is that goeth down to the 
 be that tarrieth by the stuff. 
 
 battle , so shall his part 
 i sam. xxx, 24 
 
 T HE event to which our text refers was a 
 scene in the life of David, when he went 
 forth to battle against the Amalekites who 
 had burned the cities of Judah and had taken 
 many captives, among whom were members of 
 his own household. With a little band of six 
 hundred men, he set out in pursuit of the con¬ 
 quering hosts, but on coming to the mountain 
 gorge of the river Besor, it was found, that two 
 hundred of his men were so wearied from the 
 burden of the way, that they were unable to ford 
 the rapid waters and were therefore left behind 
 to guard the tents, while David, with his four 
 hundred men pressed on in pursuit of the enemy, 
 and not only overtook them and slew them with a 
 great slaughter, but recovered all the captives 
 with a vast amount of treasure. 
 
 On their return home from their great victory, 
 there came up the question of the division of the 
 spoil, it was held by some, that they only who had 
 done the fighting should be partakers, that to the 
 
 80 
 
The Home Base and its Duties 
 
 81 
 
 victors belong the spoils, but the generous, noble 
 heart of .David would not permit him to admit 
 of this injustice. He maintained, that those who 
 remained behind, were victors in will if not in 
 deed, in that it was not cowardice but inability 
 which prevented them from being in the ranks of 
 war. In wish and desire they had been present. 
 They had done their part in guarding the stuff 
 and protecting the home base. Wherefore, David 
 issued his command that there should be no dis¬ 
 tinction in the way of honor and so when he 
 came to the two hundred who remained behind, 
 he. saluted them also as victors and laid down a 
 principle of battle which forever after became a 
 law in Israel,—“the part of him that goeth to the 
 battle, so shall his part be, that remaineth at the 
 stuff, they shall share alike.” 
 
 The words of David of old seem to have a 
 special fitness for us today. The first shock and 
 panic of this most unrighteous war have passed 
 to a sense of rigid endurance. The first flame of 
 loyalty and enthusiasm that sped our valiant sons 
 to the. rescue of the downtrodden, has settled 
 down into the steady fire of the nation’s wrath. 
 It has called forth its whole strength, they have 
 counted out the bitter cost and struggle necessary 
 and mean to fight it through to the end, come 
 what may. There never has been such an assem¬ 
 blage of forces brought face to face in the history 
 of men, nor has there ever been such a wide¬ 
 spread unity of thought and action throughout 
 the wide earth concerning the vast issues that 
 are at stake and the importance of the victory. 
 
82 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 In the great battle for the faith in ages past, the 
 great war cry was “Athanasius against the world, 
 but the battle which is now raging to maintain 
 the truth of the Christian faith is practically 
 “Germany against the world.” She has thrown 
 down the gauntlet of defiance before the most 
 powerful nations of the world, in her determined 
 effort to enforce the principle of her pagan rule 
 over the people of the earth. Germany by her 
 open confession is fighting to establish the valid¬ 
 ity and permanence of the doctrine that Might 
 is right.” Might she asserts is the supreme 
 right, and the dispute as to what is right, is to be 
 decided always by the arbitrament of war. The 
 weak must go to the wall and be crushed, under 
 the heel of power. Among all political sins she 
 tells us, the sin of feebleness is the most con¬ 
 temptible. In the words of the Kaiser himse , 
 he declares that “only one is master of this 
 country, and that is I. Who opposes me I will 
 crush to pieces, so I command. We Hohenzol- 
 lerns take our crown from God alone, and to 
 God alone we are responsible; so he says the wish 
 of the king is the one supreme law.” The great 
 Bismarck asserted that “with us there.is no sover¬ 
 eign will but that of the king. It is he alone 
 who wills, because he alone has the right to do 
 so. ” The leading minds who govern the thoughts 
 of the ruling class in Germany today, assert that 
 the humanitarianism of the gospel is naught but 
 senile weakness, vague idealism and irrational 
 sentimentality; that the Christ idea of philan- 
 
The Home Base and its Duties 
 
 83 
 
 thropy and brotherly love, under which the mis¬ 
 sionaries work, must be stamped out with all 
 energy. 
 
 Here are the issues that are at stake today, 
 against which we fight and it will take but little 
 thought to tell us, in spite of all the Christian 
 profession of the German people, that nothing 
 could be more definitely opposed to the principles 
 of Christ who proclaimed the blessedness of the 
 weak and bade us love our enemies and dwell in 
 peace with all men, and that “he who loveth not 
 his brother abideth in death. ” We see, therefore, 
 that the principle of the German rule is pure 
 paganism and under it the world would revert to a 
 state of barbarism. They are proving this by 
 their inhuman acts this day. Should not we 
 then that are at the home base, or as our text says, 
 “abide with the stuff” do our part in this great 
 struggle for truth and righteousness? Should we 
 not lift up our continual prayer for this great 
 triumph of right? For we do most surely believe 
 that there is a power not of ourselves that makes 
 for righteousness in shaping and controlling the 
 evolution of the human race for some great end 
 not revealed as yet. Our destiny is in His hands. 
 He can bring good out of evil. We are therefore 
 convinced that He in His own way is working out 
 His purposes in this hideous carnage and in the 
 future will make clear His purpose and will give 
 us new life through this terrible baptism of blood. 
 Yet although we do surely believe this to be true, 
 this does not relieve us from personal responsi- 
 
8 4 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 bility, we who “abide by the stuff.” The ques¬ 
 tion is, what can we do? For we must remember 
 that we too are like them of old time, sworn 
 soldiers and stand in the rank and file of God’s 
 great army. We must put on our whole armor. 
 We do not realize as we ought, that the most 
 effectual of all weapons are spiritual weapons. A 
 most wonderful illustration of this is the instance 
 given in the chapter from which our text is taken. 
 The resistless hosts of Amalek had swept through 
 the coastsof Judah, astheGerman hordes through 
 Belgium, bringing destruction with fire and 
 sword and had taken unlimited plunder. The 
 heart of the people had waxed faint. Fear and 
 terror had taken hold of them, for what were David 
 and his four hundred men as opposed to the mighty 
 hosts of Amalek? But David knew assuredly 
 what we often forget; the source of his strength. 
 Therefore, before going into battle he put him¬ 
 self into God’s hands and asked for guidance in 
 fervent prayer. God said to him, “pursue and 
 thou shalt overtake and conquer him and recover 
 all that he hath taken.” Yes, “if God be on our 
 side we will not fear what man can do unto us.” 
 And we have this to comfort us and give us con¬ 
 fidence in our petitions, in that there never was 
 a war in which we could so confidently feel that 
 we are fighting for a righteous cause. This, we 
 may say, is the unanimous conviction of the 
 civilized world, of which Germany is no longer a 
 part. 
 
 Since right must in the end conquer, it is our 
 
The Home Base and its Duties 
 
 85 
 
 prayer that God may be pleased to “stretch forth 
 His hand to be our defence against all our ene¬ 
 mies,” and grant us His peace, for we must 
 remember that it is only His peace that can be 
 permanent. There might be a peace, a. mere 
 cessation of hostilities, the hatchet of discord 
 among the nations, might be for the time buried, 
 and the world’s peace be as distant as.ever. So 
 long as the pagan curse of militarism is allowed 
 to exist, so long as the barbaric rule of might 
 against right is a nation’s law, so long as tyranny 
 and oppression and the oligarchy of emperors 
 and war lords is recognized amongst men; so long 
 will men bite and devour one another, so long 
 will our peaceful valleys be drenched with the 
 blood of the slain, so long will the cry of the widow 
 and the orphan be heard pleading to heaven for 
 vengeance for man’s sin. We see, therefore, if we 
 would have peace we can only have it in one way 
 by making the world ready for peace. We can 
 have peace only in exact proportion to the extent 
 we can remove from the minds and thoughts of 
 men, the moving causes, the unchristian principles 
 which called forth this war. In a word, there 
 can be no possible peace, so long as Germany is 
 Germany; for by her own confession, she exists 
 only by making war. 
 
 It may be that we ourselves are not. ready for 
 peace and that God will need yet again to send 
 “his sore judgments “upon us before we can learn 
 our need of righteousness as a nation. So before 
 we cast the stone at Germany, let us think about 
 
 i 
 
86 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 ourselves. How often do we and our people act 
 on the principle that might is right? How often 
 do we push with the shoulder of oppression and 
 make the weak take the wall? How often do we 
 bite and devour one another with hard speeches 
 and bitter words? How often is “the devil take 
 hindmost,” the principle of our action? 
 
 So we see that if we who “tarry by the 'fetuff” 
 would pray for peace, we must first pray for our¬ 
 selves that God would be pleased to prepare us 
 for peace, that He would drive out from us, wrath 
 and anger and evil-speaking and pride and selfish¬ 
 ness and intolerance, and give us instead the 
 spirit of Christ, the spirit of love and brother¬ 
 hood and sympathy for all men. For it is mani¬ 
 festly an act of impiety and a profanation of the 
 sacred office of prayer, to pray for peace and 
 happiness, and still to continue the habits and 
 practices which make peace and happiness im¬ 
 possible. So we see that it is a sort of blasphemy 
 to ask for peace, unless we make every effort to 
 put hatred and greed out of the world. Ora et 
 labora is a sacred maxim of the church. Unless 
 we follow up our prayer by our individual help in 
 promoting peace, we are but mocking God, who 
 alone can give us peace. Hence we see that it is 
 both idle and profane to pray for peace unless we 
 work for it, and we do not work for it while we 
 remain inactive and satisfy ourselves by express¬ 
 ing in a religious way a desire that it may come. 
 Peace cannot come till there is justice and fair 
 dealing amongst the nations. Its primary im- 
 
The Home Base and Its Duties 
 
 8 7 
 
 portance must be elevated before the. eyes of 
 men, till it becomes the ideal of the nations, and 
 so at length it will be demanded by the united 
 voice of men. Then and then only will it come, 
 and it will not only come, but it will stay and 
 God’s blessing will rest upon the earth. Men 
 will “beat their swords into ploughshares and 
 their spears into pruning hooks, neither shall 
 they learn war any more for the mouth of the 
 Lord hath spoken it.” 
 
X 
 
 GOD AND BAAL 
 
 If the Lord he God, follow Him; if Baal, follow him. 
 
 I KINGS XVIII, 21 
 
 T HE words of our text refer to the great de¬ 
 fection of God’s people, under Ahab, the 
 apostate King of Israel, in the days of the 
 prophet Elijah, for as he tells us, “the children of 
 Israel have forsaken Thy covenant, thrown down 
 Thine altars, and slain Thy prophets with the 
 sword, while I only am left” to contend the hosts 
 of Baal. But the time of judgment was near, a 
 great crisis was approaching, when a choice had 
 to be made between the seen and the unseen. The 
 influences of the seen were looming large in the 
 eyes of the people, the worshippers of Baal were 
 represented by a great body of four hundred and 
 fifty priests or teachers, while Elijah himself was 
 the only prophet and teacher of the power and 
 influence of the Unseen, without any power or 
 influence of earth, without any protection from 
 the hate or malice of his enemies. Yet though 
 he stood absolutely alone in the majesty of his 
 great position, he boldly threw down the gauntlet 
 of his defiance before the the King and the assem¬ 
 bled hosts of Baal, he challenged them to open 
 
 88 
 
God and Baal 
 
 89 
 
 combat, he dared them to enter the lists with him, 
 single handed and defenceless as he was. Nor 
 was his power overestimated, though the four 
 hundred and fifty priests of Baal “cried aloud 
 from morning until noon,” though they cut 
 themselves with knives and lances after their 
 manner in their insane fury,“there was neither 
 voice nor hearing nor any that answered,” while 
 the victory of the prophet was complete and final. 
 
 This astounding effect of spiritual power was 
 the answer given to the challenge found in our 
 text thrown down before the mammon-worship¬ 
 pers of his day by the prophet of old. But the need 
 of this warning was not confined to his day, for 
 it is always needed. Indeed, there is nothing that 
 God’s people need at this hour more than this 
 self-same challenge. If the Lord be God, follow 
 Him; for it is not too much to say that the 
 Christian Church is this day being weighed in 
 the balances, as never before in history. She 
 has been practically shoved into a corner, and 
 her fundamental principles, are pronounced out¬ 
 classed and outworn and out of harmony with the 
 best interests of men. Yes, the distinctive prin¬ 
 ciples on which the Christian Church has been 
 founded, and which its great founder asserted to 
 to be the necessary elements of its life and power 
 have been (by one of the most powerful institu¬ 
 tions of the world) set at naught and scoffed at, 
 as indications of puerile weakness, and not only 
 foolish, but absolutely immoral and wholly un¬ 
 worthy the ambitions of the human race. We 
 
 1 
 
90 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 are told, by these would-be teachers that it was 
 said in old time “ Blessed are the meek, for they 
 shall inherit the earth,” but I say unto you 
 “Blessed are the valiant, for they shall make the 
 earth their throne.” Ye have heard it said 
 “blessed are the peace-makers,” but I say 
 unto you “Blessed are the war-makers, for they 
 shall be called the children of the god of war, who 
 is greater than Jehovah.” This is the gospel of 
 those who “sit in the seats of the mighty” and 
 bear rule over the German people today. This 
 new gospel that “might is right, which has so 
 clearly shown itself in in the ruling class in Ger¬ 
 many, could not in all reason, be made by those 
 who still believe in the God revealed by Jesus 
 Christ. Never did the priests of Baal, even in the 
 darkest days of Israel, propound more utterly 
 Pagan principles, more utterly subversive of the 
 
 whole teaching of Christ. 
 
 We see, then, that the whole civilized world has 
 some to a great impasse, to the parting of the 
 ways, where it is forced to make a choice between 
 two great principles of action, between^ faith in 
 the seen or in the unseen, between the spiritual and 
 the material as the ground of hope and confidence 
 of nations. So the old time challenge of the an¬ 
 cient prophet rings out once more. History is 
 repeating herself, and the question asked by the 
 Christian today is that of Elijah of old.” If the 
 Lord be God, follow Him.” Pagan might was 
 never more powerfully represented, than by 
 Germany at this hour, for she not only leads the 
 
God and Baal 
 
 9* 
 
 world in industry, and art, in science and philoso¬ 
 phy and material advancement, but she has 
 produced the most powerful military organiza¬ 
 tion, the most complete system of secret and 
 strategic operation, combined with the most 
 destructive instruments of war, the world ever 
 has seen, or indeed are possible to imagine. We 
 find in her, then, what we may call the perfection 
 of the material, the very best that the world of 
 today can do; and that best is this day, by the 
 Providence of God, being placed in the balances, 
 we believe that it is the crucial, if not the final 
 struggle among the nations for the supremacy of 
 the material. The seen and the unseen are drawn 
 up in battle array. It is the holy war, the veri¬ 
 table Crusade of our day, by which we would 
 deliver our beloved Jerusalem, the Christian 
 Church from the hands of the infidel and the 
 Turk, for they have deluged our fields with blood, 
 have “thrown down our altars, and slain our 
 prophets with the sword.” Yes, we may believe, 
 that this awful, most sickening strife, is the 
 “Armageddon” of God, God’s scourge of the 
 world’s sin, but most especially the sin of per¬ 
 mitting the barbarism of war. 
 
 For we must remember, that this war is between 
 professedly Christian nations. Therefore, so- 
 called Christian people must be responsible for the 
 conditions which brought about this deadly 
 conflict, and the price of this sin is now being 
 paid, and the awful weight of the price may tell 
 us the extent of our transgression. One of our 
 
92 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 most glaring sins, has been the way we have lied 
 about our desire for peace. Yes, we would have 
 peace so long as it did not cost us anything, and 
 so long only; for we were not prepared to make any 
 sacrifices for it. Now God is calling with trumpet 
 tongue for those sacrifices today. Oh, how the 
 cries of the widows and the orphans, the “mothers 
 that are weeping for their children” rise up in 
 judgment against us this day, because the pro¬ 
 fessed children of peace have labored only for 
 war. But now God has permitted the very 
 mouth of hell to be opened, in the havoc and ruin, 
 in the crime and cruelty, in the butchery and 
 slaughter of this hour to convince us of our sin. 
 God has permitted the evil passions of men to 
 work out their own destruction by compelling the 
 nations who have been forced into the cruel 
 assassination of this war in order to compel them 
 not only to sue for, but demand peace, henceforth, 
 among the nations. Demand by solemn league 
 and covenant to utterly renounce the arbitra¬ 
 ment of the sword in settling the affairs of the 
 nations. Should this be the blessed result of 
 this war and the world through the Providence of 
 God be prepared for the advent of peace, would 
 we not be able to look back upon it with reverent 
 awe, as a divine struggle for righteousness and see 
 in it a great turning point in man’s history? Aye, 
 a sort of resurrection from the dead, a rolling back 
 of the great stone which lay at the mouth of the 
 sepulchre of materialism and setting free a new 
 life for the world, “the Christ that is lo be.” 
 
God and Baal 
 
 93 
 
 Then, surely, the heroes of our battlefield would 
 never die, for they would be the martyrs of our 
 race, their memory would be kept continuously, 
 as those who have shed their blood in sacrifice for 
 the life of men, an offering well pleasing unto 
 God. Aye, the mothers that bore them could 
 thank God in their tears, that He had honored 
 them in those very pangs that gave birth to 
 heroes. 
 
 We may believe that the blessed results of this 
 war will be unending, for it is not only a holy war 
 for truth and righteousness, as we have said, but 
 it is a scourge of God which brings to our vision 
 that ever memorable scene in the temple courts 
 and the Master with the ruthless scourge in His 
 hand driving out the insolent profaners. May 
 not this war be the scourge of God once again, 
 in the hands of the great messenger of peace, driv¬ 
 ing out the profaners of His great temple in the 
 world,—driving out not only the professed pagan¬ 
 ism of Germany, but the unexpressed, though 
 real, pagan practices of other nations, who are 
 called Christian? It was said of God’s people of 
 old that “They worshipped the Lord, yet served 
 their own Gods.” Of how many can it be said 
 of the Israel of today? They do not openly re¬ 
 nounce faith in the unseen, as Germany has, but 
 they profess faith in God, faith in Christ, faith in 
 those divine agencies that are working for the 
 welfare and unity of the race; but yet they 
 “serve their own Gods,” in that “their heart goes 
 after their coveteousness. ” Their real trust is 
 
94 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 not in God after all; but, like the German, in 
 material might, that is in money, or in what money 
 can bring. They are, many of them, ready as 
 any German to “shove with the shoulder” of 
 oppression, push the weak to the wall, and forget 
 the eternal law of brotherhood. So we see that it 
 is not only Germany that needs the avenging 
 scourge of this cleansing war, it is France and 
 Russia, it is England and America, and last but 
 not least it is our own Canada. We too have 
 given ourselves in a large degree, to forget the 
 real things and worship the gods of earth, the 
 gods of wealth, of stocks and bonds, of eating 
 and drinking, of luxury and ease, of fashion and 
 “purple and fine linen,” we have forgotten the 
 Lazarus at our gates. May not God by this 
 national scourge be cleansing His Temple, driving 
 out the lip-servers of our day? Thus it is, there¬ 
 fore, that today He is “calling down fire from 
 heaven,” as in days of old for the destruction of 
 idolatry in the land, and the establishment of his 
 true service. 
 
 In proof of this, may we not, as we look abroad, 
 see a sort of regeneration already creeping over 
 the land? A Pentecostal wave of God’s Holy 
 Spirit entering into the hearts of men through the 
 influence of this war? Most markedly is this 
 seen in England. She was awakened not only 
 from her civil and social trifling and slumber; but 
 from her mental and moral torpor. England was 
 allowing herself to come to be influenced by the 
 poisoned philosophies of Germany, to adapt her 
 
God and Baal 
 
 95 
 
 mental and spiritual attitudes with regard to the 
 Christian faith, which led to a widespread ques¬ 
 tioning of many of the fundamental principles of 
 Christianity. So, many in her land had become 
 lifeless and indifferent to real things, had given 
 themselves to “the lust of the flesh, the lust of 
 the eye, and the pride of life, ” So, like the prodi¬ 
 gal of old, they deserted “their Father’s House” 
 and spent their substance in “rioting and revel-, 
 ry;” but when the bugle was heard, and the trum¬ 
 pet of battle was sounded and the scourge of war 
 reached them, they too like the prodigal “came to 
 themselves” and realized that no man could help 
 them in their need, so they came back to their 
 Father’s House” and fell upon their knee with 
 the cry of the prodigal upon their lips. A solemn 
 hush of prayer brooded over the land, even gay 
 and frivolous France caught up the cry for help, 
 and the inspiration of a new life, in fighting for the 
 cause of truth and righteousness and reverence 
 for the Christian faith. Hence we see the hand of 
 God leading the world through this great sacrifice 
 of blood and treasure that it might be cleansed 
 from its sin and restored to new life. Surely the 
 rolling sea of blood, whose rising tide, we may say, 
 laps the very foundations of civilization—must 
 bear fruit in the life of the world, must humble 
 the proud arrogance of men and tell them of 
 something that is mightier than the sword. 
 
 For we believe that God is offering to the world 
 a great object lesson of the instability of earthly 
 things, so plain that “he who runs may read” and 
 
Saved as by Fire 
 
 so bidding us choose that which cannot pass 
 away, helping us to make our choice between the 
 seen and the unseen. 
 
 
XI 
 
 LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR 
 
 Thou shall love thy neighbour as thyself. 
 
 matt, xii, 29 
 
 I N these days of terror and bloodshed, when 
 all the powers of Hell and darkness are let 
 loose, when we may say that the whole world 
 is in battle array, when millions of so-called 
 Christians are meeting each other face to face and 
 are thirsting for each other’s blood, it may be 
 asked, do not the words of our text seem not only 
 as empty sounds but as a bitter mockery? For 
 where can love and brotherhood be found amid 
 this awful carnage where the very ground is 
 soaked by our brothers’ blood? It cannot be 
 wondered that this question should cause diffi¬ 
 culty and perplexity to numbers of Christian 
 people for they read in their bibles Christian pre¬ 
 cepts about loving our enemies, doing good to 
 those that hate us. He bids us to forgive our 
 enemies not only “seven times,” but to seventy 
 times seven “that He that loveth not his brother 
 abideth in death.” Yet in spite of all this, we find 
 millions of Christian people pouring out count¬ 
 less millions of men and money to work out what 
 at first sight seems the direct contrary of all this 
 
 97 
 
98 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 plain teaching of the Master, and we are com¬ 
 pelled to ask if there can be an answer to all this 
 seeming contradiction? In attempting our an¬ 
 swer, let us think for a moment what would have 
 been the result if England and her noble allies 
 had obeyed the letter and not the spirit of this 
 law and refused to come to the rescue of Belgium 
 from the grinding tyranny of insolent war lords. 
 They would have come to the level of Germany, 
 they would have sold their birthright as a nation, 
 which is their love of truth and justice and equal 
 rights between man and man, they would have 
 bowed the knee to the Baal of brutal might, 
 they would have done their part to enslave the 
 world, and put the yoke of servitude upon their 
 own necks and permitted the Moloch of the 
 earth to accomplish his work and dominate the 
 earth. 
 
 We never must forget those most significant 
 words of the Master, “I came not to send peace 
 on the earth, but a sword.” Nor yet that other 
 picture of Him standing in the temple with that 
 scourge of small cords in his hand with which, 
 in righteous indignation, he lashed those insolent 
 traffickers that would profane God’s Holy Temple 
 and drove them as common cattle from its sacred 
 precincts. Here, surely, is a case in point. It is 
 God’s Holy Temple of truth and righteousness 
 that is being profaned this day by the ruthless 
 tread of insolent war lords that would trample 
 underfoot the principles of the Christian faith; 
 that would barter truth for self interest and make 
 
99 
 
 Love Thy Neighbour 
 
 traffic of instincts which Christ has buried deep 
 in the human heart. Who then, I ask, could 
 imagine that the cause of righteousness would 
 be served, or the true interests of mankind were 
 advanced if we were to refrain from resisting evil 
 when it attacks us in the form of German in¬ 
 humanity, or meekly turn “the other cheek” to 
 the savage smiting of a worse than heathen Hun? 
 Such a course, you see, would be plainly disas¬ 
 trous to the world and civilization. Yes, such a 
 policy, if generally pursued, would mean nothing 
 less than the wrecking of the higher life of Europe. 
 It is not too much to say that no man can be 
 neutral today and save his honor. He must, in 
 heart and will, be an active combatant or a traitor 
 to his country. The pacificist is a shirker, how¬ 
 ever he may try to hide his contemptible spirit 
 under the cloak of Christian non resistance, they 
 would cry, “Peace when there is no peace,” for 
 as God warns us there should be “no peace for the 
 wicked.” He tells us too that “he bears not the 
 sword in vain ” that is, that it is through the sword 
 he will accomplish his purpose. So today, we 
 believe that God is accomplishing his purpose by 
 overcoming that “Giant of Gath” that has chal¬ 
 lenged the Christian nations of the earth and has 
 defied the armies of the living God. We see then, 
 that resistance to crime and brutality is not only 
 allowed to Christians; but required of them, in the 
 defence of the weak and the downtrodden as 
 nations and individuals. They too, must see 
 that they “Bear not the sword in vain,” and they 
 
IOO 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 are surely lighting God’s battles; for if ever an 
 armed host entered into battle for a righteous 
 cause, it is the allies today. Their cause is just 
 in the eyes of the whole civilized world. Ger¬ 
 many has absolutely no case no casus belli , 
 outside her own insatiate greed of conquest, and 
 willingness to employ all the agencies of evil 
 within her power to insure her corrupt designs. 
 For a whole generation, she has kept this evil star 
 as the guiding hope of her people. It was em¬ 
 bedded in the daily thought of the rising genera¬ 
 tion as the deliberate resolve of the whole nation. 
 The day was their star of destiny which never 
 was allowed for one moment to disappear from 
 the deliberate purpose of the people. Every day 
 brings to light fresh instances of Germany’s 
 most infamous duplicity, her deeply laid plot 
 against the freedom of the world was dug deeper 
 year by year until the time came. The finger of 
 chance" pointed to the hour they had so long 
 waited for, “the day” of their evil desire, when 
 through brutal might they should set out as their 
 great chancellor so characteristically said, “to 
 hack their way to Paris.” The Germans are an 
 astute people, but they have been caught in their 
 own snare and have been betrayed by evil ad¬ 
 visers to make many blunders, but the most 
 collossal of all their blunders was in their con¬ 
 fidence in the superman , they forgot to reckon 
 with the superhuman and forgot that there were 
 powers greater than those of earth that might 
 stand in the way. Although they professed God 
 
Love Thy Neighbour 
 
 IOI 
 
 with their lips, they denied Him by their acts, 
 they openly defied the principles of God’s Law 
 and therefore must stand condemned before God 
 and man. 
 
 Here was and will be, we believe, the cause of 
 their defeat. Yes, this is what cheers our heart 
 today that we believe that God is on our side; as 
 the Psalmist says, “We will not fear what man 
 can do unto us. ” This, all through, has been 
 the marked feature of this war; it was surely no 
 human power that stayed the brutal might of 
 Germany in its mad rush for Paris and “turned 
 them back in the day of battle,” and whether the 
 angels of God were seen or unseen at Mons or 
 Ypres or the Marne they, we believe, were 
 assuredly there to rescue God’s heroes from “the 
 burning fiery furnace” which was “seven times 
 heated. ” The morale of the troops in this great 
 struggle has been altogether unique; in the midst 
 of all this din of battle and shriek of shell, there 
 seems the calm of a. most deliberate purpose; 
 there i9 the appearance of an individual conse¬ 
 cration, as though every man felt that he was 
 called of God to do his sacred work, and if need 
 be to offer his life in sacrifice. Such courage, 
 such loyality, such self-sacrificing devotion to 
 duty, and with all, such never ceasing cheerful¬ 
 ness in every adverse condition, never has been 
 seen or known. Great things for the welfare of 
 the world are at stake and they are conscious of 
 it and they feel that there is a call for every man to 
 do his duty. Death seems to have lost its terror 
 
102 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 to these men, there is but one thing and that is to 
 “play the game,” to “carry on, to see it through” 
 whatever betide. The supreme call for sacrifice 
 seems to have transformed them into a nobility of 
 which they themselves are unconscious. The 
 terrible issues of life and death are day by day 
 before them, they are brought face to face with 
 real things. Men that were vain and foolish and 
 empty-headed! at home become the resolute 
 veterans of the battlefield, and realize their 
 responsibility as men, as one of those heroes who 
 has now cheerfully borne his part has nobly 
 written: 
 
 “There are millions here to whom the mere 
 consciousness of doing their duty has brought a 
 peace of mind hitherto unknown. As for myself, 
 I was never happier than I am at present: there is 
 a novel spice added to life by the daily risks and 
 the knowledge that at last you are doing some¬ 
 thing into which no trace of selfishness enters. 
 One can die once only: nowadays the chief con¬ 
 cern that matters is how and not when you die. 
 I don’t pity the weary men who have attained 
 their eternal rest on the shell-furrowed battle 
 field. ‘They went West’ in their supreme 
 moment. No, the men I pity are the slackers, 
 those who could not hear the clear call of duty 
 and whose consciences will grow more flabby 
 every day. With the brutal roar of the first 
 Prussian gun, the cry came to the civilized world, 
 ‘Follow thou Me,’ just as truly as it did in 
 Palestine.” Men went to their Calvary singing 
 
Love Thy Neighbour 
 
 103 
 
 their merry song, but they were a devoted band, 
 for their spirit was equal to that of any Christian 
 martyr on the sands of a Roman Arena and their 
 epitaph must be “Blessed are the dead who die 
 in the Lord.” 
 
 Now, when we compare all that we have said 
 with our text what a wonderful harmony is here! 
 “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man 
 lay down his life for his friends.” Such a one 
 has, we may say, exceeded the standard of our 
 text, for his love for his neighbour has been greater 
 than for himself, for he has given up his life that 
 he may live. 
 
 So we learn that resistance to crime and bru¬ 
 tality is not only permitted but demanded, as we 
 have said, Christ tells us that “we are his wit¬ 
 nesses” for truth and righteousness. We all 
 have taken our oaths of allegiance to his cause, 
 have sworn to fight against sin, the world, and 
 the devil, unto our life’s end and when did “the 
 world, the flesh and the devil” more aggressively 
 reveal itself than by those who have opened the 
 very mouth of Hell this day? They stand side 
 by side with the old time enemies of God and His 
 Kingdom, for their trust is in Satan’s sword and 
 his spear, therefore their cause cannot prosper, 
 they are not only the enemies of God but they 
 are the enemies of the whole civilized world. 
 Neither peace nor liberty nor justice, nor truth, 
 nor righteousness can remain to bless the earth 
 until this blot on human life is removed, till this 
 foul cancer is cut from the body of the race. 
 
104 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 There can be no spirit of brotherhood in the world 
 as long as the spirit of German rule is allowed to 
 exist; no love toward our neighbour, until the 
 Kaiser is crushed. We do not, as Christian 
 people, hate Germany, but we cannot but hate 
 their sin. Therefore, all maudlin talk of non- 
 resistance is absolutely out of court, for the whole 
 world is face to face with the one thing which is 
 manifest,-—that at the present moment Germany 
 is a criminal nation. It is Germany and Germany 
 alone that is responsible for the war. It is 
 Germany that has been guilty of deliberate 
 crimes against humanity, of premeditated out¬ 
 rages against the laws of civilization. It is 
 Germany that mocked and scourged and crucified 
 all Christendom. What place, then, we may ask 
 can there be for any softness or neutrality in 
 reckoning with such a nation? 
 
 God, I believe, has placed the surgeon’s knife 
 in the hands of the Christian nations to cut out 
 this cancer, as Christ said of old “Cut it down, 
 why cumbereth it the ground?” and as God said 
 of the apostate king of Judah “as I live, though 
 Coniah King of Judah were a signet upon my 
 right hand, yet would I pluck thee thence and I 
 will give thee into the hands of them that seek 
 thy life and into the hands of them that thou 
 fearest. ” So, if we have the love of our neighbour 
 in our hearts, there is but one thing for us to do, 
 one thing that should centre our energies,—to 
 cut down this “strong man armed” like his great 
 prototypes indeed strong, but with the leader- 
 
Love Thy Neighbour 
 
 105 
 
 ship of God we must take from him his armour in 
 which he trusts, and divide the spoil for the 
 welfare of the world. The safety of Europe de¬ 
 mands it. The peace of the world demands it. 
 The civilization of mankind demands it, and we 
 may not hesitate to believe that it is the will of 
 God. 
 
 ) 
 
XII 
 
 THE LORD OF BATTLES 
 
 A tumultuous noise of the kingdoms of nations gathered to¬ 
 gether, the Lord of Hosts mustereth the host of the battle. 
 
 is. xm, 4 
 
 T ^HERE are two kinds of optimism in the 
 world. There is the optimism of the man 
 who builds his house on the sand, who 
 trusts to the strength of his own arm, who strikes 
 boldly, yet who has neither faith, nor hearing, 
 nor foresight, who takes no note of the guiding 
 principles of life, and blindly keeps his spirits up 
 simply by ignoring facts, and turning a deaf ear 
 to the warning notes of threatening danger. So 
 he presses on in the path of his determined pur¬ 
 pose, and is willing to violate truth and justice 
 and trample on the rights of others and the claims 
 of kindred and brotherhood. Aye, at times like 
 the present, he scruples not, if need be, to wade 
 through rivers of blood and carnage to satisfy his 
 lust of power and hunger of conquest. There can 
 be no optimism more base than this, nor one more 
 surely destined to ruin and destruction, for “pride 
 goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit 
 before a fall.” 
 
 The other kind of optimism is that of the man 
 
 106 
 
The Lord of Battles 
 
 107 
 
 who believes in God with all his heart, believes, 
 whate’er betides that God not only rules, but 
 must rule over the kingdoms of men. “Whom 
 He wills, He sets up; whom He wills, He puts 
 down.” Such a one realizes his stewardship, 
 that he, whatever may be his power or his might 
 is but an instrument in the hands of God whose 
 designs are being carried out through the means 
 of human endeavor. Such a man feels himself a 
 part of a divine order, feels and knows that “in 
 due time he shall reap if he faint not,” that truth 
 must triumph, and right will come uppermost. 
 He therefore works cheerfully and persistently, 
 even through the greatest perils and darkest 
 days, through weal and woe, for that which 
 must be—a glorious end. In short, joy or 
 sorrow, sickness or health, storm or sunshine, 
 peace or war, are in a sense, one to him; all are 
 alike parts of the same great purpose that is 
 “shaping our ends, rough hew how we will.” 
 
 No one who has any true knowledge of life 
 and its eternal conditions, can fail to see the 
 insolence and blind folly and manifest weakness 
 of the one, and the fitness and beauty and ma¬ 
 jesty and invincible might, of the other kind of 
 optimist. For since God rules and must rule 
 over the kingdoms of men, a rule, moreover, 
 which, must in. the end prevail, we see that the 
 optimism of faith in Him, must lift us above all 
 the ebbings and flowings of human life. Kings 
 sit high, but there is one who sits higher, one who 
 never abdicates His throne. The most haughty 
 
io8 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 Emperor that ever resisted His will, is to Him 
 less than nothing, his mighty dreadnaughts are 
 as a vapor, his armed host, as fuel for His fire. 
 In the end His cause must triumph, for it is not 
 man, but “the Lord of Hosts that mustereth the 
 battle. ” 
 
 This most surely is the kind of faith that we 
 need at this hour, for it is no longer the faith of 
 the day or the hour of prosperity we need, but 
 that of the night, of the storm, and of the battle’s 
 wild alarm; for the olive branch of peace of days 
 that are passed to which so many looked, and 
 hoped would be our permanent possession, has, 
 by treacherous hands, been rudely plucked 
 away and exchanged for the firebrand of war. 
 
 Yes, there is being enacted this day, the 
 greatest struggle of the world’s history, for it 
 comprises the greater part of the civilized world. 
 It is a veritable reproduction of the prophet’s 
 vision, “a tumultuous noise of the kingdoms of 
 the nations gathered together. ” Wantonly and 
 deliberately, and with most treacherous and 
 bloody purpose of heart, has the Kaiser plunged 
 his sword into the heart of civilization; the whole 
 world must pay the penalty of his cruel madness. 
 We may say that he stands alone this day as an 
 object of execration in the eyes of the civilized 
 world, as an unscrupulous violator of the most 
 solemn treaties, as an oppressor of the weak. 
 As a proud and insolent usurper, he sweeps 
 his devastating hosts through peaceful, treaty- 
 protected countries bringing into them the horrid 
 
The Lord of Battles 
 
 109 
 
 din of war, turning prosperous fields into ruined 
 heaps, and spreading havoc and desolation every¬ 
 where. Yes, this bloodthirsty autocrat hesitates 
 not to put a match to the powder magazines of 
 the greatest nations of the earth, filling well nigh 
 the whole hemisphere with the boom of cannon, 
 spreading their windrows of death and wholesale 
 human slaughter mingled with the groans and 
 tears of the widow and the orphan, causing at 
 the same time the vast ruin of property, the 
 devastation of countries, and the wreckage of 
 nations. Yes, all this ruthless carnage and 
 world-wide havoc, all this setting back of the 
 progress of the world, the tide of man’s material 
 development, “ten degrees backward;” for what ? 
 Why - } forsooth that Kaiser William may have 
 solace for his wounded dignity, and that the 
 German people may. satisfy their greed of con¬ 
 quest, and have a wider range for their tyranny 
 and flaunt the power of their insolence in the four 
 corners of the earth. The emperor of the German 
 nation may be emulating the role of the Na- 
 poleon of the twentieth century; if so, we would 
 
 bid him remember Waterloo and the prison walls 
 of Elba. 
 
 The awful menace of the hour is most ap¬ 
 palling, and the final issues to the world are 
 entirely beyond the grasp of human compre¬ 
 hension, the only thing we can do, and this we 
 can do with unfailing confidence, is to fall back on 
 first principles, that the God of battles keeps 
 watch and guard, and that “the Lord of hosts 
 
IIO 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 mustereth the host of the battle. We may be 
 assured that there is a divine purpose in it all, that 
 He is teaching some lesson that the kingdoms of 
 the world need. The first thought which comes 
 to us with regard to this need is to ask, may it 
 not be His way of compelling peace? 
 
 For centuries the world has been talking of 
 peace, has been building its peace palaces, has 
 been summoning its peace conferences and pro¬ 
 posing the settlement of all national differences 
 by peaceful arbitration, has been proposing with 
 much apparent sincerity the disarmament of the 
 nations. Yes, but what were they doing at this 
 same hour? They were spending untold billions 
 to increase their dreadnaughts, and to multiply 
 their engines of war by land and sea. Yes, they 
 were employing the very air we breathe to render 
 more terrible the weapons of destruction. Can 
 we not, then, believe that we see the hand of God 
 in this sifting of the nations, that He is thereby 
 compelling peace ? For indeed this very barbarism 
 of the nations is defeating itself, since it has been 
 said by one of great military statesmen of Eng¬ 
 land, speaking of the future possibilities of armed 
 air-ships in time of war, that the time is not dis¬ 
 tant when the dreadnaught will be obsolete, and 
 for purposes of war be outclassed as utterly 
 useless, as unable to guard against the more 
 deadly influence of the air-ship, the submarine, 
 and the sunken mine. May this then not do 
 something towards compelling peace, by teaching 
 men the utter folly of present systems of warfare 
 
Ill 
 
 The Lord of Battles 
 
 and the criminal expenditure which its main¬ 
 tenance demands? There must surely be an 
 end to this barbarous rivalry of the nations to 
 outdo each other in military or naval power; for 
 if it increases, it will simply wellnigh exhaust the 
 energies of the world, and paralyze our industries 
 to maintain them in times of peace, let alone times 
 of war. 
 
 If peace, then, be one of the results of this cruel, 
 shameless war, it will, we may almost say, be 
 worth its cost. It would atone for much of its 
 awful sacrifice of life and treasure; for there is 
 nothing that the world needs and the greater 
 part of the world desires, than peace. It is cer¬ 
 tainly true of the English-speaking world. Ed¬ 
 ward the Peacemaker was and is England’s 
 boast, and had it not been for William the War 
 Maker, we would not have today, this grim, dark, 
 ugly spectre of war, frowning and rendering void 
 the years of tireless consecrated agitation for 
 universal peace. It is indeed a terrible reproach 
 on the Christian world that after two thousand 
 years of Christian teaching, the teaching of Him 
 who came to bring peace and good will to men, 
 that we see today millions of professing Christians, 
 banded together to practice the most open viola¬ 
 tion of the very foundation of Christianity, to let 
 loose the most barbarous methods of violence to 
 kill and destroy their fellow Christians. 
 
 Surely a most terrible recompense must sooner 
 or later, be required from those who were the in¬ 
 stigators of this wicked and wanton catastrophe. 
 
112 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 This leads us to notice another end and purpose 
 which we sincerely hope may be seen as the work 
 of God in this great war,—the humbling to the 
 very dust, of the insolent arrogance of the Ger¬ 
 man king and nation. For a generation past, 
 Germany has been a standing menace to the whole 
 world and has, we know, been steadily preparing 
 for the blow she has now struck under the feigned 
 excuse of the Serbian plot. She is a nation of 
 soldiers and believes only in methods of war. She 
 has been so inflated with her military and naval 
 strength that she was led to think that she could 
 fight her way to being the first nation of the earth 
 and above all, could bring the British nation to 
 her feet. Indeed, so great is her pride and 
 arrogance, that she seems to find her parallel in 
 Babylon and her king of old when he said, “Is 
 not this great Babylon that I have built for the 
 house of the kingdom, by the might of my power 
 and for the honor of my majesty?” May it not 
 be that Kaiser William needs to learn something 
 of what Nebuchadnezzar was taught, that the 
 Most High and not Nebuchadnezzar rules over 
 the kingdoms of men, and that his kingdom will 
 sooner or later depart from him as from the king 
 of old. These may or may not be some of the 
 results of this war, but these are in the future. 
 What of the present? It is today War , war , war. 
 It is, therefore, of the lining present of which we 
 must think to any purpose, and prepare ourselves 
 to meet it, like loyal sons of that grand old 
 mother that gave us birth and has nurtured and 
 
The Lord of Battles 
 
 113 
 
 protected us in our infancy and indeed does it 
 still even in our sturdy and vigorous manhood, 
 when it takes two oceans to confine our shores 
 Yes, we must still look to “the granite walls of 
 Albion for protection from our enemies. Then 
 most surely, her cause is our cause, and so when 
 .Britain is at war, we must look upon it in the 
 same light, as if our own shores had been in¬ 
 vaded and our liberties threatened—as indeed 
 they are by some insolent oppressor. 
 
 So we must go forth this day as loyal sons to 
 fight for home and motherland. We have this 
 gieat encouragement in sending our brave lads to 
 fight our battles in being assured that our cause 
 is just, Britain is really the peacemaker , therefore 
 we have the greater hope of victory over those who 
 have so wantonly and insolently desired to stamp 
 out peace and liberty under the iron heel of 
 Teutonic despotism. We may say that the 
 whole world is on our side, there is no war of her 
 great history in which she has had so many 
 nations on her side and such universal sympathy, 
 as in the present contest. We believe that the 
 downfall of German militarism and the sundering 
 of its power, would make a world rejoice, for it is 
 in direct antagonism to the spirit of our age 
 which desires liberty, union, brotherly love, 
 fellowship, equal rights, and justice between 
 man and man, which are the distinctive charac¬ 
 teristics of British rule. Then we may say, 
 God bless those who may be called to the high 
 honor of the defence of our Royal Banner, where- 
 
Saved as by Fire 
 
 114 
 
 ever it floats and summons to battle. And may 
 they take for their example the Belgian heroes 
 who were ready to defend their neutrality at all 
 costs, regarding their national honor above every 
 material gain and spurning the infamous bargain 
 by which the Germans sought to bribe them to 
 remain mere spectators to this bartering of their 
 freedom as a nation. No, to their immortal 
 praise be it said, they flung the insult in the 
 German's faces and told them that they would 
 fight or die but yield never, for to yield would be 
 to bow their necks to the hated German yoke. 
 When such heroism is found inspiring so small a 
 power that boldly faces the German hordes and 
 bears the brunt of the first attack of that vast 
 army,, surely Britain’s standing aside would be 
 standing with Germany in her treacherous dealing. 
 
 So, too, of ourselves, when Belgium goes under 
 fire for her freedom and the protection of Europe 
 from .German aggression, Canada should be by 
 her side. May we not rejoice over that fervid 
 note of loyalty which since the beginning of the 
 war has rung out from every town and village and 
 hamlet of our native land! Canada never has 
 been backward in her response to the call to arms; 
 may her response today, be brighter yet! 
 
 So much for our soldiers, but what of ourselves? 
 What can we do? we that stay at home and only 
 watch from afar. What can we do? Nothing, 
 you say? Ah, we can do much; for we must 
 remember that it is still “the Lord that mustereth 
 the host of the battle. ” We remember that 
 
The Lord of Battles 
 
 beautiful picture of Moses holding up his hands in 
 prayer in the fight against Amalek. We are told 
 that when he kept his hands lifted up Israel pre¬ 
 vailed, and when his hands grew weary Amalek 
 prevailed. May this not encourage us to re¬ 
 member our brave lads in our daily prayer, that 
 the Lord of Hosts should inspire their hearts to do 
 noble deeds and bring honor to their native land, 
 and remember that to fight for one’s native coun¬ 
 try is noble; but to die for it is nobler still. 
 
XIII 
 
 ON THE LORD’S SIDE 
 
 And Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, “ Who is 
 on the Lord's side, let him come unto me and he said unto them, 
 hus saith the Lord God of Israel, i Let every man put his sword 
 by his side and consecrate himself to the Lord. Even every man 
 ■upon his brother that God may bestow upon you a Blessing.' " 
 
 EX. XXXII, 26 
 
 T HE words of our text were spoken during 
 a great crisis in the history of God’s people 
 of old, for a panic of gross materialism 
 suddenly had possessed them. Moses, the gov¬ 
 ernor general commanding the hosts of Israel, 
 had been summoned to the summit of Sinai 
 for a silent communion with God, to receive 
 at His hand instructions for the guidance of His 
 people; yet, at this sacred hour in the midst of 
 this most solemn occasion of communion with 
 God, we are told of a general apostasy of the 
 people, even Aaron the High Priest yielded to the 
 fierce demand of the factious mob, that they might 
 worship the Gods of earth. So they built them¬ 
 selves altars and brought their gifts and wor- 
 shipped the golden calf which they had made and 
 gave themselves to the unbridled worship of 
 the creature; as we are told in the inspired record, 
 “the people sat down to eat and rose up again to 
 
On the Lord’s Side 
 
 117 
 
 play.” Could we have in so few words a more 
 perfect picture or a better description, for all 
 time of those who give themselves to material 
 servitude and the worship of the creature? 
 
 The mammon of unrighteousness has ever been 
 and is today the great enemy of God’s cause and 
 the welfare of the race. 
 
 Indeed, does it not seem today as though once 
 more in the history of the race that a great 
 judgment had fallen upon God’s people? and that 
 the time had come, of which God himself has so 
 clearly warned us,—His great sifting of the 
 nations, when “all nations shall be gathered 
 together in one fierce struggle of internecine war¬ 
 fare, when brother should fight against brother, 
 and a man’s foes should be they of his own house- 
 hold.” 
 
 And it is most significant for us to notice that 
 the coming of this day of blood, was fulfilled to 
 God’s people of old in the destruction of Jeru¬ 
 salem by the greatest militarists of the ancient 
 world and the time of this inhuman sacrifice 
 of life and treasure, was marked in a peculiar 
 way; it was described as the “abomination of 
 desolation set up in the Holy place,” that is, 
 when the Roman eagle, the symbol of power, 
 should be seen in Jerusalem. The merciless 
 cruelties inflicted by the Roman soldier, in this 
 hour of terror, are almost beyond human speech 
 to describe and never have been equalled by its 
 inhuman ferocity in the records of men. Now 
 since the war which ended in this destruction, 
 
11 8 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 there never has been a war amongst nations, so 
 absolutely inhuman, so cruel, with such violation 
 of sacred pledges and the instincts of common 
 humanity, so ingenious in multiplying engines of 
 destruction and every possible device of the 
 devil (yes, as though the time had come of which 
 the prophet speaks when “hell had enlarged 
 herself ) as the struggle in which we are now 
 engaged. It is most significant to note that the 
 time of this blood and slaughter and ruthless 
 destruction is marked again by the same symbol, 
 of power, the German eagle, the “abomination 
 of desolation,” is set up once more in “the holy 
 place” of God’s Kingdom, His holy place is 
 defiled by the ruthless heel of the Prussian tyrant. 
 
 ^ the fields of God’s vineyard run red with 
 the blood of our sons. Their loyalty and their 
 courage have made their names a praise in the 
 earth, and their heroic deeds will be found in¬ 
 scribed on the deathless page of history, as the 
 deeds of men who counted not the cost, nor their 
 lives dear that freedom, truth, and justice might 
 remain unto men. Yes, my friends, when the 
 story of Ypres and Neuve Chappelle and Vimy 
 Ridge is told, it will be known what the dauntless 
 sons of Britain may do and dare. The men of 
 Canada have proved themselves the worthy sons 
 of their sires, they are truly, “chips off the old 
 block,’’ that sturdy oak of loyalist stock, that 
 spread its branches out wide over this virgin 
 soil. They were the brave pioneers of our race 
 who put honor and love of country, above tern- 
 
On the Lord*s Side 
 
 119 
 
 poral welfare and material gain and so left their 
 wealth and comfortable homes to face in an alien 
 land, the unknown hardships and perils of pioneer 
 life. It is the same spirit we find in our sons to¬ 
 day, of which, thank God, they are giving abun¬ 
 dant proof at this hour, so that the curse of 
 Meroz is not upon them for they have “come to 
 the help of the Lord against the mighty. ” When 
 we think not only of the sacrifices that have been 
 made, the homes that have been made desolate, 
 the blood that has been shed, but of the blood 
 that must yet be shed and the awful sacrifices 
 that must yet be made before this demon spirit 
 of cruelty and despotism can be crushed, can we 
 doubt the nobility of our sacrifice or the justness 
 of our cause? Must we not believe that these 
 are men whom God hath called? That they are 
 not only heroes and patriots fighting for the 
 welfare of our country, but they are as priests of 
 God? Are they not as our text says, “conse¬ 
 crating themselves to the Lord,” offering a 
 sacrifice well pleasing unto Him? They are 
 “filling up” as St. Paul says, “the sufferings of 
 Christ” in their own bodies by the willing sacri¬ 
 fice of their own lives and the shedding of their 
 own blood for the triumph of freedom and the 
 redemption of men. Great Britain could have 
 remained neutral in this war if she had been 
 willing to have her shield of honor tarnished by 
 seeing sacred treaties broken, feeble nations 
 oppressed and their countries devastated, yet 
 raised no hand to stay the oppressor. Yes ? 
 
120 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 truly she might have done this, but nations as 
 well as mep can do things that will brand them 
 forever as ingrates and cowards. Had she stood 
 aside in this great crisis—seen her friends hewn to 
 pieces, just to satisfy the lust of an insolent ty¬ 
 rant, she would have gone down in the history 
 of nations as a coward who for selfish reasons let 
 her friends perish by her side. It was upon her 
 honor and upon her idea of right between man 
 and man that Britain and her colonies and last, but 
 not least, the loyal sons of America stand today, 
 and have ever stood, willing to pour out their 
 blood to the last drop for the right and freedom of 
 men. So let us thank God this day that however 
 we may have fallen, whatever virtue we may 
 have lost as a people or a nation, that we have 
 not lost our honor nor the sense of its value. 
 We have yet, thank God, sympathy for the op¬ 
 pressed. Whenever a nation (as powerful as it 
 maybe) loses these, it is marked for death and 
 decay. This has been the distinctive quality of 
 Britain, the source of her strength, that both by 
 honor and tradition she was bound to one thing, 
 her history pledged her to it. All through 
 Europe she has stood for the independence, the 
 inviolable rights of small nations. If Germany, 
 the recognized pirate of the nations, had been 
 allowed without hindrance from Britain, she would 
 have swept the French fleet from the seas, have 
 captured all her coast towers and fortified them, 
 she would have been within speaking distance of 
 England’s front door, she would have had Eng- 
 
On the Lord's Side 
 
 ill 
 
 land and France at her feet, and been a terror and 
 menace to the world. But England assumed her 
 accustomed role among the nations and gathered 
 as one man her “far-flung batcle line” from the 
 four corners of the earth to stand in the breach 
 of death to stay the oppressor and give liberty 
 to the oppressed. 
 
 Hence it is, then, that we and our brothers in 
 many lands are pledged in an awful strife to carry 
 it through at every cost. We dare not flinch nor 
 play the coward by keeping back our sons, we 
 dare not think of the future or what it may bring 
 to us or what our future relations within the em¬ 
 pire will be. This is not the time to think or talk 
 about that. When the stake is for life and death, 
 it is nor the time to think of conditions and 
 possible results. No, the first thing is to see this 
 fight through at all costs and all hazards, to save 
 the empire and do it in simple faith, with an 
 honest heart, as men who feel that they have the 
 honor of the world and truth of God to maintain. 
 Neither we nor our country ever can be what we 
 were before the advent of this war. If we loved 
 our native land in the past, in our hours of ease 
 and prosperity, it surely appeals to us more in 
 times of menace and of danger. In the days of 
 peace and progress when every peaceful industry 
 was booming and the tide of plenty was at our 
 gates, that was notour real testing time; but more 
 our time of peril, in the slacking of our moral virtues 
 and the loosening of our manhood. But when the 
 hour of danger comes and the call to stand to arms 
 
122 
 
 Saved, as by Fire 
 
 is heard, when the ruthless foe is at our gates, it 
 is then that every man braces himself for action, 
 his blood runs fast, and his spirit is fired. He is 
 ready to consecrate himself by noble action, or 
 stand, if need be in the breach of death, to do ot 
 die for home and fatherland, for God and country 
 and the mother that gave him birth. These are 
 the precious times in a nation’s history, for they 
 prove the courage and loyalty of its people. The 
 love of our country is ten times greater in times 
 of peril than in times of peace. 
 
 Thus it comes, friends and brothers, that this 
 great war is testing us, proving our manhood, 
 giving us moral strength, by teaching us the 
 great law of sacrifice, and self control, teaching 
 us to lift up our thoughts above self and helping 
 to put before us, lofty ideals and teaching us the 
 Divine law that “no man liveth to himself.” 
 
 It may be the very lesson that we most sorely 
 peed, here in Canada, at this very time when she 
 is beginning to realize her vast possibilities of 
 becoming one of the great nations of the earth, 
 beholding as she does the priceless treasures that 
 she holds within her borders that God has com¬ 
 mitted to her rule and government. 
 
 May not this war, then, as terrible as it is, be 
 the means of building up and consolidating our 
 empire, in saving us as a people from falling into 
 the pit of materialism which has been the snare 
 of nations in all time? Lest we too, like Israel 
 of old, should give ourselves up (as we are ever 
 prone to do) to the worship of the Golden Calf and 
 
On the Lord’s Side 
 
 123 
 
 think because that we are “rich and plenteous 
 with all manner of store,” because our industries 
 boom, because our fertile fields extend from ocean 
 to ocean, that therefore we are a great people. 
 Here let me warn you is our great and ever 
 present peril, for here has ever been the insanity 
 of the race. No, this surely is no test of our great¬ 
 ness for we might be and have all these things 
 and they would be no better than a curse to 
 us and to the world. We must, if we would live, 
 set up a higher standard than this, if we would 
 make our nation a praise in the earth, we must 
 remember that the welfare and development of 
 a country depends on men and not on money or 
 lands. An empire is tested by the quality of the 
 men and women who belong to the empire, their 
 honesty, their sobriety, their self control, their 
 courage and love of their fellowmen and their 
 reverence for God, in a word, their manhood and 
 womanhood. 
 
 I his, let me tell you, is the great question that 
 is being fought out this day on the battle-field of 
 Europe, it is virtue versus vice, it is right against 
 might, spiritual force versus material power. 
 It is against the spirit of murderous Cain we are 
 fighting this day. We may say, then, in spite of 
 its nameless atrocity, it is in a very real sense a 
 “ holy war, ” for it is making men and women, and 
 it has its moral victories. There is a deep spirit¬ 
 ual force at work, bringing countless multitudes 
 face to face with the verities of life and the things 
 that count, that are really worth while. We are 
 
124 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 going through a time of discipline and of conflict 
 which is changing our character and making us 
 of sterner stuff, which will enable us to stand on 
 higher ground and in a loftier sphere, than we 
 have hitherto lived. So, when this great crisis, 
 this great sifting of the world is past, we may 
 look lor a new order of things, in this as well as 
 other lands, which, will lead, let us hope to a 
 higher life and loftier purposes, not only of the 
 nation but of the individual life. Those who are 
 permitted to return from this Gethsemane of 
 blood and passion, will bring back those qualities 
 of firmness, and sense of duty, which they have 
 gained, which will influence their whole lives and 
 be a blessing to the earth. While those who have 
 fallen in the ranks of war, have followed in the 
 way of the Cross in giving their lives for men and 
 the uplifting of the nations. 
 
XIV 
 
 ALL THINGS NEW 
 
 Behold I make all things new 
 
 T rev. xxi, 5 
 
 HIS seems ope of the most glorious promises 
 ever made in Heaven or earth; for it was 
 the great purpose of God, in sending His 
 Son to take upon Him our flesh, to restore to 
 humanity that perfect fullness and harmony with 
 God s law, that sin and disobedience had so robbed 
 and marred, and so to “make all things new.” 
 Yes, its glorious fulfillment was the ultimate 
 purpose of God, but it was a purpose that was 
 attainable only, through a process of law, that 
 was in harmony with God’s manner of dealing 
 with man, which was that of co-operation. God 
 would do nothing without man, man must be a 
 fellow helper. Omnipotence, human effort, must 
 go hand in hand, or God’s purpose for the world 
 could not be fulfilled. Though the fulfillment 
 was sure, it depended on human conditions. 
 This new heavens and new earth could be only the 
 out-come of love. When men learned to love one 
 another, then only it might be; for love was the 
 fulfilling of the law, both human and divine. 
 Since this, then, is the law of God, can we wonder 
 that the fulfillment of this divine promise has 
 
 125 
 
126 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 been hitherto postponed? When we look down 
 on this blood-stained old earth and think of its 
 awful tale of treachery and wrong, of its reigns of 
 cruelty and injustice in the past; think too of the 
 history of the Church herself, what she has done 
 in the name of Him who came to bring peace on 
 earth and Jove towards men! Yet through her 
 pride and intolerance, she has used almost every 
 engine of evil, has employed the stake and the 
 block and the guillotine to enforce her principles! 
 Where we may ask can love be found in this scene 
 of blood? Or how can we look for this blessing 
 today when we look abroad over the earth to see 
 it deluged with the blood of the slain, see Christian 
 nations with satanic fury, struggling for the 
 mastery and thirsting for their brothers’ blood. 
 
 But since we know that God does all things 
 well, and that He ever works for the good of 
 His creatures, may not this world-wide struggle 
 for truth and justice, be in His hands, the very 
 means by which He would hasten this restored 
 order and make all things new? Can we think it 
 possible that this blood which has been shed as a 
 willing sacrifice for the freedom and welfare of the 
 world be shed in vain? Must not it tend to open 
 the eyes of the world to real things, to things that 
 last and teach them that there are things that are 
 more valuable than lust of possession and greed 
 of conquest? Must not also the patience and en¬ 
 durance, the fortitude and self sacrifice which 
 this war has developed, leave its impression on 
 the minds and thoughts, not only of those who 
 
All Things New 
 
 127 
 
 have taken part in this struggle, but on the great 
 mass of those who have had the example of this 
 heroism brought home to them? 
 
 We must never forget that love is the only 
 thing that is, the one thing that does not pass 
 away,, it never faileth, it is indeed the one great 
 force in human life, it is the fulcrum that moves 
 the world; therefore no good can come to man 
 permanently except through love, but here we are 
 met with a fundamental law, which is that love 
 and sacrifice go hand in hand and cannot be put 
 asunder. Where love is, there is the spirit of 
 sacrifice. Sacrifice is the proof of love, and it has 
 no other proof. This proclaims union with God, 
 for God is love. But to be the love of God, it 
 must be all-embracing. The love that centres in 
 sell is not of God, but of the devil; for we are told 
 that “he who loveth not his brother, abideth in 
 death,” that “he who saith he loves God, and 
 does not love his brother is a liar.” Christ came 
 not to destroy but to fulfill the ancient law by 
 bringing to the world the vitalizing principle which 
 should transform it, and make it capable of 
 growth toward that which God meant it to be. 
 Christ brought to the world the life of God which 
 is love, and therefore it is love alone that is able 
 permanently to subdue the world. God is moving 
 the world today as he did when He sent His only 
 Son to redeem.it, but it can only be redeemed in 
 God’s way which is the way of love. Just here, 
 has been the colossal mistake of the ages, man has 
 endeavored to subdue it by force , and to estab- 
 
128 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 lish the principle that might is right, and it has 
 cost the world untold sums of money and rivers 
 of blood to learn the sin of this devilish deceit. 
 But the greatest of all sins has been, that it is not 
 only the nations that have sinned in this respect, 
 but the Church herself has been caught in this 
 snare in that she has attempted to sit on the 
 throne of the universe and call herself the ruler of 
 the nations and make all men bow to her imperial 
 ruling.. She too in the past has maintained that 
 might is right, and for love, has substituted rigid 
 discipline and compulsory obedience to ecclesias¬ 
 tical laws. This unbending and unchristian rule 
 of the Church prepared the way not for union 
 and brotherhood but for schism and discord, so 
 religious sects and parties multiplied upon the 
 face of the earth, and the unity of the Church was 
 broken up into contending factions, each like the 
 nations, striving for the mastery. So it was that 
 the spirit of Christ—that of love and brother¬ 
 hood became well nigh banished from the earth 
 and has brought untold evils in its train, the 
 spirit of selfish isolation has been our curse. 
 Hence it is that though the church today may 
 have the “form of godliness,” she lacks the power. 
 
 In truth we have been half Christians, not 
 really Christians at all, in that we lacked the only 
 spirit that can make us Christians that is,—love. 
 
 1 lie Church’s failure in this respect has had 
 its influence upon the nations, in that not having 
 taken Christ s standard for herself, as a Church, it 
 was easy for men to think that our Lord did not 
 
All Things New 
 
 129 
 
 intend His new law to apply to the nations, and 
 the nations were only too ready to accept the 
 teaching of the Church in this respect. 
 
 The sin of the Church in this way, has been the 
 sin of the nations, sowing its seed of evil in the 
 hearts of men, and increasing in power and in¬ 
 fluence as the generations pass. It has brought to 
 us its recompense this day. It has turned 
 Europe into a den of wild beasts, and has opened 
 the eyes of the world to what a national desire for 
 self-aggrandizement and lust for power and might, 
 leads to, anarchy and blood-shed and every evil 
 work. If the handful of national diplomats and 
 insane leaders, who brought on this horrible 
 slaughter through their insistent greed and 
 national selfishness, had met together in earnest 
 effort to see how the law of love could solve the 
 problem, who can doubt that God would have 
 shown them the way? But through ignoring this 
 divine principle, these Hunnish Junkerists have 
 set back the tide of progress, not only in our own 
 land, but in the whole world; unless it may be 
 that through all the black smoke and horrid fires 
 of this dreadful holocaust, God in His wondrous 
 dealing is purging the earth, and through its 
 cleansing power may “make all things new.” 
 
 There can be no doubt to any thinking mind 
 that vast issues are before us at this hour. As 
 God said to Elis people of old, “Behold, I call 
 heaven and earth to witness that I have set before 
 you life and death, therefore choose life, that thou 
 and thy people may live.” 
 
130 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 The question then is, are we really to get a new 
 start after all this? If so, let us remember that 
 the upward trend must begin with ourselves, we 
 must “plant and water” if God would give the 
 increase, for though we are nothing without God, 
 yet God will do nothing without us. 
 
 If then, a new life is to open out on the world 
 through this terrible baptism of fire, we must 
 take heed that the new life is in us. If there is 
 really to be a “new Hea\en and a new earth in 
 which dwelleth righteousness,” we ourselves must 
 prepare the way. 
 
 And ought we not to begin with the Church, 
 and ask ourselves is there to be a new Church? 
 Can the evil dragon of schism be slain? Can the 
 long history of misunderstanding and bitterness 
 be done away? Can the great wounds in the body 
 be healed, the great gulfs of separation be bridged 
 over? Aye, can the indifference and the dull¬ 
 ness and the sloth like hideous bats be frightened 
 out of the darkness and the whole Church make 
 a new start in the broad light of the full-orbed day ? 
 
 Let us be assured that it is not uniformtiy but 
 xnity and love and fellowship that the world 
 needs this day,—one united band of Christian 
 workers. 
 
 The glory of the Church of England is her 
 comprehensiveness, the liberty that she extends 
 to her members. She holds that truth is so vast, 
 so deep in its wonderful unfoldings, that no single 
 mind can grasp it in its fullness. So long, there¬ 
 fore, as we are at one with regard to its grand 
 
All Things New 
 
 131 
 
 foundations, there may be liberty granted in the 
 working out of these necessary principles. For 
 what, we may ask, is comprehensiveness, but the 
 manifestation of Love? The love which in the 
 deepest humility recognizes that perhaps the 
 finite human mind may not wholly understand 
 the infinity of truth, and that those from we 
 differ, may perchance know more of truth, than 
 the noise and heat of controversy permits us to 
 perceive. 
 
 So in the Church, if we really loved each other, 
 as Christ would have us do, we would learn the 
 value of a wide vision and learn to put ourselves 
 in our brother’s place, and try to understand his 
 conditions and so change our point of view. We 
 are so bound up in the straight-jacket of in¬ 
 dividual opinion, tied hand and foot in the “mint, 
 anise and cumin ” of non-essentials of mere ecclesi¬ 
 astical tradition and in the logical letter of the 
 law, that we disturb the unity and harmony of 
 the Church by our denunciation of each other. 
 
 Here we are false to the very principles of the 
 Church which prescribes “unity in essentials, 
 liberty in non-essentials and charity in all things.” 
 
 We must remember, too, that our faith is not 
 built on logic, but on love; logic is human and 
 finite and useful only when dealing with finite 
 matters. It is often worse than useless and an 
 absolute hindrance spiritually, because from its 
 very nature it cannot distinguish between the 
 finite and the infinite. 
 
 Logic, the desire to measure the truth of God, 
 
132 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 in the balances of human reason, has been the 
 adder’s poison at the root of our ecclesiastical dif¬ 
 ferences. . It has no power to comprehend faith 
 in mysteries, nor to understand things that appear 
 contrary to human reason, seeming paradoxes, of 
 which the word of God is full. 
 
 Faith in that which is seen only, is not faith 
 in its true sense, for it is of “the earth, earthy.” It 
 is the great joy and privilege of the Christian to 
 believe where he cannot see. 
 
 Yes, love is all embracing, it has no bounds nor 
 limits, it sweeps earth and heaven in its mighty 
 grasp, “perfect love casteth out fear. ” 
 
 Unity, then, is what we need,—unity more than 
 uniformity. The Church had uniformity for 
 I 5°o years, and it wrought one of the worst evils 
 that ever have come upon the Christian world, 
 and has done more than anything else to strangle 
 its missionary work, sow the seeds of discord 
 amongst men. We may have real Christian unity 
 without uniformity; “there are diversities of gifts 
 but .the same spirit, and there are differences of 
 ministries but the same Lord, and there are di¬ 
 versities of operations but the same God, which 
 worketh all in all.” Yes, as the apostle tells us 
 “the body is one, yet it hath many members,” 
 each has its office to perform for the health and 
 vigor of the body. 
 
 And in this divine parable given to us showing 
 to us the true life of the church of God, is it not 
 worthy, our notice that the apostle warns us of 
 something that we are apt to forget,—the im- 
 
133 
 
 All Things New 
 
 portance of the unseen agencies of the body, when 
 he tells us “that those members of the body 
 which we think to be less honorable, have the 
 more abundant honor,” those members of the 
 body, which “seem to be feeble are necessary” 
 that there should be no schism in the body. 
 
 God reveals His truth in diverse ways and gives 
 talents to each, to be used in furthering His work, 
 “every man according to his several ability” and 
 it is not the form in which this talent is given, but 
 the use of the talent that is of the most extreme 
 importance. 
 
 Let unity, then, be our watchword today. 
 This has been the great truth which has been 
 brought before the eyes of the whole world in 
 this vast turmoil of the nations, unity has been 
 and is their great strength. All creeds and colors, 
 races and nations have been welded into one body, 
 standing together, shoulder to shoulder, against 
 one common foe, that would crush love out of the 
 world, a power that has proved itself more de¬ 
 graded than the unspeakable Turk. These men 
 have fought together, they have bled together, 
 they have died together and have been buried in 
 one common grave, the symbol of our common 
 faith has marked their blessed resting place. 
 
 The question for the Christian Church is, 
 can we look on this wondrous object lesson of 
 unity, and still continue to emphasize our differ¬ 
 ences and refuse to stand shoulder to shoulder 
 with our Christian brothers in this great crisis of 
 the world’s history, when God is opening such 
 
134 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 a great door as has not been opened in all time, 
 for the redemption of the world, and the fulfilling 
 of His work. Shall we not strive in every possible 
 way, to make the world see that we believe in the 
 unity of the Church, and recognize that we are 
 not sufficient of ourselves or in ourselves, that we 
 need the help of all our brethren, of whatsoever 
 name, to maintain that unity that shall convince 
 the world of the need of Christ. 
 
 Indeed, it may be that we need their help for 
 a more complete vision of Him, that we may see 
 the whole truth of Him who came “to be the light 
 of every man that cometh into the world ” and is 
 “the Way, the Truth, and the Life” to every 
 creature that He hath made. 
 
XV 
 
 PEACE THROUGH THE SWORD 
 
 CHRISTMAS 
 
 Think not that I am come to send peace on the earth. I am 
 not come to send peace but a sword. 
 
 MATT. X, 34 
 
 H OW these words, at first sight, seem to jar 
 as a horrid discord in the harmony of our 
 Christmas-tide! and yet we know they came 
 from the lips of Him, who was and is the Prince 
 of Peace, whom the heavenly host proclaimed as 
 bringing “peace and good will to all people.” The 
 word and thought of Peace, we find continually 
 on the lip and in the mind of Christ. Indeed, 
 He seems to look upon it as man’s highest gift, 
 his chief attainment. 
 
 Before He ascended in triumph to His Father, 
 His final gift to His disciples was that of peace, 
 His parting benediction was accompanied with 
 the thrice-bestowed blessing of peace. 
 
 But lest they should mistake the nature of the 
 blessing, He goes on to tell them the kind of peace 
 of which He spake. It was not a peace of body 
 (for that might bring them a curse and not a 
 blessing) it was a peace of soul. His peace, “My 
 
 135 
 
136 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 peace I give unto you.”. He goes on further to 
 tell them that it was a gift that the world could 
 neither give nor take away. It was something 
 that He alone could impart, so He says, .“My 
 peace I give unto you not as the world giveth, 
 give I unto you.” Therefore, “let not. your 
 heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid, in the 
 world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good 
 cheer for I have overcome the world. ” . 
 
 In these great words of the Divine Peace¬ 
 maker, the words of our text seem to unfold 
 themselves and give light to their meaning, in 
 that they do not refer to a condition of.the body, 
 but to a condition of the soul r It is not an 
 earthly gift but a heavenly one. 
 
 In the word tribulation of which He tells them, 
 we get the first gleam of the sword. We hear 
 the din of warfare, the clash of arms, of putting 
 on “the whole armor” and fighting “the good 
 fight” of faith, if we would obtain the.peace that 
 Christ came to bring this day. Does it not seem 
 almost a mockery and a sort of cruel irony to talk 
 of peace when we look on the battle-scarred fields 
 of France and Belgium this day and see what we 
 may call the slaughter house of Christian nations? 
 Are we not almost tempted to think, if not to say, 
 that the Christian religion has (as its adversaries 
 declare) been weighed in the balance and been 
 found wanting? For are not its fundamental 
 principles discredited, proved valueless to guide 
 and govern the lives of men? We may say can 
 it be that Christian nations are slaughtering one 
 
Peace Through the Sword, 
 
 137 
 
 another thus?” “No,” we answer, “it is not 
 possible, it is because they are not Christians 
 that it becomes possible, it is because men have 
 borne the words of Christ on their lips, while they 
 have cherished the spirit of evil in their hearts.” 
 
 This war, with all its staggering horrors, gives 
 evidence simply to the depths to which national 
 selfishness can descend, unchecked by the love of 
 Christ. As a great writer has said “war has one 
 virtue, it reveals what is in men, it clears the air 
 of hypocrisy, it takes the sword from the scab¬ 
 bard, and flashes the savage weapons we have 
 been hiding.” 
 
 We like to believe in our own sufficiency, that 
 so long as our churches and missions are flourish¬ 
 ing, and our Church membership is increasing, 
 we are very apt to imagine that all is right, as it 
 appears on the surface, but these violent outbursts 
 of war and destruction, show us how the spirit of 
 paganism is still in the heart of the nation. 
 However much it hurts, therefore, we ifiust face 
 the horrid truth that civilization never has been 
 Christian for the universally accepted maxim of 
 the most enlightened nations hitherto has been, 
 “If you would labor for peace, prepare for war.” 
 Now the principle of this is first and last pure 
 militarism. Hence it is that militarism, in one 
 form or another, has been the guiding principle of 
 the nations. Germany has only been the most 
 powerful exponent and has the sincerity and un¬ 
 blushing boldness to write it large on her banners 
 before the world as the acknowledged principle 
 
138 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 of her nation’s struggle. Christians were not 
 shocked at the presence of this hidden spirit till 
 the tide of war broke out and began to.flow, and 
 the blood of our own people began to crimson the 
 ground, when everybody is ready to ask, with 
 righteous indignation, “Who is responsible for 
 this war, this inhuman carnage?” Webelievethat 
 the only true answer to this question is “the 
 common greed of the nations is responsible for it, 
 of which Germany is the most pronounced ex¬ 
 ponent.” She alone, has the brutality to act out 
 her pagan creed, that “Might is right” and so 
 demands what the power of the sword can win; 
 the awful scenes on which we are compelled, to 
 gaze this day, are but the most perfect expression 
 of this creed that the world ever has seen. This 
 war, then, is the awful punishment of the.world’s 
 sin of coveteousness, and it is only the nation that 
 is without this sin that can point the finger of scorn 
 and cast the first stone,—the burden of this sin 
 is on the conscience of the nations. Here, then, 
 is the explanation of our text, Christ the Prince 
 of Peace, with His prophetic vision looked down 
 the lapse of ages and saw the crimson stream of 
 blood that would stain the history of men, before 
 “His peace” could dominate the earth, and the 
 true progress of the nations could be obtained, 
 when men would “beat their swords into plough 
 shares and their spears into pruning ^ hooks, 
 neither should they learn war any more.” Let 
 us not think, then, for one moment that Chris¬ 
 tianity has failed, and that this war has come 
 
Peace Through the Szvord 
 
 139 
 
 because it has failed. No, it has come be¬ 
 cause the Christian nations have failed to be 
 Christians. May we not go further and say, 
 that it is the indelible proof of Christianity, in 
 that it is a hideous object lesson to the whole 
 world of the final results of selfishness and ma¬ 
 terialism, when they are followed as the guiding 
 principles of life, of the ruin and desolation that 
 comes to a man or a nation when the principles 
 of love and brotherhood are forgotten. 
 
 We must remember that the kingdom of Jesus 
 Christ is not only a kingdom upon earth of peace, 
 but a kingdom to be established by peaceful 
 methods and means. It was thought by some 
 who imagined that they read aright the signs of 
 the times, that this time was even now dawning 
 upon the earth, since so many had so labored for 
 peace, that so strong a peace sentiment had been 
 created and very widely spread; so much so, in¬ 
 deed, that congresses, parliaments, kings and 
 statesmen recognized and felt it, a thing to be 
 desired above all things. Treaties were made, 
 societies formed, and courts established in the 
 interests of peace. It seemed that the golden 
 age had come or was about to come in the near 
 future. War, at all events, among Christian 
 nations seemed a thing almost impossible. Yes, 
 so we dreamed and hoped and ventured to be¬ 
 lieve, till the falsity and adder’s poison in the 
 hearts of the German rulers were revealed, when 
 like a thunder crash, the sound of tumult was 
 heard, and the most collossal war in the history 
 
140 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 of the world was begun, the most solemn treaties 
 were as nothing, war was at our gates, a midnight 
 darkness of ruin and desolation overshadowed 
 one of the most beautiful and prosperous portions 
 of the earth. Its best possessions, its artistic 
 treasures, its choicest works of art, were pillaged 
 and destroyed and worst of all, the homes of its 
 innocent and peaceful people, were violated,— 
 while murder and the barbarism of the savage 
 ruled the hour, till the whole world stood aghast 
 at the atrocities committed. 
 
 And what, we may ask, is the lesson we learn 
 from the daily records we receive of the horrors 
 of this present war? It is surely a fearful object 
 lesson to the whole world of the result of men’s 
 trusting to the power of the sword. The prin¬ 
 ciple of the arbitrament of war has been revealed 
 in all its hideous reality before the eyes of the 
 assembled nations of the world. Christ came to 
 bring us peace, but peace can come only where 
 there are conditions of peace, and men must be 
 first taught to desire these conditions, before the 
 mantle of peace can rest upon the earth. 
 
 So we often require to be shown the anguish 
 and the bitterness, the awful ruin and waste and 
 the unutterable barbarity of war, before we can 
 be driven to stretch out our hands and offer up our 
 prayers for the love and union and brotherhood 
 that Christ came to bring. For we must remem¬ 
 ber that Christ was born, not only to be our 
 Saviour, but also to be our Judge. In every 
 event happening in the world, He comes to us as 
 
Peace Through the Sword 
 
 141 
 
 our Saviour or our Judge; as St. James says, 
 “Whence come wars and fightings among you? 
 come they not of your lusts and your pleasures?” 
 “Ye fight and war,” he says, “and have not be¬ 
 cause ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it in your 
 pleasures.” These wars and tumults are signs 
 of God’s merciful judgments. So these awful 
 happenings, are intended to be as advents of 
 Christ to the world. As God says through the 
 mouth of His prophet, Isaiah, “When Thy 
 judgments are upon the earth, then will men 
 learn righteousness. ” Great struggles and great 
 catastrophes, are to the eye of faith, instruments 
 in His hands, who remaineth forever King of His 
 people. If we are then Christian people, we 
 should be ready in a humble and teachable way, 
 to learn and profit by the discipline which God 
 is sending upon us this day. We remember the 
 battle cry of the great fore-runner of Christ; it 
 was “repent ye, for the kingdom of Heaven 
 draweth nigh.” So today, John the Baptist 
 must come before Christ, that is, the sword of 
 discipline and humiliation must come before the 
 peace of which the angels sang on the first Christ¬ 
 mas morn, can come upon the earth. We must 
 be very blind if we do not see that this great crisis, 
 may be the fore-runner of a time of great spiritual 
 blessing to the world, but especially to the 
 English speaking race which we believe form to¬ 
 gether the van-guard of civilization. So it is a 
 day of great opportunity to enable us to see more 
 clearly the “things that belong to our peace.” 
 
142 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 For we, as Christians must believe that for 
 ourselves as for those of our motherland, our 
 greatest gift, our best treasure is our knowledge 
 of Christ. For that which we owe to Him has 
 been and is today the mainspring of our freedom 
 and progress, the secret of our moral growth and 
 the foundation of our strength as a nation. If, 
 therefore, we as a people and nation are to keep 
 and maintain a position among the nations, 
 it is to be done, not by naval or military strength, 
 not by dreadnaughts nor aeroplanes, nor military 
 resources of any kind, but by spiritual life and 
 power drawn from Him who was and is the 
 Prince of Peace. 
 
 Never before in the history of men were there 
 such wonderful opportunities for spreading the 
 gospel of peace and good will to the world, as 
 there are this day; for a door that is wide and 
 effectual is opened in all the world, the great war, 
 in a very real sense, has awakened the brother¬ 
 hood of the nations, it has stirred their sympathy 
 in the maintenance of freedom, truth, and justice 
 by the endeavor they have made to put down the 
 spirit of pride and arrogance and greed and 
 violence and cruel oppression. The loving sons 
 of the great motherland have come from the four 
 corners of the earth, the United States ol America 
 has marshalled her mighty engines of war and 
 summoned her loyal sons to stand by Britain and 
 her allies in their great struggle for righteousness. 
 This will strengthen the bonds that unite the 
 English speaking race and further the efforts 
 
Peace Through the Sword 
 
 H 3 
 
 which are being made to insure the peace of the 
 world and bring the Gospel of peace to all nations. 
 We must remember that the birth of Christ was a 
 beginning and not an ending. It was a beginning 
 of cross-bearing and of much tribulation, of many 
 sorrows, many burdens to be borne and this be¬ 
 cause it was the promise of those spiritual, eternal 
 joys, into which men enter only through the gate 
 of trial and suffering. The great gifts of peace 
 and love cannot be received till the spirit is pre¬ 
 pared to receive them. “Peace on earth” came to 
 the world 1900 years ago, but God cannot force 
 peace till the world is ready to receive it. It will 
 be ours only when we establish justice and right¬ 
 eousness amongst men, it can come to us only 
 when we have learned where our strength is 
 found. Then will our peace come like a river. 
 After the storm will come the calm, the “haven 
 where we would be. ” A story is told of a traveller 
 being in one of the historic bell-towers of stricken 
 Belgium while the chimes were being rung. The 
 ringers plied their vigorous strokes and there 
 thundered forth peal after peal, a perfect babble 
 of unmeaning sounds which seemed naught but 
 a bellowing crash of deafening discords; yet as 
 the wonderful sound floated out over the peaceful 
 valley it seemed like a benison from on high and 
 blended into the soft notes of an exquisite melody. 
 It rolled out its beautiful harmony as though it 
 might be the rapture of an angel’s song chanting 
 “Peace and good will toward men,” for it was 
 
 “Peace, perfect peace, o’er this dark world of sin. 
 
 The blood of Jesus whispers peace within.” 
 
 I 
 
144 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 In this great struggle, the great question is 
 whether the Gospel of the Great Peace Giver 
 shall dominate the earth; but may we not believe 
 and hope and pray, that God will bring out of 
 this chaos an abiding peace, even that “Peace of 
 God which passeth all understanding.” 
 
 v 
 
XVI 
 
 VICTORY IN SEEMING DEFEAT 
 
 Now is come salvation and strength, and the kingdom of our 
 God, and the power of His Christ, for they loved not their lives 
 unto the death. Therefore, rejoice ye Heavens and ye that dwell 
 in them. 
 
 REV. XII, 1012 
 
 I T is a most significant fact, and worthy our 
 deepest thought, that the most jubilant and 
 triumphant book of our Bible, is the Book 
 of the Revelation of St. John the Divine, though 
 it is filled with woes and bitter tribulations; yet, 
 through all there runs an irresistible note of 
 gladness; till it seems like a great choral of 
 jubilant praise rising up to the very throne of 
 God. Yet that book was written, we know, in 
 perhaps the very darkest hour of the Church’s 
 history, for the sword of persecution had just 
 done its most cruel work, the sands of the Colos¬ 
 seum at Rome, had run red with Christian blood, 
 and the insane lust of the monster Nero had 
 loosened his hungry lions to satisfy his wanton 
 cruelty on the bodies of Christians. A worse 
 than Egyptian darkness had come upon God’s 
 Church which no doubt the beloved apostle had 
 seen with his own eyes previous to his banish¬ 
 ment to the lisle of Patmos. Indeed, the whole 
 
 H5 
 
146 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 earth lay “in darkness and in the shadow of 
 death;” the moral degradation of Rome, was 
 beyond the power of words to describe. St. Paul 
 in the first chapter of Romans, gives us an idea of 
 the depths to which it had fallen. It seemed as 
 though it had sounded the very depths of human 
 depravity. Philanthropy was practically un¬ 
 known. Chastity was not recognized. Truth 
 and honor were things of the past, indeed, life was 
 regarded as a game, a most brutal game at that. 
 Yet, how significant it is for us to remember that 
 in this most tragic hour, in the very midst of this 
 hopeless chaos of human life, the eagle eye of the 
 great apostle was able to look through the. dark¬ 
 ness, till he saw the light of a triumphant victory, 
 he looked forward to that time when ‘ a^ great 
 multitude which no man could number,” of all 
 peoples, kingdoms and tongues should be gath¬ 
 ered before the throne of God, giving “blessing, 
 glory, wisdom, thanksgiving and honor and 
 power and might unto our God forever and even 
 No earthly darkness could cloud the glory of his 
 sacred vision, of the final triumph of God s king¬ 
 dom in the world. Hence his jubilant praise 
 and never ceasing joy. It is interesting,. as has 
 been said, to notice that it was from this same 
 book of Revelation, that Handel drew the in¬ 
 spiration for his greatest work, The Hallelujah 
 Chorus , the greatest praise choral that ever was 
 written. He, too, like St. John, looked forward 
 to the final victory, and so lifted up his voice to 
 shout in jubilant praise “Hallelujah! For the 
 Lord God Omnipotent reigneth!” 
 
Victory in Seeming Defeat 
 
 H 7 
 
 When we look over the troubled sea of human 
 life today, we may believe that never since the 
 days of St. John was there a more perfect parallel 
 to the sickening barbarities of the days of Nero 
 and the Huns of ancient history, than is revealed 
 to us today in the unparalleled atrocities of the 
 Neros and Huns of our day. Indeed, we have to 
 transport ourselves in thought to the devastated 
 fields of Belgium, think of its ruined homes, its 
 martyred women, its butchered children, its 
 poisoned wells, its ruined temples, to find con¬ 
 ditions similar to those which drew forth the 
 sublime visions of St. John. Indeed, we can 
 imagine somewhat of his spirit throbbing in the 
 breasts of a congregation of Belgians, gathered in 
 one of their half-demolished cathedrals, singing 
 there, as an expression of their abiding faith, 
 The Hallelujah Chorus. But the thing which is 
 of the most supreme importance for us to notice 
 is, that this jubilant vision of the apostle which 
 was so vitally connected with the era of tragedy 
 through which the Church was passing, was, he 
 believed, one of its necessary results , in that “the 
 great multitude which no man could number, ” 
 were those who “had come out of great tribulation 
 and had made their robes white in the blood of the 
 Lamb.” To the mere literalist, these words may 
 have little meaning, but to those who interpret 
 them spiritually, they are filled with the most 
 intense significance. They tell of a most glorious 
 interpretation, for this great number of which the 
 apostle speaks, had not only listened with docility 
 
Saved as by Fire 
 
 and reverence to the teaching of Christ, seen His 
 miracles of mercy, followed Him in His life °1 
 doing good to the poor, the ignorant, the suffer¬ 
 ing, and the outcast, but they had followed Him 
 to the Cross, they had shared with Him the sacri¬ 
 fice of His life. This was, in the opostle’s vision 
 their supreme glory, in this unselfish suffering 
 for others they had reached the very, highest 
 reward of human life. As he tells us himself in 
 the words of Christ, “as He laid down His life 
 for us, so should we lay down our lives for the 
 brethren,” which brings to our minds that wonder¬ 
 ful paradox of the Master, “He that saveth his 
 life, shall lose it, but he that loseth his life, for my 
 sake shall find it.” Yes, as St. Paul says, “the 
 sufferings of this present time are not worthy to 
 be compared with the glory that shall be^ re¬ 
 vealed.” It was the illumination of this “ex¬ 
 ceeding glory” that enabled him, as he says, to 
 “rejoice with joy exceeding” to look out and 
 beyond the things of time, to those things which 
 shall be hereafter. Let us be assured that no 
 greater blessing could come to us, and to the 
 Church throughout the world, than that we 
 could be imbued with this spirit of St. John, this 
 day, that we could interpret the life of the twen¬ 
 tieth century as St. John did the life of the first. 
 
 But alas, how great is our blindness! For, to 
 many, there are no sounds but those of earth. 
 There are no “mighty thunderings” from on 
 high, no Heavenly voices speaking through the 
 midnight; for they can see nothing but the deluge 
 
Victory in Seeming Defeat 
 
 149 
 
 of^blood, nothing but death and slaughter, hear 
 nothing but the shriek of shell, and roar of cannon. 
 Their eyes are so dimmed and their ears are so 
 deafened by the earthly aspects of the wondrous 
 tragedy, that they have neither eyes to see nor 
 ears to hear anything of the Heavenly Glory of 
 this wondrous hour, this hour of supreme sacrifice, 
 this great Calvary of the nations. 
 
 Yes, they see the wounded hands and feet of 
 those who have been taken down from the cross, 
 see the patients, wounded and torn, lying in the 
 hospitals; but they do not see the glory of their 
 sacrifice, not the true glory of the cause for 
 which they suffered. They do not see the 
 ministering hands of Christ in the devotion 
 of the nurses, and that they too are 
 bearing their cross of sacrifice. They feel, in 
 thought, the physical pain of the men in the 
 trenches, but not the joyful thrill and glory of 
 their patriotism, the ecstacy of their courage, 
 not the lofty spirit that animates their breasts. 
 In a word, they ean see all the wrath and the 
 bitterness, the depravity and brutality which is 
 seen; but they forget to look at the Divine side of 
 the picture,—the love of country, the loyalty, the 
 heroism, the self-sacrificing devotion to a great 
 idea, and that faithfulness unto death that must 
 give angels joy. Are we wrong, then, if we ven¬ 
 ture to trace a parallel between the Church in St. 
 John’s day and our own? Never, since St. John’s 
 day have the gates of Hell been so widely opened. 
 Indeed, it would seem as though the words of the 
 
Saved as by Fire 
 
 150 
 
 ancient prophet had been fulfilled for us, and 
 that “Hell had enlarged herself” so that an 
 appendix must be added to the world s history of 
 inhuman horrors, enacted in cold blood by a so- 
 called Christian nation and led on by the Nero 
 
 of our day. . 
 
 But on the other hand, when in all history, 
 
 since Christ died upon the cross, has there been 
 such a glorious manifestation of His spirit. 
 Think of the glorious sacrifices that have been 
 offered up in His name! Even the so-called 
 heathen nations have enrolled themselves as 
 willing defenders of a sacred cause, have stood 
 shoulder to shoulder with the Christian nations 
 in shedding their blood for the life of the world, 
 have poured out their willing sacrifices of men and 
 money, that truth and righteousness might re¬ 
 main to bless the earth. When we see such a 
 widespread manifestation of God s spirit working 
 in the hearts of men, may We not believe that 
 great things are being done whereof we may re¬ 
 joice? May we not believe that Christ is speak¬ 
 ing to us, and bidding us “lift up our heads for 
 our redemption draweth nigh?’’ And should 
 not our faith share in the jubilant, vision of St. 
 John that the work of Christ is being done and 
 fulfilled in these latter days, in His own way, 
 through the cross and that “Now is come salva¬ 
 tion and strength and the kingdom of our God 
 and of His Christ in that His servants have 
 loved not their lives unto the death.” 
 
 And may we not go further and continue our 
 
Victory in Seeming Defeat 15 1 
 
 parallel with the days of St. John? He looked 
 on the glorious instances of martyrdom of his 
 day as an outcome of the terrors with which they 
 were surrounded and enabled them to sing their 
 hymns of joy on the bloody sands of the Arena. 
 So may we not believe today, that the very 
 awful nature of the struggle, its ruthless barbarity, 
 its manifest injustice, its open, fraud, deceit and 
 its heartless inhumanity had its effect in being 
 a spur to the latent heroism of the men, lifted 
 up their ideals, fired their blood to noble deeds, 
 lifted them out the pit of indolent ease and self- 
 indulgence, and planted their feet on the firm 
 ground of a noble resolve of trying to. do some¬ 
 thing for others, if need.be, to give their lives for 
 home and country. So it is, that God has turned 
 “the wrath of man to His own praise, and in a 
 word, the words of the prophet have been fulfilled, 
 “a nation has been born in a day” and this great 
 cross of the nations has opened the gates of 
 Heaven to unnumbered souls . . Does it not 
 
 seem, then, the question of a fool or a madman, 
 when he looks at all this, to ask is not Christian¬ 
 ity a failure?” For never, in all its history, was 
 it more gloriously triumphant, from a human 
 standpoint, a more complete success. For if the 
 cross is the symbol of Christ, and sacrifice and 
 Christianity go hand in hand; then never before 
 has so great a multitude of “all nations, kingdoms 
 people, and tongues,” been so eager to lay down 
 their lives for their fellowmen. 
 
 Consider, too, what this great war has done to 
 
152 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 break down the barriers between man and man, 
 and to foster the cause of unity and brotherhood 
 of men. Men have been drawn together, not 
 only in outward form, by unity of purpose, but 
 they have been the nobility of a noble idea, viz.: 
 the struggle for truth and righteousness and liber¬ 
 ty and brotherhood. These noble desires must 
 leave an indelible stamp on their lives, and if 
 they are spared to return, will, we believe, bring 
 forth fruit in after years. This surely will help 
 to prepare the world for the establishment of that 
 reign of peace and good will, which Christ came 
 to bring to all people when “the sword shall be 
 beaten into plough shares and the spears into 
 pruning hooks and the earth shall be filled with 
 the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the 
 sea.” And does this not bring to our minds the 
 sublime utterance of Christ Himself, when He in 
 prophetic vision, the final accomplishment of 
 His great work, and exclaimed, “If I be lifted up 
 from the earth I will draw all men unto me.” 
 May not the noble sacrifices of today be in a 
 sense the lifting up of Christ in the eyes of the 
 world, and teaching them that Christ is their 
 life, their only life, and that it is in Him alone 
 that all nations are to be blessed that He may see 
 the great travail of His soul and be satisfied and 
 that as St. John says, the “Heavens may re¬ 
 joice and all that dwell in them.” 
 
XVII 
 
 QUIETNESS AND CONFIDENCE 
 
 In quietness and confidence shall be your strength. 
 
 isaiah xxx, 15 
 
 N EVER since the Gospel was first given to the 
 world has there been such need for us to 
 proclaim its fundamental truths as Chris¬ 
 tians and as believers in the spiritual evolution of 
 man and the ultimate triumph of good in the 
 world. There are always certain truths that we 
 must firmly grasp to steady us in times of peril in 
 the great rush of events if we would be saved 
 from doubt and despair. The first truth is 
 “that the Lord is King be the earth never so un¬ 
 quiet,” and therefore because he is King, good 
 always must come out of evil. Because of the 
 divine life inherent in man, there is an irresistible 
 force in humanity which always lifts us to a higher 
 level, however stormy and persistent the down¬ 
 ward pressure may be. The upward tendency 
 may be long delayed to human eyes, the visible 
 rebound may not occur even in a generation or 
 within a century, but inevitably it comes as sure 
 as the dawn follows the sunset, and for the same 
 reason, namely: that a new light might shine 
 upon the world. As the blast of the wind and 
 
 153 
 
*54 
 
 Saved as by Fire • 
 
 the storm on the tree-tops makes the roots ex¬ 
 pand and take a deeper grip on the underlying 
 soil, so the bitter experiences of defeat and disaster 
 are used to secure a finer foot-hold on permanent 
 foundations of the things which cannot pass 
 away, and so turn the eyes from the darkness of 
 earth’s securities to a brighter light and to am¬ 
 bitions which do not pass away. Hence, it comes 
 that these very defeats and disasters are really 
 intended to be messages of God, they represent 
 the much tribulation which we are told that we 
 need in order that we may enter into His King¬ 
 dom,—that is, submit ourselves to His Law and 
 recognize His rule over the kingdoms of men. 
 This is the only foundation that may not nor 
 cannot be moved, for “other foundation can no 
 man lay.” 
 
 Since the world began men have tried to build 
 apart from God, and Cain and his profane builders 
 of the olden time were the pioneers of a mighty 
 host. When in every age men have set out to 
 make for themselves a name by building on ma¬ 
 terial foundations, one after another they come 
 to nought. Their tower of strength has fallen 
 and buried them in their own confusion. God’s 
 people of old were wrecked on the rock of ma¬ 
 terialism; so too, Assyria, Babylon, Greece, Rome, 
 Spain and France in former days—though led on 
 by the most skilled and efficient Generals the 
 world has ever seen—have proved by their own 
 destruction that it is “righteousness only that 
 exalteth a nation.” 
 
Quietness and Confidence 
 
 155 
 
 But it is reserved to our own day to find a na¬ 
 tion building or attempting to build on this rock 
 of destruction which has been the ruin of nations 
 in all time. Hence, we see that Germany today 
 is following in the wake of a long line of nations 
 that have vainly attempted to do an impossible 
 thing, namely, to build up a nation on material 
 foundations. She, although a professedly Chris¬ 
 tian nation, openly has cast aside her faith 
 in Christian principles and asserted her belief 
 in the invincible might of the mailed fist of her 
 conquering legions. She practically owns no 
 power separate from the sword, so it comes that 
 she is the most powerful exponent of material 
 might that the world has ever seen. She has 
 marshalled her mighty hosts to prove to the 
 world that she is mistress, and by the might of 
 her own arm she is practically saymg to the 
 Christian Nations what Sennacherib said to God’s 
 people of old, “What confidence is this wherein 
 thou trusteth?” 
 
 She is being weighed this day in the balances 
 of God who never yet suffered his cause to fail or 
 permitted evil in the end to triumph. It is He 
 only who can bring good out of evil, light out of 
 darkness, and order out of chaos. We may be 
 well assured that out of what seems to us the 
 barren waste of this hopeless destruction, the 
 seething chaos of this terrible war, God is in his 
 own way and in his own time working out an 
 untold blessing for the world. After the storm, 
 the calm; after the cloud, the sunshine; every- 
 
^6 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 thing is by inexorable law. It is not the Kaiser, 
 let us remember, but the Lord God Almighty that 
 still governs the earth. The pillar of cloud and 
 fire still goes before God’s chosen people, guiding 
 them to the promised land. “Our little visions 
 have their day, they have their day and cease 
 to be, but thou, Oh Lord art more than they”. 
 Time is our limit. But God’s designs sweep 
 eternity in their mighty embrace,, so we may rest 
 secure in the darkest day and in the blackest 
 night for God’s arm “is not shortened that it 
 cannot sa\e, nor his ear heavy that he cannot 
 hear.” “In quietness and confidence shall be 
 your strength,” for the Most High ruleth over 
 the Kingdoms of men, though the very earth be 
 moved for “His way is in the sea. His path in 
 the great waters and His footsteps are not known’ 
 Here is the anchor of our life that never yet has 
 moved in the history of the world, and it is lack 
 of faith in God which is not only the curse of 
 Germany but the curse of the. world this day. 
 It is, we believe, for this especially, that we are 
 being scourged in order that from this baptism of 
 blood we may rise to a new life as a people and a 
 nation. 
 
 We read that in the infancy of our race, the 
 earth was so filled with violence, that God 
 cleansed it with a flood and the purpose of his 
 judgment ever has been as we are told “that 
 men may learn righteousness.” So let us be 
 assured it is today; we have called ourselves a 
 Christian nation, but the trouble is we have not 
 
Quietness and Confidence 
 
 157 
 
 been Christians, in that we have worshipped 
 something more than God. We practically have 
 put our strength in things which began and ended 
 on earth. In short, we have been thinking only 
 of swelling our material resources by land and 
 sea, multiplying our armies, building our dre&d- 
 naughts, strengthening our fortifications, and like 
 the Babel builders of olden time, we have been 
 endeavoring to build ourselves up a name in the 
 midst of the earth as the most formidable nation 
 of our time, while all the time the true weapons 
 of our warfare were left rusting in the scabbard. 
 The almonries of the Church were empty, its mis¬ 
 sions starved, the waste places of the earth were 
 left uncared for. The great work which God had 
 set before the Christian world was being strangled 
 in its birth, “there was not strength to bring it 
 forth.” The things belonging to the only peace 
 of the world were being fast hidden from its eyes 
 and so, through God’s mercy, a rude awakening 
 had to come . Its awful intensity may tell us of the 
 depth of our slumber; its resistless violence, of 
 the stubbornness of our sin. We believe that 
 through this awful carnage which is now sweeping 
 over the earth, God is preparing great things for 
 us “for which we may rejoice.” He is restoring 
 the life of the world by revealing to us its true 
 strength, its abiding confidence. Mankind de¬ 
 sired that which was seen and temporal, has put 
 its trust in “reeking tube and iron shard.” And 
 God in his just judgment has given to us our own 
 desire, but has shown to us the hellish nature of 
 
158 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 materialism, the awful pit of degradation into 
 which man may fall once separated from the 
 restraining influences of the Christian faith. 
 The object lesson has been so awful, demanding 
 such terrific sacrifices of life and treasure, as to fill 
 the whole world with a never-ceasing memory of 
 its inhuman sacrilege. Mankind heretofore has 
 tried to live under the profession of Christianity 
 separated from its power, that is, has separated 
 its life from its ruling and has failed signally. Our 
 Western civilization has been built on the form of 
 Godliness without its power, and now we are 
 brought face to face with what seems its collapse 
 and in imminent danger of appearing a spent force. 
 We are driven, therefore, to seek for the cause, 
 and we find that it is because the fundamental 
 principles of Christian teaching have been left 
 out. To get and to have and to hold for ourselves, 
 have been to a great extent the basal truths of 
 our religion, both as individuals and as nations. 
 
 We have come this day, then to a great crisis in 
 our History as a Christian nation when we must 
 study anew the great principles of our faith as 
 revealed to us in the Sermon on the Mount con¬ 
 cerning the brotherhood of the race, and that in 
 the midst of our war-lo\ing, self-seeking, hostile, 
 and aggressive age there will be built a strong, 
 generous, peace-loving humanity for whom peace 
 will not be a beautiful theory, only, but a virtual 
 necessity whose strength will be found in 
 quietness and confidence. Up to this time, the 
 cross and the sword have been entwined, and 
 
Quietness and Confidence 
 
 159 
 
 material forces have been thought necessary for 
 our spiritual as well as our temporal advance¬ 
 ment. Now, let us hope and pray that undee 
 the Providence of God we are about to cut thr 
 cord that binds the sword to the cross, and will 
 try the developing of humanity without the aid 
 of the instruments of barbarism and the cruel 
 carnage of war. We must never forget that 
 Christ imparted to His Church His own omnipo¬ 
 tence and he declared that all power was com¬ 
 mitted unto Him. We must believe, therefore 
 that Christ’s gospel has the power to break down 
 all barriers of nations and races and tongues. 
 God only knows but it may be, then, that out of 
 this present cruel carnage and murderous hatred, 
 there will come a recognition of the folly and 
 crime of thus arraying brother against brother 
 and that the nations will take council one of 
 another to promote good fellowship and a mutual 
 understanding. War can be only where Christ 
 is not; for where the spirit of Christ is, there must 
 be unity and peace, so we must believe that the 
 great power which is to unite man into one 
 brotherhood is the Gospel of Christ. It is He 
 only who can say,“Peace be still,” to the troubled 
 waters, and it may be to teach the world the 
 recognition ol this fact that the winds and the 
 waves of this dread war are now threatening us 
 with destruction to tell us that it is God and not 
 man who rules over the kingdoms of men and 
 that He has made all men of one blood so that in 
 His Kingdom there shall be neither Teuton or 
 
Saved as by Fire 
 
 160 
 
 Slav, Latin or Anglo-Saxon, neither East nor 
 West, North nor South, Jew nor Gentile; but all 
 will be one in Christ Jesus “who is the Light 
 that lighteneth everything that cometh into the 
 world. ” 
 
XVIII 
 
 HE THAT FINDETH HIS LIFE SHALL 
 
 LOSE IT 
 
 He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life 
 for my sake shall find it. 
 
 matt, x, 39 
 
 For ye are dead , and your life is hid with Christ in God. 
 
 COL. Ill, 3 
 
 I am dead” said an enthusiastic Frenchman 
 to an American at the beginning of the war. 
 “Yes, I am dead and France is dead, in that 
 we are ready to be offered. We are prepared to 
 die that France may live. ” In one sense, this was 
 a figure of speech, since he was still standing there 
 in the flesh, yet in another it was a literal truth, 
 for he had in spirit made the great sacrifice, he 
 had in will and purpose offered up his life. He 
 had laid it on the altar of his country, a willing 
 sacrifice. When that death should come, was to 
 him in one sense of no moment, or so far as his 
 own will and intention were concerned, the man 
 was already dead. The result of this mighty 
 resolve, was a rapt enthusiasm, his individuality 
 was lost, swallowed up in the intensity of a 
 glorious ideal,—the freedom of his country and 
 the welfare of the land that gave him birth. And 
 
 161 
 
Saved as by Fire 
 
 162 
 
 what, we may ask, has been the result of this 
 sublime patriotism on the part of the French 
 people? Why, that she has risen in the eyes of 
 the whole world till she stands today amongst 
 the greatest nations of the earth for the splendor 
 of her heroism, the dash and elan of her troops 
 and the unshrinking courage of her Commanders. 
 In a word, France has by this sacrifice “found her 
 soul.” Yes, there has come such a transformation 
 to the whole land that it is an astonishment to us 
 all who behold it. 
 
 But this spirit of sacrifice' has, thank God, not 
 been confined to France. It has illuminated 
 England, it has warmed and thrilled our own 
 loved land, it has extended to the four corners of 
 our great empire, it has lifted up the greater 
 portion of the earth to ideals that are not of earth, 
 to a love of truth and liberty that is dearer than 
 life. It has been God’s sifting of the nations, 
 through which he has riddled out the chaff of 
 materialism and blown it to the four winds, and 
 garnered the pure grain of sacrifice to nurture 
 the earth. 
 
 But here, let me remind you, that this is but a 
 dramatic illustration of a law of our common life; 
 for we know that no great success is ever attained 
 till it is lifted up to the plane of sacrifice, till it is 
 made an ideal to which everything else gives 
 place. No great thing is ever done when it is 
 made a side issue. It must be the one thing that 
 engrosses our own chief thought and that, too, in 
 such a way as to prepare us for sacrifice. We 
 
He that Findeth his Life shall Lose it 163 
 
 must be willing to put aside our own ease, our 
 own comfort, our own self-indulgence, and press 
 on to the goal of our ambition, resolved to let 
 nothing stand in the way of that which we have 
 chosen as our life work. With this concentration 
 of will and purpose, there is scarcely anything 
 that w r e cannot attain. This is the reason that 
 what we call our self-made men are so often the 
 great men of our day,—because they have made 
 some one thing the ruling ambition of their lives. 
 They have put first things first, and have kept 
 them there. They have mounted step by step, 
 ne\er turning aside to the right or to the left, but 
 simply going on, surmounting every difficulty, 
 learning wisdom by their mistakes; but rising 
 higher and higher till victory is attained, till they 
 sit on the seat of the mighty. Is this not the 
 history of every life that has accomplished great 
 things in this world of unceasing toil? Yes, “by 
 the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread” was, 
 and is, life’s unalterable law. Let us be assured 
 that we never can obtain bread that will nourish 
 us in any other way, for it is the law of God. 
 
 St. Paul gives us the secret of his wonderful life, 
 the watch-word of his success, when he tells us 
 “This one thing I do, forgetting those things which 
 are behind, and reaching forth to those things 
 which are before. I press towards the mark of 
 the prize of the high calling of God in Christ 
 Jesus.” He counted “all things but loss” that he 
 might win Christ, and this is the sublime truth 
 which Christ himself makes clear to us when He 
 
164 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 says, “He that saveth his life shall lose it, and he 
 that loseth his life for my sake, the same shall 
 find it.” This is one of the beautiful paradoxes 
 that we find everywhere in Christ’s teaching in 
 which He would make the natural tell us of the 
 spiritual and tell us of the real things,—those 
 things that do not pass away. So here, He re¬ 
 minds us of the true life that only comes to us by 
 a supreme effort and by the road of sacrifice. 
 
 How this truth is brought home to us and to 
 the world this day in the cross-crowned fields of 
 Flanders! How many lives have been saved by 
 being lostf Plucked, no doubt, many of them, as 
 brands from the burning,—from an empty and 
 purposeless life to make a glorious adventure, to 
 stand in the ranks of those who were fighting for 
 truth and liberty and the crushing of tyranny and 
 lust of power. Oh, how the whole world rings 
 today with their noble deeds! Right royally 
 have they filled out their noble quest. They 
 have given their lives to save lives, and so have 
 won a life eternal. 
 
 We are so bound to things of earth, so blinded 
 with temporal things, we think so much of 
 our losses that we forget our gains. We always 
 are tempted to measure our blessings by earthly 
 balances and judge of our success by the puny 
 standards of men. May it not be possible that 
 this war, terrible as it is, may have gathered more 
 good grain into the garner of Heaven than a 
 hundred years of peace? Why? Because it has 
 been the means of saving so many lives, it has 
 
He that Findeth his Life shall Lose it 165 
 
 put truth and righteousness before men as some¬ 
 thing to be fought for, it has aroused countless 
 thousands to noble deeds, as enthusiasts in a 
 great cause for which they have not hesitated to 
 
 give their lives. . 
 
 Here is the answer to those shallow minds who 
 deem this war the deathblow to Christianity. 
 It is the most glorious triumph that it has ever 
 seen; it tells us how stern is the voice of love. It 
 always demands first place, and the voice that 
 expresses it is sacrifice. Here, then, we have seen 
 what love of truth and righteousness mean to 
 men. Like Mary of old, they have broken their 
 precious box of alabaster at the Saviour s feet 
 so that the fragrance has filled the earth. Aye, 
 they have won the reward of that greater love of 
 which the Master spake, those who have given 
 their livens for men, so in losing their lives they 
 have, in truth, found them, and have blessed the 
 whole world by the nobility of their sacrifice. 
 As it has been beautifully said, The lives of 
 such men dropped apparently into the stream of 
 life are like stones into the stream at the building 
 of a bridge,”—stones which one day will bear the 
 great bridge over which a redeemed and recon¬ 
 ciled humanity shall pass on its victorious way. 
 Thus we see that the war, in spite of its appalling 
 terrors, has brought with it an untold blessing, 
 lor it has taught the world the insecurity of tem¬ 
 poral things, it has brought them face to face with 
 life and death and with the things that shall be 
 hereafter. It has, we believe, opened the gates 
 
i66 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 of Paradise to unnumbered souls and started them 
 on their Heavenly way. Thus it comes that this 
 sacrificial host have been, and are, unconsciously 
 though it may be, among the greatest mission¬ 
 aries of time. They have taught the world that 
 sacrifice is the law of life, that inaction means 
 death, that we are pledged to unceasing labor, 
 that the do-nothings are the get-nothings, that 
 those who live only to consume, and think only 
 of themselves are the scabs of humanity and curse 
 of the race. 
 
 Another great blessing of the war has been to 
 turn the tide of human things toward spiritual 
 things. Material things have received a deadly 
 blow. Men and women have become alarmed at 
 living only for earth, because so many millions 
 have been swept away. Their noble sons have 
 been called Beyond the Veil in countless thou¬ 
 sands, just when they were in their prime and 
 vigor of manhood. What does it all mean? 
 Has the God in whose hand our breath is, for¬ 
 gotten to be gracious, and does He shut up His 
 loving kindness in displeasure? Can this be the 
 end of all this matured vigor, this splendid heroism 
 this undaunted courage, this enduring love even 
 to death? Nay, my friends, it is more the be¬ 
 ginning than the end. God could never allow 
 this precious box of alabaster to be broken in 
 vain; for He has entered into a life which is eternal, 
 one of higher activities, of brighter visions of 
 truth to an estate of more sanctified labor for God 
 and humanity. God who had begun that good 
 
He that Findeth his Life shall Lose it 167 
 
 work in Him on earth in the shedding of His 
 blood for man, will now confirm it unto the end. 
 So we see that the days in which we live, are as 
 a great crucible in which God is proving men. 
 They are being made to pass through the fire. 
 The handwriting of materialism is written upon 
 the wall, it has been weighed in the balances and 
 has been found wanting: it is, we believe, of 
 blessing, yet of trouble and of anguish and of 
 grave responsibility. Yes, the days are grave; 
 let our speech be grave too. God has drawn very 
 nigh us and we to Him. It is His trumpet call 
 to us to use all our gifts,—gifts of faith and hope 
 and love, as fellow workers with God, in every 
 department of life,—each in his own place, and 
 in his own vocation—as our brave soldiers are 
 doing—for the saving of the world. 
 
 Neither God nor the world has any use for 
 sluggards,—for idlers in the vineyard. They 
 are a blot and a disgrace wherever found, they 
 are clogs and hindrances on every field. God 
 has said to each one of us, “Go work this day in 
 my vineyard.” We understand this well enough 
 in our temporal life; we feel that there is nothing 
 but defeat and failure for the man who refuses not 
 only to labor but labor with a fixed resolve and is 
 ready for any sacrifice that his work may demand. 
 This, as we have seen, is the law of life, if we 
 would accomplish great things we must make it 
 the ideal of our life, we must put faith and hope 
 and confidence into our work and carry it on at 
 every cost, even at times of life itself. It is such 
 
Saved as by Fire 
 
 168 
 
 men that have made their names renowned in the 
 history of the world. These are the sacrifices 
 that generations of men have made and are 
 making this day, for even temporal rewards and 
 the things that pass away. Can it be that eternal 
 rewards, demand less labor? 
 
 God has no more use for traitors and slackers 
 and do-nothings than our armies have today. 
 Neither has He any use for those who, though 
 they may have put on the King’s colors, mark 
 time or stand at ease. He wants men who are 
 prepared to fight and, what is more, fight to a 
 finish,—men who realize the sacred nature ol 
 their work and are prepared for sacrifice, ready 
 to lose their lives that they may gain them. 
 This is the spirit that is needed in our religion 
 this day, that the Church of God may catch up 
 some of the enthusiasm of our soldiers and share 
 in the glory of their sacrifice. This surely is the 
 spirit of our Master who died that we might live 
 and bid us take our Cross and follow Him. An 
 estate of dull, torpid inaction, a nerveless resting 
 upon the things that have been done for us, is the 
 curse of the Church this day. Let us remember 
 that all that Christ has done for us will only serve 
 for our condemnation, except so far as we make 
 the fruits of His death and passion to be revealed 
 in our individual lives through our diligent labor. 
 God is omnipotent, as we know; yet He will do 
 nothing by Himself, we must be fellow-laborers 
 with Him if we would reap at the great day of His 
 ingathering. Let us be assured that we take our 
 
He that Findeth his Life shall Lose it 169 
 
 religion too easily. There is too much of the 
 soft, goody-goody, nerveless pampering element 
 in it; too much preaching of smooth things.. We 
 have not the courage of our convictions, so it has 
 come to be a mere sickly sentiment lacking all 
 enthusiasm and vital power. The popular idea 
 of a Christian is the direct opposite of a soldier. 
 It is a sad-faced, gloomy, timid,, anaemic, irre¬ 
 solute sort of an individual who isolates himse 
 from the world, who spends his time quoting 
 scripture, groaning over the world’s sin, and 
 thinking only of his salvation. There is more 
 hope for the profligate than for him. Such, we 
 may rest assured, was not the religion, of Jesus 
 nor of His first followers. Such a religion never 
 will conquer the world, for it lacks the force that 
 is required to overcome evil, it lacks the true 
 spirit of service, the spirit of sacrifice, the spirit 
 of Him who said, “He that saveth his life s “ a JJ 
 lose it, and he who loseth his life for My sake shall 
 
 find it.” . , 
 
 While these glorious sacrifices are being made 
 for us, dare we stand idle in the market-place, 
 and not be willing to take our part? The great 
 premier of the British nation has told us, I he 
 line which the British Empire holds against the 
 Germans, is held by those who work on the land, 
 as well as those who fight on land and sea. . Now 
 the importance of the economy and production 01 
 food is the great problem of the hour, this makes 
 all manner of waste simply criminal. The soar¬ 
 ing of prices, compel the most rigid economy. 
 
170 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 Prohibition of all forms of indulgence meets us 
 face to face, “ a penny saved is a penny gained.’’ 
 But we can “do our bit” not only by saving food 
 but by producing food. We are told that the 
 king himself is served by the field. The farm is 
 our most important asset, our nation’s wealth is 
 mostly derived from the forest and the field. 
 Every business in our country is largely depen¬ 
 dent on the produce of the field. We see, there¬ 
 fore, that our duty today, in this great crisis for 
 all non-combatants, is food production. The 
 waste places must be filled. This insistent call 
 is coming from every district of the country, our 
 great economists have spoken in clear tones warn¬ 
 ing us of alarming conditions concerning the food 
 supply of the world, of which we should take 
 diligent heed. If we would look for the victory 
 of our cause, we must, as Lloyd George says, 
 “hold our part of the line,” by doing our utmost 
 to increase the food supplies of the country this 
 year. 
 
 Notwithstanding the shortage of labor, the 
 high cost of necessary supplies, and the scarcity 
 of seed, we believe, by a united and determined 
 effort to make the best use of our unused acres 
 and of the means at hand, a very large increase 
 will take place. We that were brought up in 
 the country know something of farming, so in 
 every town and village, are men who can readily 
 adapt themselves to farm work. Boys and even 
 girls can do their part and emulate those who are 
 doing this work in the motherland. 
 
XIX 
 
 THE GIFT OF GIFTS 
 
 Concerning spiritual gifts , 
 ignorant. 
 
 brethren , l would not have you 
 I COR. XII, I 
 
 T HERE just two standpoints from which 
 civilization may be judged; one is the 
 material, and the other is the spiritual; the 
 seen and the unseen. 
 
 The bold materialist is never weary of parading 
 his goods before our eyes, he glories in the wonders 
 of his grand achievements. When we look 
 around us today, we cannot but be amazed at the 
 wonderful results of man’s genius. Whether we 
 look at “ the heavens above, the earth beneath or 
 the waters under the earth, ” there seems no limit 
 to his daring adventure. The obstacles of time, 
 space, and condition seem, in a measure, removed 
 and made subject to his will, to be used as his 
 purpose may direct. Indeed, man’s achievements 
 today seem the last word of human ingenuity. 
 They are the extremes of that convenience which 
 ministers to the comfort of the age, as though 
 there were nothing more to be desired. 
 
 In this grand march of material development, 
 we may say that one nation has taken the lead. 
 No country upon the earth has kept pace with 
 
 171 
 
172 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 Germany in the increase of her material power. 
 The development of her industrial, scientific, and 
 national resources, have been the wonder and 
 admiration of the world. She is, indeed, the 
 world’s last word in materialism. She has, we 
 may say, proved it to the hilt during the last 
 generation, as the highest ambition of her people, 
 yet what, we may ask, has been the result? Let 
 the slaughter-house of Europe give the answer. 
 Her materialism has hardened her heart to com¬ 
 mit the most awful crime of the ages, to wage, 
 without any just pretext, the most cruel and 
 barbaric war that ever was fought in the history 
 of men. All the inhumanities of heathen na¬ 
 tions, pale before the nameless atrocities, the 
 cold, cruel, calculating deviltries of Prussian war¬ 
 lords. They, with their own hands, with de¬ 
 liberate purpose of heart, opened the very mouth 
 of hell to aid them in their murderous lust to 
 establish the outward development of material 
 power. Can this, I ask you, be anything less 
 than an awful lesson to the whole world of the 
 sin of materialism, when it is made the ideal of 
 the people and the ruling thought of a nation? 
 
 The idolatry of the creature ever has been the 
 besetting sin of man since the forbidden fruit 
 seemed pleasant to the eyes of our first parents. 
 In all time, it has been the master deceit of the 
 evil one. The majesty of the will is the same 
 today, as it was in Adam’s day. God suffers us 
 to walk in our own way; as the Psalmist says, He 
 “gives us of our own desire.” What we labor 
 
The Gift of Gifts 
 
 173 
 
 for, we get; what seems to us of the most value, is 
 the thing we attain. In other words, the thing 
 we place on the throne of our hearts, is our god; 
 and we cannot serve two gods. We must be false 
 to one or the other. 
 
 But to one who believes in the spiritual world, 
 and in the spiritual nature of man, must of 
 necessity see the pre-eminence of “ spiritual gifts, ” 
 because, think as he may, act as he will, he must 
 see and know,above all question, that the spirit¬ 
 ual is the only thing that survives and really counts 
 in human life. Whatever our temporal acquire¬ 
 ment may be, it must, of necessity, be valueless 
 except so far as it helps to establish our spiritual 
 possessions. Because we know this, it.goes with¬ 
 out saying that the spiritual standard is the fina' 
 standard, and by it we know in our hearts; 
 we stand or fall. 
 
 We must never forget, however, that both the 
 material and the spiritual are of the most intense 
 importance, as they stand or fall together. Both 
 are intended to be blessings to man; but only in 
 one way,—when the material is made subservient 
 to the spiritual, because the spiritual is the only 
 permanent element in our nature. All else, as 
 the apostle says, is “of the earth, earthy” and 
 passes away while that which is spiritual remains 
 to be our poverty or our fullness for evermore. 
 Hence, when the apostle says, “concerning 
 spiritual gifts brethren, I would not have you 
 ignorant,” he strikes a chord that must, sooner or 
 later, vibrate in every human breast,—the one 
 
174 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 thing that every man will at one time, most desire. 
 
 Here is the great duty, the great problem of 
 lif er __ to keep the true balance between these 
 ruling influences of our lives, giving each its own 
 due importance, remembering always that there 
 is nothing without its spiritual significance. 
 This is because everything was created for 
 spiritual ends; not only so, but is the embodi¬ 
 ment of spiritual power. Since, therefore, the 
 spiritual is the only thing that is, we see that 
 everything we see, must be an outward expression 
 of a spiritual power within it. . Therefore, every¬ 
 thing of earth, whether spiritual or material, 
 must be quite sacramental. Its only purpose is 
 to impart spiritual power in man, and build him 
 up on the spiritual side of his nature. 
 
 We see, then, that the seen and the unseen 
 belong to each other as the fruit belongs to the 
 tree. The tree is necessary to the fruit-bearing, 
 but except it bear fruit, it is as the barren fig 
 tree, fit only for destruction. The final test is 
 the spiritual test, “by their fruits ye shall know 
 them.” But the material, although transitory, 
 is still of the most intense importance, because of 
 its spiritual connections. “I am come that ye 
 may have life, ” said the master. At the marriage 
 in Cana of Galilee, He touched the material of 
 water, and it became the gift of God to make 
 glad the heart of the assembled guests. So 
 today, by our union with Him, we are enabled to 
 make the common element of our doing and our 
 acting, a spiritual force in the world if we con- 
 
The Gift of Gifts 
 
 175 
 
 secrate it to His service,—as work done con¬ 
 sciously for Him. 
 
 Thus we see that the materialist and the re- 
 ligous observer may be both right and both wrong 
 in that each may have grasped only a part of the 
 truth. Each may view the age only from one 
 angle, and only see one side of its marvellous 
 development. 
 
 The great apostle who wrote our text was a 
 wise and clear-sighted observer of his time. 
 There were wide-mouthed materialists in his 
 day as ours. He lived and moved amongst the 
 men who sang of the wonders of Athens, of the 
 glories of Greece and the might and grandeur of 
 Rome. He saw, indeed, that they were “wholly 
 given to idolatry,” as the materialists of today 
 who glory in the visible achievements of our 
 modern civilization. Athens was the last word 
 in earthly development. She was the Acropolis 
 of the world in architectural and mental power in 
 St. Paul’s day, yet he did not lose sight of her 
 dignity as such, nor ignore the primacy of her 
 art and letters. On the contrary, he openly ad¬ 
 mitted and admired them; but he lifted them to 
 their true sphere. He used them to prove that 
 while they had gone far to demonstrate the 
 divinity of man’s earthly powers, they did not go 
 far enough to realize the full measure of his 
 spiritual possibilities. The God whom they 
 ignorantly worshipped he declared was a spiritual 
 God of spiritual power, governing all things in 
 Heaven and earth. He was wise enough to see 
 
176 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 that there was nothing which had not its spiritual 
 purpose and that the earthly was but the hand¬ 
 maiden of the spiritual. 
 
 In his sublime argument on the glory that 
 shall be,” he speaks in glowing terms of the glory 
 of the temporal, the glory of the bursting seed, 
 the glory of the sun and the moon and the stars; 
 but he pointed out that while the glory of the 
 terrestrial was one, that the glory of the celestial 
 was another.” That is to say, each has a glory 
 of its own, definite and admirable; but not com¬ 
 plete in itself, in that one depended upon the 
 other. 
 
 The apostle stated another truth that is indis¬ 
 putable and absolute, when he declared that that 
 “was not first which was spiritual, but that which 
 was natural, and afterward that which was 
 spiritual.” In saying so, he put himself in line 
 with the apostles of evolutionary science today, 
 who tell us that “the completion of man’s physical 
 nature, has no meaning, if it be not to leave him 
 free, at the termination of his physical develop¬ 
 ment, to engage in the further work of employing 
 his spiritual powers to achieve his spiritual and 
 immortal destiny, as he climbs that steep^ ascent 
 to Heaven, through peril, toil and pain.” 
 
 We see, then, that man lives only as he grows 
 spiritually. To be ignorant of spiritual gifts is 
 his greatest calamity possible; it is the defeating 
 of God’s purpose for man; it is the blasting of 
 his being; it is the losing of his soul. 
 
 We may say that this is the great subject that is 
 
177 
 
 The Gift of Gifts 
 
 brought before us at this hour in the vast struggle 
 of the ages between the flesh and the spirit. It 
 is, in truth, Odin or Christ, Heaven or Hell. 
 They are being weighed in the balances. “It 
 is the Lord’s doing and it is marvellous in our 
 eyes.” But “He hath done great things, whereof 
 we may rejoice”—for He has inspired millions of 
 men to join His “noble army of Martyrs,’ and 
 offer up their lives that His name may be glori¬ 
 fied and truth remain upon the earth. 
 
 Yes, it has been reserved for the twentieth 
 century to witness the most glorious spiritual 
 object lesson that the world has ever seen in her 
 later history. We have, indeed, been entertain¬ 
 ing not angels, but heroes unawares. The 
 courage, the loyalty, the endurance, the faith¬ 
 fulness unto death, not only of our own brave 
 boys, but the rank and file of our noble allies, 
 have been the wonder of the world. But we be¬ 
 lieve that our loss has been Heaven’s gain, for we 
 believe that unnumbered souls have received a 
 martyr’s crown, and if, as we are told, “the angels 
 of God rejoice over one sinner that repents, 
 how must they rejoice over that heroic band, that 
 have given the surest sign of repentance by 
 offering their lives for truth and righteousness. 
 Such must receive the reward of which the 
 Master spake of those who lay down their lives 
 for their friends. 
 
 Thus, this war is showing the world a side ol 
 human nature, that despite its barbarity, is 
 possessed of a spirit that is more than human. 
 
Saved as by Fire 
 
 178 
 
 It is more than the merely heroic, for it approaches 
 the truly spiritual and sublime. 
 
 This tragedy of earth, this Calvary of the 
 nations, has impressed the world with the fact, 
 that the final test of civilization is in far other 
 conditions than those which rest on mere force 
 and material power. This shows us a truth, 
 that it is well for us to remember, and that is, 
 that men are often better than they seem; that a 
 careless life often may hide the heart of a hero. 
 The Titanic and Lusitania disasters show us that 
 however much man is prone to luxury and sel¬ 
 fishness, he can, and does,, arise above the 
 animal to the spiritual, when occasion demands 
 the supreme'sacrifice of giving his life for others. 
 
 These glorious, but ill-fated ships represented 
 the last word in human skill, with regard to 
 material safety and comfort and luxury of modern 
 civilization. Yet they were as nothing in the 
 face of the spiritual element that was seen in 
 them, the heroism that was revealed by those 
 who, face to face with death, gave their lives for 
 others. It was then, they took their place among 
 the Immortals. This is but another way of show¬ 
 ing that amid all the glory of the terrestrial, over 
 which we have the right to rejoice, there is still 
 evidence to show that the glory of the celestial 
 has not been blotted out by its bulk or brilliance, 
 that the spiritual, the last and crowning evidence 
 of the divine in man, is still his ideal, if not as yet 
 the last full measure of his spiritual achievement. 
 
 So, we may take heart again concerning this 
 
179 
 
 The Gift of Gifts 
 
 old earth-worn world, and believe that God is 
 doing greatly for us, and that the nations of the 
 world will arise from the grave of materialism to a 
 new life in the spirit and be able to realize that 
 “the things which are seen are temporal but the 
 things which are not seen are eternal. 
 
XX 
 
 THE GLORY THAT SHALL BE 
 
 I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy 
 to he compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us. 
 
 ROM. vm, 18 
 
 I N the Epistle from which our text is taken, 
 we have a magnificent panorama placed before 
 us for our instruction today, in that the ful¬ 
 ness of God’s creative work is made to pass under 
 our vision, the visible and the invisible are placed 
 side by side. Yes, the temporal and the eternal, 
 are linked together by an inseparable bond which 
 may not be broken. They, we are told, belong 
 to each other, as the root belongs to the tree, as 
 the bloom to the fruit,—parts of the one life, 
 which together form the unity of God’s purpose 
 for man,—the “one far-off divine event to which 
 the whole creation moves.” The thing which is 
 of the most vital importance to notice is, that the 
 point to which the apostle bids us centre our 
 vision, in the working out of this glorious pur¬ 
 pose, is not anything which now is, but some- 
 thingthat “shallbe.” Thefulfillmentof ourwork, 
 the beauty and the glory of our accomplishment, 
 the goal of our ambition never can be reached, he 
 tells us, on earth; it is only in another estate that 
 
 180 
 
The Glory that Shall Be 
 
 181 
 
 we can attain the purposefor whiich w<5 we 
 made and be partakers of the blessing for which 
 God created us. This is the marked feature of 
 this prophetic vision of the apostle. He saw 
 every created thing waiting for something that 
 was most surely coming, a constant looking 
 ward to the glorious consummation of a divine 
 work, a great spiritual accomplishment whic 
 
 alone could fulfill the purpose of God; “ th « 
 tion of man. The apostle presses upon us this 
 most important fact that the temporal is at best 
 but a stepping stone to the eternal and that it 
 has no purpose whatever except it be done as a 
 part of an eternal work which, in a state of glory, 
 vvtll attaTn the dignity and beauty of a completed 
 
 W °The apostle leaves nothing out in his summing 
 up of things which he declares to be waiting in a 
 state of anxious expectation. He shows us, that 
 the earth and all things which it contains have 
 their part in this earnest expectation of a gten- 
 fied future. Through all its manifold changes 
 of time and season which come to 
 fixed order, as well as its periods ° f ™ re f a ’ rth _ 
 floods and its storms, its panics and 
 quakes, its wars and its tumults, its rise andl fall 
 of nations - all He shows us, are a part of an eternal 
 p an The good and the evil are made eventually 
 
 towork out'God’s spiritual purpose for man; o 
 
 in the words of the apostle, groan and travail 
 
 together waiting for the manifestation of the 
 
 sons of God. ” So, too, of man—in the great as 
 
182 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 well as the small circles of his activity—through 
 all his labors and ambitions, his civil, social and 
 domestic duties as father, citizen, statesman, or 
 soldier; through all losses and crosses; through all 
 his sufferings and afflictions and endurances of 
 whatsoever nature: there runs through all the 
 resistless stream of a Divine purpose, they are 
 but means to an end,—the visible preparing the 
 way to the invisible, the temporal leading to the 
 eternal, even those good things which may not 
 pass away. 
 
 May not this sublime vision of the apostle help 
 to give us some light in the Egyptian darkness— 
 I might say in the seeming eclipse—which has 
 today fallen upon the world? A vast scene of 
 blood rushes upon the sight, and we see the 
 greater part of the whole Christian world en¬ 
 gaged in a murderous strife of mutual destruction. 
 Each tick of the clock marks the passing of un¬ 
 numbered souls, and each setting sun tells of 
 thousands that have offered the great sacrifice 
 and have slept their last sleep. Were it not for 
 the truth of the apostles’ words, this would be 
 the darkest day, the worst catastrophe the world 
 ever has seen, and we might throw up our hands 
 in despair and think that after the strife of two 
 thousand years of Christian teaching, that at 
 length evil had triumphed and the enemies of 
 God’s Church were holding dominion by land 
 and sea. 
 
 But when we view these things in the light of 
 our text, we see what we believe to be the most 
 glorious triumph of the Christian faith that the 
 
The Glory that Shall Be 
 
 183 
 
 world ever has seen; for it is the Christian faith 
 that is being most gloriously proved this day. 
 She has accepted the challenge of her principles 
 that was thrown down by a mighty nation, which 
 practically had disowned God by giving world¬ 
 wide publicity to the fact that she had forsaken 
 the fundamental principles of the Christian re¬ 
 ligion. She had put her trust absolutely in things 
 which are seen, her gospel was and is, that of 
 might. The mailed fist was the symbol of her 
 power, she owned no other. By this open pro¬ 
 nouncement she has become the open enemy of 
 God and of the Christian religion; for she set at 
 naught the very things that formed its necessary 
 characteristics. Instead of peace it would have 
 war; instead of gentleness and love, it would 
 have hatred and violence; instead of truth, it 
 would have falsehood; instead of fidelity between 
 nations would have broken treaties; instead of 
 freedom and justice, it would have tyranny and 
 bondage under the iron heel of war lords. Hence 
 came this fearful crisis in the Christian world. 
 Her very strongholds were threatened with 
 destruction by the most powerful engines of war 
 the world ever has seen. The great struggles 
 which have marked the world’s history in the 
 past, were—so far as their powers of destruction 
 were concerned—but as child’s play to the crush¬ 
 ing havoc of the vast armaments that Germany 
 had been so long heaping together for this final 
 testing of her brutal might, when she hoped to 
 bring the world to her feet and, above all, desired 
 
184 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 to make England and her Colonies bow the knee 
 and show that those principles of truth and justice 
 and liberty upon which they built their might 
 and their glory as a people, were empty and vain. 
 Thus it was that the Christian virtues of love and 
 pity and sympathy were despised and trampled 
 under foot and the spirit of the old war gods of 
 might and revenge and lust and tyranny were 
 put forth once more as demanding the highest 
 thought of men. 
 
 So this great war was forced upon us and be¬ 
 came the great challenge of the Christian na¬ 
 tions which, thank God, they have most nobly 
 accepted. They have met face to face this 
 truce-breaking, insolent war lord, at once the 
 enemy of civilization and of their common faith. 
 Like a mighty giant arising from his slumber, the 
 nations arose as one man. They forgot their 
 local jealousies, their petty differences, their civil 
 discord. They were stung to life not only by 
 the open impiety but by the treacherous barbarity 
 of Belgium’s brutal invader. Belgium’s loyal 
 sons headed by their heroic King arose to defend 
 their outraged homes and to her rescue came the 
 chivalry of France with her old time dash and 
 elan and summoned their hosts to arms. The 
 old battle cry of freedom was heard in England, 
 and the heart of the motherland was stirred to its 
 depths. Her loyal children of many lands 
 caught up the cry and hastened to the aid of the 
 insulted mother. With a liberal hand they 
 poured out their treasured gold. Their sons 
 
The Glory that Shall Be 
 
 185 
 
 came trooping o’er the seas, a mighty host, to 
 stand side by side in the great slaughter-house 
 of time, to fight for God and truth and justice 
 and home and country, and maintain the rights 
 and freedom of men and endeavor to wrench 
 from the iron grasp the brutal might, that power 
 that would enslave the world. Can we, then, lor 
 one moment doubt that the battle is the Lord s, 
 when as of old the people willingly offered them¬ 
 selves for the avenging of Israel? Here surely is 
 a true crusade, not indeed a host of fanatical ad¬ 
 venturers of the eleventh or twelfth centuries, but 
 a consecrated host of the twentieth century, a 
 band of God’s heroes fighting under the standard 
 of the cross for the redemption of the Holy City, 
 the Church of God on earth. Every morning 
 paper tells us of their heroic deeds and that they 
 loved not their lives unto the death. They have 
 stood in the valley of death amid shot and shell, 
 yet turned not back from the face of the enemy 
 and offered their lives for the future welfare ol 
 their country. Such men never die, for they 
 have won a crown that is everlasting, for they are 
 partakers of the greater love on which the Master 
 set His highest approval; nor shall their memory 
 ever die so long as there are men to write our 
 history. Yes, a noble monument will one day 
 be raised to the memory of our blessed dead on 
 the fields of Flanders, for those heroes who died 
 for God and King and Country, for it was here 
 that David, in spirit, met Goliath of Gath, the 
 false, blustering, bragging bully of the world, to 
 
i86 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 his own dismay, Aye, my friends the honor roll 
 of this great war wdll never be written on earth, 
 but not one will be forgotten in the great book of 
 God’s remembrance, for “these are they which 
 came out of great tribulation” and will surely 
 receive the reward of their noble deeds. 
 
 Does not all this bring us back to our text? 
 For such men do not in their hearts fight for 
 things seen and temporal; but for spiritual ideals. 
 It is not to crush the Kaiser only that they fight, 
 but to crush from the minds of men, those spirits 
 of evils that would enslave the world. He is al¬ 
 ready the embodiment of that spirit of tyranny 
 and oppression which would rob us of our in¬ 
 dividual rights as free-born citizens and crush 
 those spiritual qualities which mark us from the 
 brute that perishes; the absence of which qualities 
 make us slaves of earth and things seen and tem¬ 
 poral. Anything we are called upon to give in the 
 way of sacrifice—even of life itself—is worth the 
 price we pay, in that it will help to preserve to 
 us and to the world, the only thing which is of 
 supreme importance,—the filling out of God’s 
 purpose in us and in the world. 
 
 “For the sufferings of this present time are 
 not worthy to be compared with the glory that 
 shall be.” In those glorious words “shall be” 
 we find enfolded all the marvellous develop¬ 
 ments of which the Divine life of man is capab’e. 
 For now, as the apostle says, “We know in part, 
 and we prophesy in part; but when that which is 
 perfect is come, then that which is in part shall 
 
The Glory that Shall Be 
 
 187 
 
 be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a 
 child, I understood as a child, I thought as a 
 child; but when I became a man, I put away child¬ 
 ish things.” 
 
 Can we doubt, my friends, that when the 
 apostle spake these inspired words that he had 
 in his mind’s eye, the vision of our text, and saw 
 the whole created universe of God working to¬ 
 ward a great spiritual end ? This, indeed, was the 
 sublime order at the first when at the creation 
 God breathed into man’s nostrils the breath of 
 life; the temporal led up to the spiritual. God’s 
 spirit first gave temporal light and life and then 
 went on from glory to glory, rising higher and 
 higher, step by step in a glorious march of de¬ 
 velopments, till he reached the great purpose 
 of it all, man himself; then came the crown and 
 completion of God’s perfected work,—“the mani¬ 
 festation of the sons of God.” Man made in 
 his own image, and had breathed into him the 
 breath of life, and man became a living soul. 
 Here was a divine epic written on the first page of 
 man’s history, showing man the end of all things, 
 and the purpose of his life,—that it was an estate 
 of glorious anticipation, a constant looking forward 
 to a glory that shall be, that God who hap begun 
 His good work in us shall—if we are faithful * 
 confirm it unto the end, “that man whom He 
 has made in His image, might through spiritual 
 development, grow more and more in His like¬ 
 ness, till he comes to the measure of the stature 
 of the fullness of Christ.” Till he wakes up in 
 
i88 
 
 Saved as by Fire 
 
 His 1 keness and is satisfied. Ah, my friends, 
 mark the words is satisfied , does this not speak 
 of something that does not belong to earth? For 
 when, I ask you, did the earth ever satisfy? From 
 Adam’s day to this, there has been a continued 
 reaching out to something not attained, an un¬ 
 conscious looking forward to the enjoyment, not 
 of a forbidden fruit of each, but to the glory that 
 shall be. 
 
I 
 
 / 
 
 
Princeton 
 
 heological Seminary 
 
 012 01 
 
 .ibraries 
 
 97 061 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 > 
 
 f 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 \