THOUGHTS ON RELIGION AT THE FRONT MACMILLAN AND CO. , LIMITED LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA · MADRAS MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO DALLAS · SAN FRANCISCO THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO THOUGHTS ON RELIGION AT THE FRONT BY THE REV. NEVILLE S. TALBOT ASSISTANT CHAPLAIN-GENERAL LATE RIFLE BRIGADE FORMERLY FELLOW AND CHAPLAIN OF BALLIOL AUTHOR OF 'THE MIND OF THE DISCIPLES' MACMILLAN AND CO. , LIMITED ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 1917 COPYRIGHT _First Edition January 1917 Reprinted March, April and November 1917_ PREFACE I send out this little and fragmentary book with the consciousness that itcalls for apology. I have had to write it hastily during a short period ofleave. Yet it touches upon great subjects which deserve the reverence ofleisurely writing. Ought I not, then, to have waited for the leisure ofdays after the war? I think not. Such days may never come. And, in anycase, _now_ is the time for the Church to think intently about the war andits issues, and to learn from them. The Church is far more than adepartment of 'the services, ' the resources of which it is convenient tomobilise as so much more munition of war. She is the perpetual protagonistin the world of the Kingdom of God. War for her, if for nobody else, should be an apocalypse, that is, a vision of realities for which at alltimes she is bound to fight, of which, nevertheless, she is apt to losesight during the engrossments of peace. It is as lit up by the cruel lightof war's conflagrations that the things concerning the Kingdom must beseized anew. If anybody has thoughts which he feels he must share withothers, he should not postpone doing so. He should communicate histhoughts to others in order that he may learn from their comments andcriticism. I can claim, whilst asking pardon for whatever may offend inthem, that the thoughts represented by the following pages have not beencome by hastily, but have been growing in my mind during the long monthsat the front since the beginning of the war. They have, so to say, beenhammered out as metal upon the anvil of war. They are thoughts about religion. Nothing is so important as religion;nothing is more potent than true ideas in religion. Deep fountains of realreligion--of simple and unself-prizing faith--have been unsealed by theconvulsion of war. Yet this religion is weak in ideas, and some of theideas with which it is bound up are wrong ideas. Men of our race are verysure that it matters more what a man is than what he thinks. Britishreligion is deep and rich, but it is, characteristically, deeper andricher in what it is than in what it knows itself to be. It sorely needsa mind of strong and compelling conviction. If these pages were to helpever so few readers towards being possessed anew of the truth of theGospel of God in Christ, their appearance would be justified. I have written, perhaps, as one who dreads saying 'Peace, where there isno peace. ' I would rather err on the side of emphasising criticism anddifficulty than the other way. There is, indeed, little room forcomplacency in a Christian, still less in an English Churchman, at thefront. Yet in 'padres' hope and expectation should predominate, and theseas based less upon results achieved than upon the mutual understanding, respect, and indeed affection which increasingly unite them to the menwhom they would serve. And in them, too, if they are 'C. Of E. , ' thereshould be growing, along with an unevasive discontent, a sanguine loyaltyto their mother Church. For all that she now means so little to so manyshe will yet win a more than nominal allegiance from many of her wanderingchildren. For there is in her, beneath the surface of her sluggishconfusion, a living heart and candid mind, upon which is being writtenafresh the good news in Christ. She is being vivified, as perhaps no otherpart of Christendom, into readiness for the future. N. S. T. B. E. F. , _November 1916. _ 'And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be brought low: and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. And the idols shall utterly pass away. And men shall go into the caves of the rocks, and into the holes of the earth, from before the terror of the Lord and from the glory of His majesty, when He ariseth to shake mightily the earth. ' * * * * * 'Whom ye ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you. ' I I write this little book in order to help towards an answer to thequestion, How is it with the Christian religion at the front? With theflower of British manhood massed in the Army this and like questions arebound to arise--How is it with the men? Where are they religiously? Whatdo they want? What will they need when they return? and so forth. Therenever has been such an opportunity of taking a comparative view of BritishChristianity and of framing answers to such questions. Perhaps those whoare working as chaplains at the front are especially challenged to attemptthese tasks. Their answer must not be loose or sentimental. There is adanger of that. The emotions aroused by the war may encourage sentimentalverdicts. That may be the reason why a good many ideas which are currentat home about religion at the front, are a good distance removed fromreality. II I can only venture upon a verdict after first acknowledging that it isinseparably bound up with my own shortcomings. Other men of a truerdevotion and love may well have grounds in a more effective ministry forchallenging and amplifying it. Further, I have to ask that allowance be made for the fact that men likemyself, who have been working as 'C. Of E. ' chaplains, are not very wellqualified to speak about the religion of the men. There is something wrongabout the status of chaplains. They belong to what the author of _AStudent in Arms_ calls 'the super-world' of officers, which as such isseparate from the men. As a class we find it hard to penetrate thesurface of the men--that surface which we can almost see thrust out at uslike a shield, in the suddenly assumed rigidity of men as they salute us. We are in an unchristian position, in the sense that we are in a positionwhich Christ would not have occupied. He, I am sure, would have been aregimental stretcher-bearer, truly among and of the men. We are veryunlike Him. We are often liked, and are thought good fellows, but we areunlike Him and miss what He could discover. Our--my--verdict is notnecessarily His. Lastly, all verdicts must be rough in war. The nature of war and of itseffects often precludes any one from knowing exactly what is going on inthe souls of men. War is a muddy business, encasing the body in dirt, andcaking over the soul. It forms hard surfaces over the centres ofsensitiveness. It is benumbing to spiritual faculties. That is nature'sway of accommodation with war's environment. To feel things much wouldliterally be maddening. To brood about danger, to apprehend or anticipateor philosophise may imperil 'nerve. ' Rather the majority of men carry on, callously, almost gaily, with mental and spiritual faculties if possibleinactive. I have met an entirely devout lover of music (since killed inaction) who told me that he didn't miss music out here because "he wasn'tcarrying on with those faculties. " I have seen a man of indubitableChristian conviction come down from the cold clam of the trenches inmid-winter and take up a religious book which ordinarily would haveexcited him and say--"Ah! yes, there is all that. " I could almost see thesurface which war had hardened over him. Beneath it in him and all therest, who knows what may not be in process, ready to emerge when they canbathe in the solvent waters of peace? Meanwhile they 'carry on. ' That I think is especially congenial to theBritish. There is no doubt that men of our race have an invincibility, which is due in part to the fact that they do not think about or feel whatis really going on. To be practically and sensually occupied with thepassing moment is the way to carry on in war. It is characteristic of ourmen. They are remarkably void of apprehension in every sense of the word. Had the rank and file who fought the first battle of Ypres--when the wholeof the British forces came to be strung out from Ypres to La Bassée in oneline without a reserve--formed a general apprehension of and as to theirposition, they would have been 'rattled' and broken. They were notbeaten, in part because they did not think of being beaten. "You can't, "as they sing, "beat the boys of the bull-dog breed, " but thisinvincibility has not altogether the virtue of facts understood, faced, and triumphed over. In short, British qualities and defects of qualitiesare closely interwoven. But my point is, that this being so, any verdictabout what is going on in British souls during a war must be humble andtentative and patient of qualification. III _On the whole_, I venture to say, there is not a great revival of theChristian religion at the front. Yet I am eager to acclaim the wonderfulquality of spirit which men of our race display in this war, and to claimit as Christian and God-inspired. Deep in their hearts is a great trustand faith in God. It is an inarticulate faith expressed in deeds. The toplevels, as it were, of their consciousness, are much filled with grumblingand foul language and physical occupations; but beneath lie deep spiritualsprings, whence issue their cheerfulness, stubbornness, patience, generosity, humility, and willingness to suffer and to die. They declareby what they are and do that there is a worth-whileness in effort andsacrifice. Without saying so, they commit themselves to "the EverlastingArms. " The metaphor of human nature being hardened or caked over by war must bemodified so as to allow that war lays human nature bare. It is a grandfibre or grain of British nature which the war has exposed. It isinwrought with Christian excellences of humility, unselfishness, fortitude, and all that makes a good comrade. It is precious stuff. Letthere be no talk hereafter of the decadence of the race. Let no one dareto disparage the masses of our people; nor let any one, through classignorance or prejudice or fear, speak of them contemptuously. They arepriceless raw material. As I have hovered in seeming priestly impotenceover miracles of cheerful patience lying on stretchers indressing-stations, I have said--I have vowed to myself--"Here are menworth doing anything for. " There is a great heart in the people. It is not a great mind. In officersand men there is little intellectual grip upon what we are fighting for. Every one nearly is without a saving touch of rhetoric. Ideas are undersuspicion. "Padre, what you say is just ideal, it's all in the air. " Butthe objectors stick it and die for the unformulated and unexpressed ideal. They are far wiser and better than they know. IV I must modify, then, and say that on the whole there is not a greatarticulate revival of the Christian religion at the front. But further Imust add that there is religion about, only, very often it is not theChristian religion. Rather it is natural religion. It is the expression ofa craving for security. Literally it is a looking for salvation. It is avery unnatural man who does not feel at any rate more inclined to praywhen danger abounds and anxiety presses, than at other times. Naturally, then, chaplains find a readier response to their efforts right at thefront than farther back. Men come to a service before they go to thetrenches. Communicants increase before a fight. Chaplains are frequentlytold of prayer being resorted to under this or that strain of thisterrific war. There is in short a general association of ideas aboutreligion and, as I have said, it may be called the association of acraving for security. I would say nothing disrespectful of it. I would not pretend for a momentto be void of this very natural craving. I would recognise thatimpressions made by strain and anxiety are often the means whereby Godbrings men home to Himself. I thought it a hard saying of an ardentsalvationist lad, who told me of a transport sergeant's prayers one nightin a ditch by a shrapnelled roadside, and of the same sergeant's reversionto apparent irreligion on return to safety. "I call it, " said the boy, "cowardice. " But what I do say about it is, firstly, that religion thusmainly associated with danger, is not the Christian religion, andsecondly, that many of the best men of all ranks have little to do withit, or what little they do have is intermittent and rather shamefaced. I leave the first statement for the moment. About the second I hazard thebelief that this has been more or less true of all soldiers in history. Religion regarded _merely_ as a resort in trouble, as a possible source ofgood luck, as a charm or insurance policy is as old as man; but I believemany of the best soldiers up and down history have had little to do withit, and the more sporting and soldierly the man, the less he has had to dowith it. After all, the soldier-man's code goes clean the other way. It isever insisting on non-calculating and self-regardless service, endurance, and sacrifice. As such, it lies above the ordinary level of life, callingout the heroic and honourable in men. But religion associated with anxietytouches men at a level lower than the highest in them, it has themorbidity of their weaker moments hanging about it, it wears badly, and, above all, often it does not seem to work. I have had the case propoundedto me of "Bill who did pray, " but yet had had "his head blowed off. " V I recur, then, to my verdict that on the whole there is not a greatrevival of the Christian religion at the front. Why is this? First, war is war, and, what is more, this war is this war. I will notattempt to paint the picture. Every one must realise by now that the mainconcentration of all military effort is directed at creating in thetrenches an ever-intenser inferno of heavy shells. In a great army thereis every degree of risk to be run or immunity to be enjoyed; but at thevery front, where all is stripped and laid bare, modern warfare is attimes a furnace of horror. Its smoke darkens the heavens, thickening the"clouds and darkness" round about God, and deepening His silence. Itswhite heat scorches out human confidence in Him. He does not seem tocount. There are stars in the darkness of war--stars which are theachievements of man's indomitable spirit. But God-ward there seemssometimes to be great darkness. Further, war, despite all the easy things said in its praise, is a greatiniquity. It is, as others have said, hell. As an environment to the soulit is, for all the countervailing heroisms of men, a world of evil powerlet loose. And, again, war abounds in a number of trials--mostly associated with theextremes of heat and cold and damp and fatigue--for which, as the phrasegoes, religion seems not to afford the slightest relief. It is a veryphysical business, squeezing out or overlaying the spiritual in men, though powerless wholly to extinguish it. War being what it is, theabsence of religious revival during its course is not surprising. I havecome to be very doubtful whether there is truth in the prevalent notionthat war as such and automatically makes men better. Secondly, that element in religion which can survive the weather of warmust be a very hardy growth, something deeply engrained andhabitual--something rock-built. And that is just what is lacking among menof our race. As an Anglican priest I reach here a glaring fact about theEnglish Church. The war reveals that there are few men in its loosemembership who are possessed by and instructed in its faith. Religion, astaught by the Church of England, has a feeble grip on the masses. Theyhold it in no familiar embrace. And if reasons are sought, they arepartly found in the want of cutting edge to her sober comprehensiveteaching, partly in the characteristics often theoretically so justifiablebut practically so awkward, of the Prayer Book. There is little in ourChurch which corresponds to that elemental regimen or discipline whichpossesses simple-minded Roman Catholics. The power of cultus, ofinstitutional and family religion, is largely absent. To explain this brings me to a third reason why, under the stress of war, English Christianity is hardly in revival, namely, Bible difficulties. ThePrayer Book comes down to us from men who were held by a belief in theliteral truth of the whole Bible. In so far as it has been an effectivemanual for ordinary people, it has been on the strength of an absolutedogma in their minds as to the "Word of God. " That dogma has in a vagueand somewhat insensible way lost its hold on the common mind. It has notthe absolute and simple authority which in religion is a necessity for thelittle-educated. Few of the general public have thought very much aboutthe matter, but all the more they are influenced by that which haspercolated through to them from the more learned, loosening what beforewas firm and tight, confusing and complicating what before was starklyplain. This has been brought home to me as I have sat at sing-songs andhave heard a coon-song sung entitled "The Preacher and the Bear. " Withapologies to the easily-shocked I will quote. The hero of the song is acoloured minister who, against his conscience, went out shooting on aSunday, and, after good sport, on returning home was met by a grizzlybear. Taking refuge up a tree this was his prayer: O Lord, who delivered Daniel from the lions' den, Also Jonah from the tummy of the whale--and then Three Hebrew chilluns from the fiery furnace, As the good Book do declare-- O Lord, if you can't help me, don't help that grizzly bear! Here is an epitome of a far-spreading incredulity about the Bible. It isthe higher criticism in its crudest popular form, and men are at the mercyof it. I have known a mess of officers engage in argument about the Biblewith a sceptical Scots doctor, cleverer than they. As old-fashionedbelievers in the Bible they had to admit to being thoroughly "strafed" inthe argument, yet they had no way out, such as an intelligentunderstanding of the Bible affords. One at least of them maintainedstoutly that nevertheless he was going to stick to the old view, howeverindefensible. Such men are not free intellectually to follow themovements of religious revival. They are immobilised by the dead weight ofBiblical literalism. Yet if the main verdict to which I have committed myself is to beradically accounted for, it is necessary to reach deeper reasons than anyI have mentioned. I sympathise with those who have high hopes of the goodeffects of Church and Prayer Book and Bible-teaching reforms. Yet such arerelatively superficial matters. The main reason for the comparativeabsence of religious revival among men at the front is that we all havebeen overtaken by the cataclysm of war in a condition of great povertytowards God. VI War, when it breaks in on peace, reveals in a fierce light the conditionof men in peace. It would be ungrateful and disloyal not to acclaim themain sound heart of our country which this war has revealed. It would betreasonable to the great company of good men and true--not least out ofthe school and university world most familiar to the writer--who haverisen to "the day" and have gladly given their all. Yet, after generousallowance for that, a great poverty of allegiance to God has been laidbare. Indirectly, in the answers made to the claims of duty, honour, service, and self-sacrifice, He has been acknowledged, but of directdevotion to Him as the one and pre-eminent reality there has been little. After all, can it be denied that the war has found us devoted rather tothe idols of money, pleasure, and appetite than to God and Hisrighteousness? We have had to be aroused from a great sensualpreoccupation with worldly traffic. "As it was in the days of Noah, " so ina measure it has been to-day: "as we ate and drank, and bought and soldand planted and builded, the flood has come upon us" and has all but sweptus away. At home, as the thinly-veiled wantonness of some of our weeklyillustrated papers reminds us in the field, it seems that a mass ofself-pleasing and luxurious folk cannot yet find an escape out of theprison-house of Vanity Fair, though thousands bleed and die by their side. In the field, the mind and manner of a gross peace-life is kept alive bypictures of smirking nudities placarded in dug-outs and billets, and thefarther back from the front one travels, as the hot breath of war growsmore tepid, the more heavy grows the atmosphere of materialisticindulgence. That _God minds_ is hardly thought of, for at home and abroadwe have been carried into war in a peace-condition of great heedlessnessof Him. And the strains and cost and dangers of war will not scare men outof their forgetfulness. The heart of man is incorrigible by fear. God, ifHe is little regarded in peace, is hard to come nigh to in war. Ifreligion in peace and prosperity has not been full of His praise--of joy_in Him_, it is something to which adversity must drive men, and theythink it as such a little disreputable, and many of the best men, richlygifted with manly excellences, tend to leave it on one side. Yet "I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ. " We can adopt the ringingnote of St. Paul's defiance. For the Christian religion does not springprimarily out of human anxiety and need. It is not an expedient which maybe left on one side till the hour of need arises. That many men shouldthink thus of it shows that it has been widely forgotten, misunderstood, or never known. VII The Christian religion is salvation because it starts from what God is. Everything in it of human benefit and satisfaction is a bye-productflowing from the fact that it gives to men a focus for their devotion andattention not in themselves but in God. Its main motive is not self- butGod-regarding. It draws men out of the entanglement into which they fallthrough temporising with their own needs, and constrains them to attend toGod's need--His need of them. For the Christian, God is not some shadowysupreme Being at the back of the universe, or a name given to the sum ofthings. God is the Person Who made, and loves, and therefore wants Hischildren. Hence Christian prayer primarily is grateful and lovingacknowledgment of what God is, and only secondarily the expression ofanxiety, or the "putting in" of this or that claim for what we want. That is the conclusion which war experience drives home. The specialstrain and pressure of war cannot elicit from the majority of men thereligion which is occupied with the saving of self. The spiritual law isthat we find our life by losing it, not by saving it. In a vague andunexpressed way, as they show again and again by their cheerfulness andunconcernedness, hosts of men in this war have laid hold on this law. Theyhave found a purpose to which to cleave, something to give themselves awayfor. Only it is hardly acknowledged, but rather lies below the level ofmental apprehension and expression. It is the function of Christianity toraise this unacknowledging trustfulness and self-giving out of dumbsubconsciousness, and to give to it speech, and to crown it with the gloryof fully human self-devotion. It is its part to declare that it is GodWhom they find in the offering of themselves, His love in which they canlose themselves, His purpose to which they can cleave, His will to bedone--and that to give Him joy is the supreme end of man. This is the religion which sustains in war, because possessed in peace. And it is so little prevalent--that is, so little in any one's _conscious_possession--in war just because God, and His love, and His desire havebeen so little in men's thoughts in peace. Let peace return--let thestrain of war be lifted from a unit as it goes back into rest, or from anindividual as he goes on leave, and the life of indulgence, without anobject except self, threatens to repossess the soul. In the same way it ispeace rather than war, health rather than sickness, youth rather than age, which really test the reality of our Christianity, when, without the shameof being driven thereto by need, a man can rejoice in God, and with fullpowers be made the instrument of His will. VIII There is then little conscious and articulate Christianity at the front, and yet there are profoundly Christian characteristics in what men are anddo and endure, who have never known or do not understand or have forgottenthe Christian religion. What, then, is this strangely honoured and yetneglected thing? Does it exist? Is it there for men were they to awake toit? This utterly searching war justifies the critical temper which passesprevious allegiances and acceptances under revision and judgment. I may beforgiven, then, for saying that I do not think that Christianity as atpresent expressed and presented to men in the Church (in the widest senseof the word) is _prima facie_ that which can win and possess them. Itwould be a big task and unsuited to the conditions under which I write toargue this out. What needs discussion is how much of natural religion hasbeen absorbed into the accumulated deposit from the past which we calltraditional Christianity, with the effect of disguising and overlaying init those specifically Christian elements, which make Christianity not onlya salvation from sin or from hell, but from the morbid and evencontemptible in religion. Those elements can never be clearly abstractedand used by themselves, for Christianity was not a thing rounded andcompleted, and deposited upon the world _in vacuo_, but was as a seedsown, which grows by drawing into itself the nourishment of soil andatmosphere. There always must be elements of natural religion interfusedwith the Christian religion, for though not evolved out of naturalreligion, but rather coming to it as a deliverance, Christianity is thecrown and fulfilment and corroboration of the good and the true in naturalreligion. It is not a question of clear separation and abstraction, but ofdistinction, emphasis, and proportion. I believe that things notcharacteristically Christian have acquired a disproportionate place in ourreligion as handed down to us. I suggest (but will not work it out here) that many of the hymns in useare evidence of this, and that is why so often they do not ring true. Ialso believe that an unhistorical use of the Bible has proved a distortinginfluence. From early Christian days Scripture, which is a story of aprocess and growth containing many stages and imperfections, has beentreated as something timeless and absolute. In particular, the partialanswers to the problem of suffering to which the Jews in their developmentwere led, have been made to bear weights heavier than they can sustain. Some of the Psalms, for instance, over-emphasise the connection betweenrighteousness and immunity from misfortune. They can be used to justify acalculating and self-saving religion which is below the level of Christ'sreligion. A soldier, recently wounded on the Somme, handed to me at adressing-station a small copy of the 91st Psalm as his religious handbook. Yet by itself the 91st Psalm, though a wonderful expression of trust inGod, promises a security to which our Lord, and others akin to Him inspirit, have not put their seal. He did not ask--He resisted thetemptation to ask--that no evil should happen unto Him, nor that angelsshould bear Him in their hands lest He should hurt His foot against astone. He would not have men set their face in the day of battle in theassurance that, though a thousand should fall beside them and ten thousandat their right hand, the same lot would not come nigh them. I think, too, that Christianity fails to make its characteristic appealthrough the Church, owing to two prevalent "isms"--ecclesiasticism andsubjectivism--both of which may be said to be the being primarily occupiedin religion with something other than God. I doubt whether anyChurch-party advantage can be scored by any one in this matter. Roughlyspeaking, the weakness of Catholic Christianity is to get involved in thelittle things of "mint and anise and cummin"; whilst the weakness ofProtestantism is to become absorbed in the luxuries of one's own religiousexperiences. The upshot of either is the same, namely, to be veryreligious, and yet to forget the living God. I remember being very muchstartled by an eminently pious Anglo-Catholic undergraduate at Oxfordsaying to me, "The fact is, I am not interested in God the Father. " It isunwise to argue from one instance, but I seem to see there a symptom of awidespread and tragic estrangement of institutional Christianity from themind of Christ. But I doubt whether things are much better on the otherside of the ecclesiastical street, where so often the worship of God hasdowngraded into sitting and listening to sentimental music on PleasantSunday Afternoons. Single instances are misleading, but I can neverdismiss the belief that there is something radically wrong with the worldof religion of which the representative was a Chapel, in my old parish atLeeds, that indulged in a "fruit-banquet" on Good Friday. Right throughorganised Christianity of all kinds there is, I think, a great absence ofthe real Christian thing. IX But this brings round again the question, "What is this Christian thing?"What are the characteristic and specific elements which, though theycannot be nakedly abstracted from other elements, yet have to be keptsalient amid everything else? What is the Christianity which is generallynot in the conscious possession of men at the front, and yet receives theseal of their glorious excellences? What is the Christianity which lieshidden by traditional disguise and contemporary practice? Where is it tobe found? X At any rate, in the religion of Jesus of Nazareth. We are blessed by theprivilege, given to us by the work of realistic historians, of going toHim as our real Brother. We can study the religion of this Man. It wasrooted first and last in one dominant reality--the Father and His will. From the first sight given to us of Him as a boy and onwards He was richin one thing--He was rich towards God. He looked at the world withoutinsensibility to its pain, without evasion of its evil--rather withuniquely sensitive insight into both--as God's world and the scene ofGod's sovereign activity. And He expected others to share His view. Hewas repeatedly astonished to find those around Him heedless of the airwhich He drew in with open mouth, blind to what He saw, deaf to what Heheard, unelated by His joy. He was surprised to find them strangely andotherwise absorbed, with hearts elsewhere centred than in God. He expectedto find them united to God in a loving loyalty. He found them in aspiritual adultery. This unshared absorption of Jesus was not the fruit of adversity nor aresort in disappointment. He was not driven to it by anxiety. It camefirst for Him in peace, in full health, and youth and powers. His was ahouse which was built in fine weather upon a rock, so that when the stormsof adversity beat on it, it stood firm. His religion stood the severesttest, namely, the quiet of normal and uneventful days. It was ready forthe strain of a campaign. He emerged out of the peace of Nazarethprepared for enterprise. For the Father to Him was not only the object ofimmobile worship and delight--not only a Name to be hallowed, but was HeWho called Him out to a venture for His kingdom and the doing of His will. That was how Jesus came among men. He came calling men to a greatadventure, to non-calculating and self-regardless co-operation with theactive energy and will of the Father. How much He knew beforehand ofwhither that will would lead Him can never be known. To suppose that Heknew all and saw the end in the beginning and had no steps in the dark totake, would be to deny to Him the essential element of human faith andtrust, which is that it has to step out beyond the light of knowledge intothe darkness of uncertainty. On the other hand, to suppose that He knewnothing, is to deny to Him that humanly heroic resolution with which Heset His face to tread the path which led Him to suffering. In ourignorance let us grip this certainty, that for Him the one sufficientthing was that the Father knew all things--the times and the seasons, thecup to be drunk, the will to be done and the final outcome. That wasenough for Him and must be enough for us. This religion of Jesus then is that to which all can turn, as theirhearts are full beyond expression with proud and thankful sorrow for thegreat company of those who have trustfully given themselves to death forothers. Jesus is the Word, that is, the full and crowning expression ofthat which is hardly articulate in others. His open-eyed self-consecrationto do the will of the Father seals and ratifies their confused yetsteadfast devotion. He is first among many brethren, giving fullutterance to their dumb trustfulness. In a world of mixed and partialmotives He is the absolute and unmitigated lover of God--loving with allHis mind and soul and strength, freely hazarding all upon the Father. XI Is not that enough? This simple element--this religion of Jesus--is it notthe one thing needful, possessed of which men may slough off all else inthe traditional deposits of Christianity? Yes, would certainly be theanswer if the men of His day had in fact been so possessed, and if menwere so possessed to-day. What was actual in Him was, is, in fact, unrealised in them. He did find, of old, fellow-adventurers to share Hisenterprise. But they could not share it to the end. He could love Godwholly, they only partially. He had to leave them, and they Him; He to dothe will of the Father, they to fail to do it. He alone could not onlyannounce but fulfil the first and great commandment; they in the end couldonly be defied and broken by it. So it was proved. And it is a result which any honest man can verify forhimself. As I have tried to show elsewhere, [1] the most rigorously humanand non-miraculous view of Jesus and the Gospels leads to this point, towhat may be called the porch where Peter wept, where the silence of Godbroods over the tragedy of human failure. FOOTNOTES: [1] _The Mind of the Disciples_ (Macmillan). XII "But the third day He rose again. " Peter was not left in the porch, norare we. His broken hope was remade by the One fully trusted in by Jesusonly--by the "God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. "[2] The Christian thing which we look for is the Good News of _God_ in Christ. It is not only the religion _of_ Jesus our Brother, but religion _in_Jesus, in Him revealing God to men. It is not only His human richnesstowards God, but in Him the richness of God towards men. It is the Crossnot only as the climax of free loving self-offering to the Father, but asitself the laying bare of the Father's heart--it is _God_ reconciling theworld unto Himself. It is this--the revelation of God in Christ--of which the experience ofthe war shows we are above all else in the world in need. God, not merelyassented to as a mysterious "One above, " at the back of things, but God, known and delighted in, in terms of Jesus Christ. It is one great lightwhich we need to walk in--the light of the knowledge of what God is, as itshines upon the face of Jesus Christ. The specific Christian thing thatmakes Christianity salvation is not--as so many men in the armythink--just goodness nor negative and kill-joy propriety, but the factthat _in the ardent, venturesome, and self-regardless sacrifice of Jesus, we see the Love of God Himself coming out to win the souls of men_. Everything else follows from that, and comes second to it as first--allthat follows from God's love being holy, and from men being unholy, allthat is meant by Christian experience, all that is involved in theactivities of prayer and service. Men have to begin from, and ever keeprallying round, the truth of what God is as made known in Christ--treatingthe truth as no matter of course, but as the disclosure which in thisstrange world seems nearly too good to be true. For there is no reconciliation between the facts of the world and theAbsolute of philosophy or the highly attributed Supreme Being of naturalreligion. One thing alone can meet the passion of men--whether imposedupon them or self-inflicted--it is the passion of God in Christ wherebyHis Love works out its victory. That alone can harness to itself thevitality and heroism of men, which else will riot away in waste or flagin disillusion. That alone can be the constraining object of their joy andpraise, and the satisfaction of their adventurous devotion. FOOTNOTES: [2] 1 Peter i. 3. XIII There has been in this war a wonderful display of the heroism of men. Buttheir thoughts about God and religion are for the most part at a levelbelow the highest in themselves. They have come to themselves in givingthemselves away. But they think that religion is mostly concerned withself-saving. They tend to recognise most easily the signs of God's favourin this or that instance of safety or escape. This means that they do notthink of God in terms of Christ, but that they think of Him as outside thetrouble and pain and cost of life, and in the immunity of heaven. They donot think of Him as involved in the risks and agonies of the world. Though they do not formulate it to themselves, the glories of human naturego beyond anything they know of the divine. For them God is less wonderfulthan man. A fine soldier protested to me lately about the service whichwas read at the funeral of a very brave officer, "Why say more than 'hereis a very gallant soldier'?" as though there were nothing in the Author ofour being akin to the gallantry in man. Not that such a man would deny theidea, but that he and the rest are not possessed by joy in its truth. Menof our race do not deny greatly, but then neither do they joyfully assert. They have not received the good news of God in Christ. XIV We all need to be so possessed before peace comes back. For peace, as Ihave said, is the real test of our religion, not war. We have been plungedinto war, rejoicing little in God. We have got to put Him and His will anddesire first before peace returns. Or else the thought of Him will sinkout of our attention, and we shall return to the getting of gain and toself-service in a mood of perpetual postponement. God will come lastagain. He did so in the minds of soldiers at the beginning of the war. Often they looked upon chaplains as no more than preliminary undertakers. At the beginning of the war, officers in my old regiment, in thefriendliest way, asked me what there was to do as a chaplain except burialduties. Clearly they thought of _life_ as something apart from God. What is needed is a new joy in God as Love and Purpose, here and now. Need, whether the pressure of sickness or danger or anxiety or age orguilt, will often operate in turning the heart God-ward. The sense ofbeing thrown in entire dependence upon God can be the God-giventurning-point in a man's life and an end to his godlessness. But need willnever provide the lasting religious motive which sets the chord of what isnoblest in men vibrating within them. The peculiar glory of the Christianreligion is that it provides that motive--it is the motive of God's need. He wants us, for He loves us. He is love. I have found myself at the front pressed to ask men why they should haveto do with religion. Is it because they are on active service and exposedto danger and liable to death? Is that to be the constraining motive? And, in particular, why pray? Is it to express their natural sense of need, their desire for security and support? Is that to be the main impulse? Itry to answer these questions by asking them another question: 'Why dothey write home?' What keeps them at it in the damp dug-outs with theindelible pencil running smudgily over the paper? Why do some men writeevery day? Is it for what they can get--the cakes, the fags? Does theconstraining motive lie in their own need? It does not. It lies in the joywhich letters bring to loving hearts at home. Likewise there is joy inHeaven when one forgetful wayward son turns in heart thither homewards. For God loves us and therefore wants us and desires to use us. It is whatHe is which is the saving motive of our religion. Every other motive, however natural, is tainted with morbidity, and can never long possess theeager hearts of men nor be their glory in the full tide of life. But inGod they can glory as they see what He is, at work with purposes of holylove in the venture of creation; and this they can see in Christ, living, suffering, dying, rising, and alive for evermore; or else Christianity isnothing in the world. That is the pure metal of our glorious religion, which the fierce fires of war must refine out of its traditional alloy. That is the great golden secret uttered in Christ--God, all-suffering andall-faithful love, calling out into active alliance the like qualities inHis children for the accomplishment of His will on earth as in heaven. XV We need in peace the free and conscious realisation of that of which menare perforce, and dumbly, aware in war. It is that there is somethinggoing on in the world which demands primary allegiance, and the puttingsecond of every self-interest. At the front men hardly know what it is. They are suspicious of rhetoric and unreality in talk about liberty andinternational equity, and right against might. They only know--a wonderfulmajority of them--that something great and righteous wants them andrequires of them their help. So, reluctantly, with grumblings andinsistent longing for it all to be over, and yet with the inalienable joyof doing the right thing, they obstinately endure. We can say, withoutapportioning right wholesale to the Allies or wrong wholesale to Germany, that, however dimly aware of it, they are 'seeking first the Kingdom ofGod and His Righteousness. ' Can they maintain this allegiance in peace despite every seduction whichwill rush to recapture their souls? That is the great question which allwho call themselves Christians should be considering on their knees whilethe war is still raging. The answer lies in a great measure with the Church. She has to enlist inher warfare for the kingdom of God--the war which is never over--thatcapacity in men for service and suffering which the war has disclosed. Howcan this be? Would that I had no uncertain answer to utter! I fling thesecries out to comrades in the Lord that we may provoke one another to findthe answer. The answer cannot be merely an intellectual solution. It mustbe spelt out in terms of costly devotion. Some things are clear. First, the Church has to acknowledge that she isnot the kingdom of God but the means to it as an end. There are, I think, a great many carts and horses to be changed round into their rightrelations. Religious observances and organisations--all the wholeapparatus of religion--have come to be looked upon as ends in themselves, whereas they are means to an end beyond themselves. People think that theclergy's one concern is the success of ecclesiastical activities andinstitutions. We clergy think so ourselves! It is not for her owninterests, which are by themselves incurably too small to evoke the heroicin men, that the Church is in the world. She is in the world to changethe world, so that its whole extent may be filled with the glory of God, and may become worthy of the eternal destiny of the souls of men. Hers isa high and costly venture. She has strongholds to storm--the entrenchmentswhere the forces of private-mindedness and apathy and money-worship aredug in. In the attempt she can exhaust to its depths the capacity which isin men for dauntless sacrifice. Secondly, if the Church's conception of her own interests must be changed, so must the individual's conception of personal religion. Self-preoccupation is as fatal to the latter as to the former. Personalpiety is travestied by being thought to be a respectable prudence here forthe sake of a reward hereafter. It is not a careful self-salvation at all. Rather it is a salvation from self. It is the being lost to self indevotion and service to God and one's fellow-men. Lastly, if these changes are to be they depend on one thing--a new visionof God in Christ, such as shall be for Church and individual theover-mastering counter-attraction to self. What the world needs istheocracy. That is, not the imposition of ecclesiastical shackles uponsecular life, but the consecration of all life, with all itsever-multiplying treasures of knowledge and power, to one object--theglory of God. If so, then God, as the centre and magnet of consecration, must be all vitally apprehended. He must fill the horizon of the soul. Hemust be the delight of men, to draw them out of themselves into childlikeselflessness, so that as children they may enter into the Kingdom. XVI There are objections, I know, which arise in the mind to this insistenceon God and the will or kingdom on which He is at work in the world, andthey must be faced. It is easy, I feel, to speak of the will of God ingeneral terms. But what does it mean in particular? Can it be known ordefined? Is it practicable? I remember being puzzled by a great religious teacher to whom I owemuch--Father Kelly of the Society of the Sacred Mission, Kelham. It wasalmost comic to me that in the same breath he would urge (1) that the onething needful was faith in God and in the will which He is accomplishingin His world, and--with equal energy--(2) that no one could say what inthe world that will is. It reminded me of those philosophers who liken themeta-physical pursuit of the Absolute to Lewis Carroll's _Hunting of theSnark_. But there is something essential here. Christian faith in God and in Hiswill is not sight, else it were no venture. It does not bring with it aparticularised programme to meet all the changing and complexcircumstances of life. It does not carry with it anticipatory knowledge. Yet it is not an agnostic gazing into the mist of heaven. It is thelooking unto Jesus. There is light--light on His Cross, telling of thelove and will and desire of God Who is marching on. Given the attitude of faith in God and the belief that He is at work inhuman affairs, the practical corollaries have to be worked out by theexertion of our faculties. If God and His will be the end of ourendeavour and the object of our co-operation, then the means towards theend and the ways of co-operation must be arrived at, step by step, byeffort and experiment, by science and common sense. The endeavour to doGod's will, will disclose what that will is. After all, in every sphere of human relationships, whether in home orneighbourhood or business or municipality or commonwealth, what is lackingis not the knowledge of what the kingdom of God requires, but the will andmotive and power to accomplish it. We are not short of knowledge; ratherwe are weighed down by the power derived from new knowledge, for want ofan end other than our own selves to which to consecrate it. The means fortransforming life and suffusing it with new radiance abound as neverbefore. It is the will which is lacking. If we will lift up any departmentof life to God in the faith that He cares about it and has desires for it, the next step to be taken will be apparent to conscience and reason. XVII Akin to the difficulty that the will of God is inscrutable and hard toknow, is the protest that to speak of Him as at work in the world to bringin His kingdom, is remote from the actualities of daily life. As I havewalked about in Flanders, turning over thoughts about the onward movementof God's purposes in the world, I have met those matchless monuments ofpatient and unchanging daily toil, the peasants working in the fields. Harnessed into the perpetual cycle of seed time and harvest, what can thistalk of movements and purposes in the great world be to them? Isenthusiasm for the Kingdom of God possible only for those who are soremoved from the drudgery of existence that they can sit in the exhaustedair of committee rooms and talk about it? Or is it that under God's heavenand close to the soil men know better? Is there no room for greatexpectations in those pressed down into the thick of things? There is telling truth here, but it is not the last word. The old man inthe fields--or is it the old wrinkled woman doing more than one man'swork?--knows that. They know that life cannot fully be measured by thegauge of the individual's daily round. A word will bring pride and lightto their eyes. It is 'Vive la France!' They are citizens of a world widerthan their fields. They belong to 'La Patrie. ' Their common taskscount--only a little--but they do count in the world of great events. Lifeis monotonous and cyclical, and yet it is more than that. Great changesdo arrive in days of crisis and convulsion--yes, in days of judgment, andthe victims of changelessness are caught up by movement. They are awakenedout of the sleep of humdrum existence, and are asked to give proof, andproudly do give proof, that, plodders though they be, they belong to nomean city. This is true in the sphere of patriotism. It is true in the wider sphereof the Kingdom of God. The difficulty here considered is one of theproducts of our incorrigible individualism in religion. Christianity isnot narrow preoccupation with 'my soul. ' It is an entrance into a sphereas wide as the world. It is membership in a universal society which isconcerned with great causes and astir with deep movements. And be theindividual never so anchored in the daily and local necessities ofexistence, he can nevertheless share with loyalty and pride and prayerand service in the fortunes and onward march of the commonwealth ofChrist. XVIII There is also the objection to an insistence upon the will of God inaccomplishment in this world, that there is so much in the New Testamentwhich declares (and, as we have seen in the last paragraph, experienceseems largely to corroborate the view) that the Kingdom of God does notcome in this world but in the next. I refer (only I dislike using a wordwhich few soldiers at the front will understand) to New Testament"apocalyptic, " which seems to present a vision of this world asimmediately to pass away in catastrophe and of the arrival of anotherorder of things. It is certainly very perplexing that there seems to be so little in theNew Testament outside of the Gospels which is plainly on all fours withthe first part of the Lord's Prayer. At the front the Lord's Prayer--asthe one island of religious ground, amid marshes of ignorance, common toEnglishmen--is the padres' great stand-by. It declares better than anywords which we can frame what distinguishes the Christian religion fromothers--that it begins with and glories in what God is Whose Name is to behallowed, and Whose kingdom is in arrival and Whose will is inaccomplishment not only in heaven but _on earth_. But elsewhere in the NewTestament the _terrain_, as it were, of these wonderful happenings seemsto be changed, and to lie in the hereafter. It is very hard to say anything simply and shortly about this. At any rate it is no good blinking the fact that the New Testamentexpectation of an immediate ending of this world was mistaken. [3] Yet there remains the reasonable faith--surely burnt into us by the firesof war, surely revealed to us in apocalyptic vision--that this world isbut a part of another, and that the other gives to this and to itsconcerns their supreme importance. We need to be two-eyed here. It is a one-eyed view to hold that becausethis life is a pilgrimage to another and this world is passing away, therefore nothing matters here and nothing is happening here. It isequally one-eyed to shut out the goal whither we all journey, and toconcentrate on the affairs of this life as alone and sufficientlyimportant. The whole view is that through the entire order--here and there--the willof God is at work, and His Kingdom in arrival, but that their full resultand accomplishment lies beyond this world. Here are the partial andunfinished stages, there the end whither they lead. To fall back onmetaphor, a city is in the building, a whole righteous social order--akingdom of souls. The building is going on now, --in Birmingham andBermondsey, --and that gives eternal importance to their perishing andtrivial affairs. What whole structure is being built, and how much ofBirmingham and Bermondsey can be built into it, is only partially knownnow. It is partially known here, as days of testing and catastrophe breakin on periods of monotony, and lay bare their soul. But full knowledgelies in the future--the great and final 'Day shall declare it. ' FOOTNOTES: [3] Indeed we see it change, with surprising ease of adjustment, withinthe limits of the New Testament itself. In its first form it was not ofthe essence of the new truth. XIX There is also the objection that too hard things have been said here aboutthe turning to God under pressure of anxiety, and the expression in prayerof the natural desire for safety. After all, as a Jesuit fellow-padrereminded me at the front, Our Lord at His hour of trial, when "exceedingsorrowful even unto death, " prayed in agony. And further it is plain thatprayer to Him, and as He would have it be to others, was far more than atrustful harmony of self with the will of the Father. He urged men to taketheir _requests_ to God. "Ask and ye shall receive. " I can imagine thatthe conception of prayer at times of emergency, as suggested in earlierpages, might be so full of resignation as to be reduced to the fatalismextraordinarily prevalent at the front--"If it 'its yer, it 'its yer, " asthe men say. Are we not to ask not to be hit? It is nearly enough to recall the Lord's Prayer in regard to thisobjection. As I have said, men on service widely associate prayer with theexpression of need or anxiety. To restrict prayer thus is to begin theLord's Prayer half-way through, at "Give us this day our daily bread. " Itis a question of order and emphasis. Christian prayer begins with God. Itturns away from self to the glory of God. It begins with praise andacclamation--the glad acknowledgment of what God is and is doing. It isonly in the second place and because of what God is--because He is ourFather and is at work to bring in His kingdom and has a will for us andfor all--that the prayer which expresses our need comes in aright. Therefore I would say to a man going into battle--"Pray now if neverbefore. Set God before you as you see Him, as you can clearly apprehendHim, in Christ. He is your Father, you are His son, however unworthy. Liftup your heart to Him Who, in and through all the turmoil around you, presses onward with the business of His kingdom and the fulfilment of Hisheart's desire. And commit all to Him. In trustful intimacy give utteranceto your longing to be brought through the perilous hour for service in Hiskingdom to the glory of His Name. Commit all to Him, asking forgiveness. He knows what you have need of in life or in death--and let the rest go!" For such prayer in the Name of Christ--that is, prayer in accordance withHis mind and founded on the character of God as made known in Him--thereawaits undiscovered and unexhausted resources of power. So Jesus told men. So Christian experience testifies. We have to pray truly Christ-wise, notasking for stones to be made bread, not seeking to be hidden from life'sstorms, but to be brought through them in faithful endurance. [4] We have to pray as Christ prayed in Gethsemane in fellowship with Hissufferings. But we have also to pray as knowing the power of HisResurrection. We have to rise in faith to claim the supernatural powerwhich neither He used nor we may use merely for self-preservation, whichyet is to be set free in the service of the kingdom. Prayer in the Name of Christ is not only the prayer of resignation, basedon the self-committal of Jesus our Brother into the hands of the Father. Such would ever tend, as uttered by our trembling faith, towards fatalism. But it is also prayer in the Name of Him "Who was declared to be the Sonof God with power by the resurrection of the dead, even Jesus Christ ourLord. " It is the prayer of power--that power which was at Jesus' command, and was therefore the subject of His temptation, and was drawn upon by thefaith of sufferers and yet was unused by Jesus to save Himself. This poweris the power of God. It is "the exceeding greatness of His power, according to that working of the strength of His might which He wrought inChrist, when He raised Him from the dead and made Him to sit at His righthand in the heavenly places. " Here are heights where the air is charged with potentiality of new life, hardly dreamt of by our faith on its low stagnant levels. Here areheights to be stormed by faithful unself-seeking love. This way liesdeliverance and new creation, and the breaking of prison bars and theturning of our captivity such as shall fill all our mouths with laughter. A few know that these words are not rhetorical. They know, with St. Paul, the riches of the glory of Christ's inheritance in the saints. Such wasMary Slessor, pioneer missionary in West Africa, the leaves of whosebiography I happened to turn over as I was writing these pages. She hadfrequently to take journeys through forests with leopards swarming aroundher. She wrote: "I did not use to believe the story of Daniel in thelions' den until I had to take some of these awful marches, and then Iknew it was true and that it was written for my comfort. Many a time Iwalked along praying 'O God of Daniel, shut their mouths, ' and Hedid. "[5] This is the prayer of faith. It is the prayer which asks "not to be hit. "It is more than resignation, it is the prayer of power. It believes thatthere are hardly-tapped powers and possibilities in God for those who seekfirst His kingdom and righteousness. We do not know much about such prayerin our present spiritual sickness. But it is there, a weapon to be wieldedby dauntless, simple faith. There is an inheritance to be claimed bylittle-loving sons, who yet are sons--"heirs of God and joint heirs withChrist, if so be that we suffer with Him. " FOOTNOTES: [4] Prayer after the mind of our Lord depends greatly on how we think ofHim. The following lines, written by a barrister, are, I think, awholesome corrective of that which is too soft in our conventional thoughtabout our Saviour. Despite a false or partial note here and there, theyare nearer to Him than the thought underlying the first verse of thehymn--a great favourite among the men owing to its tune--"Jesu, Lover ofmy Soul. " At any rate they suggest the right association of ideas in whichour Lord should live in the mind of a young man: Jesus, Whose lot with us was cast, Who saw it out, from first to last: Patient and fearless, tender, true, Carpenter, vagabond, felon, Jew: Whose humorous eye took in each phase Of full rich life this world displays, Yet evermore kept fast in view The far-off goal it leads us to: Who, as your hour neared, did not fail-- The world's fate trembling in the scale-- With your half-hearted band to dine, And chat across the bread and wine: Then went out firm to face the end, Alone, without a single friend: Who felt, as your last words confessed, Wrung from a proud unflinching breast By hours of dull ignoble pain, Your whole life's fight was fought in vain: Would I could win and keep and feel That heart of love, that spirit of steel. I would not to Thy bosom fly To slink off till the storms go by. If you are like the man you were You'ld turn with scorn from such a prayer, Unless from some poor workhouse crone, Too toil-worn to do aught but moan. Flog me and spur me, set me straight At some vile job I fear and hate: Some sickening round of long endeavour, No light, no rest, no outlet ever: All at a pace that must not slack, Tho' heart would burst and sinews crack: Fog in one's eyes, the brain a-swim, A weight like lead in every limb, And a raw pit that hurts like hell Where once the light breath rose and fell: Do you but keep me, hope or none, Cheery and staunch till all is done, And, at the last gasp, quick to lend One effort more to serve a friend. And when--for so I sometimes dream-- I've swum the dark, the silent stream, So cold, it takes the breath away, That parts the dead world from the day, And see upon the further strand The lazy, listless angels stand, And with their frank and fearless eyes The comrades whom I most did prize: Then, clean, unburdened, careless, cool, I'll saunter up from that grim pool, And join my friends: then you'll come by, The Captain of our Company: Call me out, look me up and down, And pass me through without a frown, With half a smile, but never a word-- And so I shall have met my Lord. [5] _Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary_, p. 106. Hodder &Stoughton. XX There is also the objection that the view implied in the preceding pagesleaves out or passes over too lightly our need as sinners in the sight ofGod all Holy. Is not our need for forgiveness to impel us towards God? Isnot our need--our need in anxiety, our need in guiltiness--to be a motivein our religion? Yes, a motive, but not the motive. It is a question of order. What mustcome first is not our need, whether as anxious or guilty, but God's need, or else our religion will be at the level of natural religion and belowthe Christian level. It is because men are poor towards God and thinkcoldly and ungenerously of Him that they 'are not worrying about theirsins. ' Men are not sorry for sin (except with the seedy remorse of 'themorning after') until their sin has come into contact with love. The morevital a young man is, the less will he brood in self-regard over hiswrongdoing. "Anyhow, I have lived, " he will say. But if it comes home tohim what his wrongdoing has done to another who loves him, then he beginsto be sorry. "I didn't care, " he will say, "for myself. I had my fling. But now I see that what I did has broken my mother's heart. I wish to GodI hadn't done it. " Our religion must begin from God. It must spring out of love fuller andmore hungry than our desirous hearts. It must spring out of love, not--howcould it?--out of our love for God, but out of His love for us. If God'slove for us, manifested in the utterly real and suffering love of Jesus, and in no insipid fancy of our sentimental moments, wins its way past ourguard and over the barriers of self, hatred of sin and sorrow for sin willfollow. But it is a question of order: first, what God is; second, what weare. The more vivid the first is to a man, the more inevitable his candidconsciousness of the second. The more he is taken captive by the assurancethat God is his Father, the more glaring it will be to him that he is anunworthy son. And the more men set out to give effect to their sonship inservice for the kingdom of God, the more they will realise their strangeimpotence. The dreadful hiatus between aspiration and performance, betweenacknowledged and realised ideals will widen. The eager impulse todisregard self and to serve God with love and praise and joy, will befound horridly at variance with a natural and rooted impulse towardsself-devotion and indulgence. The worship and praise of God, not only inthought and word but in deed, will stumble and fall short of its goal--andthen the tears of tragic failure will start and the cry of despair ringout. It was so with Peter in the porch and Paul beaten down in bondageunder the Law. "Who shall deliver us from the body of this death?" I think there is no fear but that, if we do set out to put into practiceour inheritance as sons of God, we shall come to the Cross of Christ ingenuine "Rock-of-ages" fashion, bringing nothing to it in the end, exceptour lovelessness. His, after all and in fact, was the one, free, utterlyloving and obedient offering of self to the Father. He did somethingothers could not do--He died for them, and in Him and through Him alonedid they come unto the Holy Father. I cannot work it out here, but alongthis way I seem to travel home into the great evangel of the Atonement. Only, I plead, this propitiatory work of Christ must come second in theimagination, and His Love-of-God-revealing work first. And I think in thecourse of the history of Christianity an inversion has come about. Inhymns and liturgies the _prima facie_ and predominant emphasis seemsrather to rest on our sinfulness than on God's goodness. Before they doanything else the Prayer Book, as it is at present used, asks men toembark on the overloaded phrases of the General Confession. I know thatthis may be justified by arguing that the Prayer Book assumes that theother parts of the Christian religion are in the minds of 'the faithful'members of the Church. But this assumption is unwarranted as regards themass of soldiers whom we keep on inviting to use the more or lessmutilated forms of Morning and Evening Prayer. And even when we come to the Eucharist, though everything can be found init, I often wonder whether there the Church has not come to lay morestress upon the Cross as the offering for sin than as the disclosure ofthe Divine pity for the sinner. If so, is it that too much has been takenfor granted, namely, the Love of God which alone can evoke sorrow for sinand be worthy of the offering for sin? Has familiarity tended to disguiseand overlay the wonder-compelling revelation of God? In the Eucharist hasHe been thought of rather as the Father sitting back in reception ofplacation, than as the Father Who, while we are a great way off, runs outto fall on our neck and bring us home? I think that a re-ordering is needed. For Christianity, stressed as itappears to be at present, will never catch the souls of men. I think ofthe flying boys who, more than any one else, are winning our battles (Ihave been chaplain to a squadron of them for a little time). They are farfrom unsinful, but they will nevertheless, I am sure, not _begin_ with theavowal "that there is no health in them"; they will not sing "that theyare weary of earth and laden with their sins. " For as they live almostgaily and unconcernedly on the edge of things, they know that that is notthe primary truth about themselves. Yet Christ, if in Him they see theall-hazarding and all-enduring Love of God, can win the love and worshipof their eager hearts. He can catch those living creatures alive. There must be a re-ordering and simplification and correction of emphasis. It is possible, now that historical science is unravelling the Bible andChurch history, and extricating from their many levels and complexitieswhat is simple and specific in the glorious truths of God and of man inChrist. Some exaggerations must be sloughed off. I think a little of thesepia, for instance, that was in the brush of Paul must be washed away. Has not he, or rather have not the great men of his school, over-obsessedus with the dogma, derived from Scriptural literalism, of human corruptionflowing from Adam? There is, by contrast, a more radiant and yet as realistic view of theworld as Christ saw it, to be recovered. Some of His glories, dimmed bythe veil of inadequate conceptions in the minds of His witnesses, willshine as never before, as the Holy Spirit takes of Him and shows it untous. XXI Finally, I would say a word about the charge of pessimism which thisreport from the front may evoke. Both pessimism and optimism are rathermoods in us than qualities which really belong to the facts of asituation. The main point is to try to get down to reality and not toflinch. Anyhow, I do not feel pessimistic about our holy and gloriousreligion. Far otherwise. It is coming again. Actualities at the front, asI try to learn from them, do seem to me to show a very widespread and deepignorance of the good news of God in Christ. But that seems only to makemore wonderful and precious those treasures of truth and joy in Christwhich God has ready for those who seek them. They are the more wonderfulbecause one knows that, in the silence which has fallen on many loudvoices amid the thunderous cataclysm of war, the Word of God in Christalone rings out anew. It is the truth of God in Him for this mysteriouslymuddled and cruel world, and yet the truth which includes every partialelement of truth or goodness in the world. And there are such elements. Only second to the wonder of the Gospel of the Cross are the achievementsof the souls of very ordinary men under unparalleled afflictions. Withoutknowing it, they are seen to be worthy of Jesus, Who loves them and gaveHimself for them. If there are nearly virgin resources in God, there arealso deep unused treasures of potentiality in men. There are in themexcellences and simple heroisms which make plain that Christianity is noartificial thing superimposed on human nature, but is the laying bare andsetting free of its inmost native quality. There is everywhere about, overhere, a diffused Christianity in men who are better than they know. Itseems like so much material that needs but a spark to set it ablaze. Maythere be a great conflagration--the flaming out of the Light of the world, to illuminate, to cleanse, to fill it with the heat of love, both humanand divine! AMEN. THE END _Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_. _Crown 8vo. 3/6 net. _ THE MIND OF THE DISCIPLES By the REV. NEVILLE S. TALBOT "He deals with his subject in a manner completely free from the shacklesof the schools and with a reverence which is welcome after theover-confident handling of some young dons. "--_Daily News. _ "Should be a help to many whose belief in the fundamental doctrines ofChristianity has been shaken, and to whom 'learned books' do notappeal. "--_The Guardian. _ SOME RECENT BOOKS =ESSAYS IN ORTHODOXY. = By the REV. OLIVER C. QUICK, Chaplain to theArchbishop of Canterbury. Cr. 8vo. 6/-net. _THIRD IMPRESSION. _ =CONCERNING PRAYER: its Nature, its Difficulties, and its Value. = Editedby Canon BURNET H. STREETER and the Author of _Pro Christo et Ecclesia_. 8vo. 7/6 net. _THIRD IMPRESSION. _ =FAITH OR FEAR? An Appeal to the Church of England. = By DONALD HANKEY (AStudent in Arms), WILLIAM SCOTT PALMER, HAROLD ANSON, F. LEWIS DONALDSON, and CHARLES H. S. MATTHEWS (Editor). Crown 8vo. 3/6 net. =WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST?= By the Rev. C. E. RAVEN, M. A. , Fellow ofEmmanuel College, Cambridge. Crown 8vo. 4/6 net. _SECOND IMPRESSION_ =THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS: A Study in the Apostles' Creed. = By the Rev. HENRY BARCLAY SWETE, D. D. , D. Litt. , F. B. A. 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