CHURCH AND WAR

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2854, 19 August 1916, Page 6

CHURCH AND WAR

A GOSPEL OF HOPE "IT IS .NOT CHRISTIANITY THAT HAS FAILED." Tho Bishop of Oxford (Dr. Gore), preaching in AVestminster Abbey from tho words, "In the world ye shall havo tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome tho world," pointed out that tho gospel of hope came to the world in days of desperate crisis. "Tho cause of Jesus Christ," ho said, "is, always up against groat interests andltho normal vacillation of the human heart, and it is always seeming to fail —that is the ordinary experience. "But also we aro in the midst of an experience which is extraordinary, and the minds, imagination, and hearts of people of all sorts aro forcing them to ask themselves: Can I now believe that central and fundamental witness of Jesus for which He lived and died, that witness to His' Father P "Can I believe that the world, this horriblo world of war and slaughter, this horrible world of hostility and enmity, of bitterness and lying—can I believe that the One God Who made this world, and AATio is responsible for it, tho Ono Power AVho made and sustains all things is Love, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, toA\ r hose Name Ho bare witness? "Challengo yourselves, but remember that the strength of the witness of Jesus J6 that it is given in tho face of.just those experiences which" aro at tho moment staggering your imagination, that witness which lies behind the witness of Jesus —the witness of the Old Testament Scriptures; that belief, there developing itself, in tho one God of perfect power and perfect goodness, came into tho hearts and minds of those Prophets of: Israol, and" through them into the hearts and minds of other men, under experiences exactly like those which are now staggering our minds and imaginations. "It was under the tramp of those terrible armies—Assyrian, Babylonian, iPersian, Grecian,-. Roman—that men lirst came to believe in Ono God of Power and goodness. ; "And whou that witness was intensified and deepened by our Lord, remember the circumstances. There is nothing that has ever led men to doubt tho love of God or His power that did not lie in tho immediate circumstances which closed. around the form arid history of Jesus of Nazareth. . ''If it had been somo bright angel who had come down from heaven and told us with never so many miracles that God was"Love, we should have listened rospectfully, but at tho end, when he had flown away, wc should have said, 'It sounds very pretty, but we know, hotter.' But it was a Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief. "Everything, I say, that has ever }ed men to doubt .tho love of God, every pain of body -and agony of mind," every experience of malignity and hostility and bitterness, every experience of the weakness of the good and tho strength of the evil, every oxporionce of tho shortsightedness an d fickleness and shallowness of man, everything that in slow and embittering experience has turned philanthropists into cynics and made wise men mad—everything Jesus Christ bore; and it was out of the very depths of all that experience that Ho cried that.great cry, asked that tremendous question to which there is no answer— 'My God, My God, why didst Thou forsake Mo?' "That,is the strength of the position of the .Christian. The witness "on which'his belief rests was in the very furnace of all that affliction that lias tortured the hearts of men with doubt. That is why you can ■trust Him; because as Man, the Captain and Leader of tho life of faith, He passes through all this trial triumphant, commending His spirit into His Father's Hands; because the more you look at that human nature, and listen to those human wor.ds and see those human acts of Jesus of Nazr-reth, tho moro you come to believe that tremendous, witness—'Ho that hath seen Me hath Keen tho Father,' the more you cannot resist the conviction that He AA'ho wrought those human deeds. and spoko those human words, truly reveals tho heart of the Eternal Father,;. tho. Creator aridlffaintainer of all things. "Well, then, that is_ the Christian Faith. The question is, Do ye now believe or is it to be the case that once again tho hour cometh, r yea, is now come, that ye shall bo scattered every man to his own, and shall leave Me, in spirit and intention, deserted and alone? "It is not Christianity that has failed ; rt : 5s wewwh s socially as a nation, or as an association of nations making lip. what is called Christendom, have failed to be really Christian. . But there is this hope for nations that are called Christian. , The real Christianity that tliey havo got in them, like the salt preserving from corruption, .may reassert itself—will, if we are faithful, reassert itself—and .rebuild out _of tho 'ruins of a collapsing civilisation tiie structare of a more Christian one, of an enduring cause. "AA r e do right to anticipate a better \n bettor world, a better Church, but only—that is the Christian belief—if truly we will come back to the one foundation of security." FAME AND MORAL GOODNESS. MR. ASQUITH'S TRIBUTE TO LORD KITCHENER. "The finest thing in Mr. Asquith's speech on Lord Kitchener was his application of the famous quotation from Milton's "Lycidas," says the "Manchester Guardian." " 'Fame is no plant that grows in mortal soil, Nor in tho glistr'ing foil Set off to tli' world, not in broad rumour I lies; But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes And perfect witness of all-judging Jove/" Tho poet seems here to be expressing tho truth that thero is no real fame that is not expressible in terms of moral goodness, and Mr. Asquith, adopting the sentiment, declared that ho knew few that bad loss reason than Lord Kitchener to shrink from submitting their lives to tho pure eyes of God. It was a note that is not often struck in tho House of Commons, yet everyone felt that it was a true one. "For all who have spoken recently of Lord Kitchoner from personal knowledge seem to come back to tho one 1 point—that he was a good man, with a fine loyalty of nature, and always Bincore in his homage to duty. Lord Kitchener had earnod tho right to bo buried with the greatest servants of the State, but it was not to bo. .He has tho broad Atlantic for his tomb. "What Mr. Asquith proposed is that a monument should be erected to his memory, with an inscription expressing the thanks of the country for what ho has dono; and though it is raro that a monument is tho most suitable memorial of tho dead', in this case ovoryone will agree with Mr. Asquith and the House o ; f Commons that it is the most appropriate." , :