THE CAUSE OF COD.

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3065, 28 April 1917, Page 7

THE CAUSE OF COD.

AN AMERICAN BISHOP'S SERMON. Br. Brent .(Bishop of the Mulippino Islauds), preachinE at the afternoon service at Westminster Abbey recently said that though a citizen of a sister nation, he did not come to Britain as an alien. A thousand tics bound his life and Ms country tn Britain. It was no flattery for him to say that the British nation was teaching

- the world to-day, awl also unborn generations, such lessons as men needed. Ho thanked God that it was permitted him at this particular juncture to he in their midst, though not commissioned to sponk as a representative of a nation which, though up to a moment ago neutral, had now taken tho first step to redeem its honour, and to place itself on. the side of God's cause and of humanity. Neutrality was sometimes nccossnry for a State, and possibly for an individual, whero no great moral issues were involved, but neutrality was impossible when every prin..ciplo of righteousness and justice and truth had been ruthlessly and deliberately trampled under foot. To-day there was across the Atlantic a great nation ready to stand by the cause of God and righteousness. America had fought for and won freedom and unity, and while her day of peril was over, to-day was the day of Britain's peril and tragedy. Now it war, they who looked across the waters —-;,s America turned to England for sympathy and moral backing when she had her mighty task in hand—and expected tho sympathy of tho ' great American nation. Let him tell them that they had had that sympathy from the beginning. There were those who felt that thoy owed a debt —an unpayable debt—to this great Empiro and to Franco in return for what had been given them and their nation in the days that were gone. The neutral-days were now over. He could tell them that America was not afraid of war. Sho was not too proud to fight, though sho showed a little hesitancy in taking a final step; but if honour bade her do it, sho would go forward with uutrembling. hands. And why had'she taken that step? It was not a case of ships; it was a case of righteousness. 'It might be that the final break canio through some local irritation. America was 'fighting with all the power of her moral life at this present moment in order that eventually there might bo a peace with victory over tho foes of the human race, who participated .in deliberate brutality and murdorj who intimidated small nations and was guilty of international crimes—that was the root cause why America stood to-day whoso she was. She saw clearly what tho people of Britain saw so clearly, when they took their stand and committed themselves to God and His cause. Perhaps they had wondered sometimes whether it was worth it after all. Yes; it w;as worth it, because it was the cause of God, and the freedom of • tho world. Their colonial troops knew they were not fighting for any local end; they knew they wore fighting for the Empirer—fighting for the world that lay beyond the Empire.

NEW LIGHT FROM MESOPOTAMIA. Professor L. W. King, the Schweich lecturer for this year, told his hearers in Burlington Gardens the other' day that while'our brave troops have been fighting there under great difficulties American scholars have been registering now results in Biblical Archaeology. The University of Pennsylvania sent out no; fewer than four expeditions to Nippur, in Babylonia,, just before the wnr 3 and they discovered through excavation two early literary texts, written in the Sumerian language, which have only recently been published. Theso give versions of the story of Creation and of the Deluge narrative which shed very ■ valuable' light on the Hebrew tradition. As tho Professor said, wo shall have a good many arrears to make up when we settle down again to this old study. MORE THAN I ASKED 'THOU CAVEST. I prayed Thee for his life That Thou wouldst bring him back to -.-. me, - - V- -'.-''Tho .maimed in the strife. ..,. ■ In the dread waiting time When horror upon horror fed my dark | imaginings, Oh, Godl I could not pray. • But when I learned How in the hour of danger he' had cheered his comrades ■ With his own sweet faith, I knew eternal lifo was won, And through a rain of tears, I cried, "Thy will be done." —J.M. (in "Public Opinion.")