MIXED MUSINGS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 16098, 11 December 1915, Page 1 (Supplement)

MIXED MUSINGS.

BT J. GIUCS. ' | '

t»» • • / ~W hile God's champion lives, £ rone shall be resisted: . . ' bvil stands not crowned on earth, while breath is in him — Robert Browning. These lines surely strike the very highest keynote of inspiration for any people putting on its armour for war. To feel assured that we. are God's champions! That is a very different thing from the common hope or trust that God will be found to be on our side, which in most wars is the predominant feeling of the combatants. supposing that any thought of God enters into the business at all. There have been many wars which both parties have professed, and perhaps even persuaded themselves, that they were fighting on God's side, but in how many—setting aside the wars inspired by the fanaticism of a religious creed—can it be said that the combatants on either side had a deep conviction that, they were fighting for the supremacy of righteousness on earth, and that to make peace before the quarrel was fought to a finish would be to betray the cause and abandon the flag? There have been wars in which this may have been true in varying degrees—as in the noble struggles for liberty of the republics of ancient Greece, and of Switzerland, and the Netherlands; but, in the magnitude of the principles and issues involved, the league, against Napoleon comes the nearest to the titanic conflict now shaking civilisation to its foundations. Then, as now, the European world was threatened with the imperious domination of an aspiring state, but in many points that crisis fell far short of the significance of the present one. and therefore the passionate convictions of the upholders of the flag of freedom, even if measured by the utterances of Burke, would naturally be somewhat less intense than these which now animate all of us who have an adequate sense of the tremendous issues now awaiting the decision of the twentieth century. But in most national quarrels it is hard for anyone hut the combatants to see the right all on one side, and the wrong all on the other. In the Crimean war, in the Boer war, in the Russo-Japanese war, there was much to be said on both sides : it was impossible in any of them to see Michael the Archangel fairly pitted against the devil, on a clear cut and definite quarrel, and, still less than in that supermundane contest, could either party legitimately " bring a railing accusation against the other," or even resort to the milder imprecation, " The Lord rebuke thee!" But what may fairly be said is that as, civilisation progresses the importance and significance of great wars become more evident and impressive, their issues more apparent and more far-reach-ing, their perils more ghastly and more alarming, as might be expected in a world guided upon a path of material, moral, and spiritual evolution, stupendous in its —aeonian in its duration.

The European war that ended a century ago illustrated the way in which so great a current as the French revolutionary movement could be deflected into unexpected channels by the surpassing genius of one man. But, important as it was in its bearings on the security and progress of European civilisation,, it differed much in its inner significance from the present struggle. Napoleon believed in his "star," for genius jrenerally recognises the guidance of some mysterious agency. What does Kaiser Wilhelm believe in? Apparently, he thinks that Providence has devoted itself during the last 500 years to the exaltation, by all byeways of fraud and highways of violence, of the chosen house of Hohenzollern, from a Brandenburg hat to a German Imperial crown, whereby that house is now consecrated to the work of imposing on the world by the same methods a domination of iron and blood, and a "kultur" of terror and hatred. We seem to miss, in this impious fanaticism, the genius, if not the unscrupulousness, alike of Napoleon and of Bismarck, as well as the ideal enthusiasm of the French nation, which, however momentarily intoxicated by a dazzling vision of fleeting glory \ could never become besotted with the degrading obsession where a brutally materialistic junta of rulers has succeeded in hypnotising a great nation undoubtedly capable of better things. If it is impossible, in the circumstances, that we, the allied nations, can help believing ourselves to be in a true sense the champions of the divine causa, at least let us beware of clouding

the inspiration of that thought by any mixture of pride or arrogance, revenge, or hatred ! Of the old maxim, to " Trust in Providence, and keep your powder dry,'' we may hope that the first half is not altogether a new precept to us, and if the importance of the second half, with all that it means, has not already been made apparent to us in the course of this war, we must indeed be incapabl of learning. The animating conviction of " being in the right' may perhaps redress some degree of inferiority of equipment and resources, but only to a very limited ex- I tent. The champion of right will go down ! in the lists if his saddle-girths give way, I or his armour be badly rivetted, and. in a world of law, how can Providence do I other than side with the biggest batta- j lions, the ablest strategy, the most scien- | tific equipment, assuming that the cour- I age and fighting spirit of the troops are i 1 about equally matched ? Happily, our 1 I leaders, military and civilian, are well saturated with this truth, and hence our j confidence of victory; but to reassure | j weaker souls who are shocked at the no- 1 tion of God's cause being defeated, let j I us hasten to say that this can never hap- . | pen, though a hundred armies, and many I I brave nations, and the British Empire ; itself appalling thought! —should fall in ' its defence. Tl,e rotten foundations of ! the "enthroned evil" would be sapped by j the rising waters of life, and the old i ideals of freedom and justice would again i assert themselves, purified and invigorated j by their temporary obscuration, I must say a word or two on another I sentiment given us by Browning, attuned 1 to a far lower key-note than the one I have used for my text : j There remaineth a. rest for the people of ', God: I And 1 have had troubles enough for one. Little of the bugle call in that! What are we to say to it ? We, the majority, | we, the people of feeble aspirations and ' commonplace morality, when we feel the { coming of the night, in which no one can I work, shall we not say, Troubles! Yes, j we have had them, and we have magnified them by selfishness instead of trans- I muting them by service. Alas! we are j "slackers." but may not another day I bring us another opportunity? And what of the champions? The warrior who feels his breath failing him, while yet "evil stands crowned on earth" ; the men and women who have devoted their marvellous resources of brain and heart and hand to the service of humanity, and to whom the infolding shades of benignant night are I at last giving the signal " down tools." 1 Will not each of these turn the sentiment I of our poet to something like this : I There remaineth much work for the r>eople 1 of God : I Now. a rest: »nd then—to it Again, for one 1 ;