the ancient assurance that God _does_ count the hairs of the head and
mark the fall of even the sparrows? Does God move the insensate stars
only, and leave to the less skilful guidance of man those momentous
little atoms which make up the brain of statesmen?

These are reflections which must occur to every thoughtful person in the
later and more meditative phases of a great war, when the eye has grown
somewhat weary of the glitter of steel and the colour of banners, when
the world mourns about us and the long lists of the dead and longer list
of the stupendous waste sober the mind. Something is gravely wrong with
our international life; and, plainly, it is not a question _whether_
that international life departs from the Christian standard, but _why_,
after fifteen hundred years of mighty Christian influence, it does so
depart. Is the moral machinery of Europe ineffective? One certainly
cannot say that it has not had a prolonged trial; yet here, in the
twentieth century, we have, in the most terrible form, one of the most
appalling evils which human agency ever brought upon human hearts. We
have to reconsider our religious and ethical position; to ask ourselves
whether, if the influence of religion has failed to direct men into
paths of wisdom and peace, some other influence may not be found which
will prove more persuasive and more beneficent.

J. M.

_Easter, 1915._




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