of ascribing power. Though we repeat a thousand times in the course of
a year, "For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory," we do not
believe it. To few of us is it more than a sonorous phrase.

I remember the impression of this which one received at the great
thanksgiving for peace in St. Paul's Cathedral in London some twenty
years ago. The Boer War had ended in an English victory, and while the
thanksgiving was not precisely for this, it did express the relief of an
anxious nation that peace was again restored. It was what is generally
known as a most impressive service. All that a great spectacle can offer
to God it offered. King, queen, princes, princesses, ambassadors,
ministers, clergy, admirals, generals, and a vast assembly of citizens
filled the choir and nave with colour and life, while the music was of
that passionless beauty of which the English cathedral choirs guard
the secret.

But the detail I remember best was the way in which the repetition of
the Lord's Prayer rolled from the lips of the assembly like the sound
of the surging of the sea. It was the emotional effect of a strongly
emotional moment. One felt tense. It was hard to restrain tears. As far
as crowd-sympathy has any spiritual value it was there. The Caucasian
God was taken out of His pigeon-hole and publicly recognised.

Then He was put back.

I take this service merely as an instance of what happens in all the
so-called Christian capitals in moments of national stress. Outwardly it
happens less in the United States than it does elsewhere, for the reason
that this country has no one representative spiritual expression; but it
does happen here in diffused and general effect. As a Christian nation