not yet sufficiently, among all classes; and they are a perfect substitute for the clumsy recreation of war, in nerve and skill and muscle, and in some moral qualities also.
Yet we cannot find a spiritual equivalent for war!
To suggest that the Church can supply that equivalent seems ridiculous. Yet it is true, and the whole truth, and the only truth. The State, which now alone evokes the highest passions and the united loyalty of men, has given them war upon war; and in peace-time the paltry substitute of party-politics, which have owed whatever life they at any time possess to the Christian principles which are sometimes at stake.
But the Church is at war with all things worth fighting against, with all things hateful and strong, with dragons and beasts and devils, with the cruel and careless and proud, with ignorance and vice and oppression, with the demon within and the demon without, with Mammon and with Babylon; and her warfare is an Apocalypse, as it was in the first days, of awful horsemen and hosts armoured with fire and jacinth, of the Dragon and the Beast, of Michael and his war, of trumpets and voices and thunders and smoke.
But what a Church that would be! Where is she now? What have we done to tear her down, to quell the beating of that mighty heart?
Call we upon God to give us fellowship again, the fellowship of the Holy Ghost! Seek we the
