seriously to devote herself to the great cause of peace on earth and good-will among men." With all their boasts of what Christianity had done in Europe, it now appeared that that civilisation was raised upon "foundations of sand." The preacher claimed that much was being done in modern times by the clergy to promote international amity, but he seemed to feel that it was little and was very recent. The spectacle unfolded before us in Europe to-day is a sufficient proof of its inadequacy. And, as Mr. Rushbrooke said, we now see how little use it is to preach ideals at home and not apply them to the common life of the world.
These words are the nearest to wisdom that I have found among a large collection of pulpit-utterances and religious articles. The preacher plainly sees, and with some measure of candour confesses, that long remissness of Christian ministers in applying their principles to which the war, and all wars, are fundamentally due. The record which he carefully makes of recent efforts to redeem the failure is paltry in comparison with the resources even of the Free Churches, and only serves to bring out more clearly the awful neglect of Christian ministers during the long ages when they had a mighty power in Europe. But Mr. Rushbrooke makes one grave error. He feels that not merely the relation of the war to Christianity, but its relation to God, is engaging public attention, and he stumbles into the theory that God sent the war. It is "God's judgment on the Church's failure." We must suppose that Mr. Rushbrooke did not literally mean what he said. His words imply a theory of the war more monstrous even than that of Archbishop Carr. To punish Europe for the sins of unbelievers has at least a genuine medieval plausibility about it; but to send this in-
