we look back upon it, is full of these repressions and these emergences, and then perhaps repressions again, of great impulses and outbursts of energy and of power. Now and then they are for good, as when the Reformation broke across men's minds, shattering their shackles, opening old prison doors, allowing the enslaved human spirit to come out and breathe the air of freedom. But why had it not come before? All the great energies of God that burst forth in it must have been here even before that hour. And why did they have to subside afterwards? They all were still? Why might they not have gone beating their way onward and not have ceased so soon?
Then also great explosions of evil come. We look out across the world to-day and see all these dogs of war unleashed. But these dogs of war were not born the year before last. They had been here all the time, only they were chained and held in leash. Why were they not kept chained and in leash? Why were they allowed to break loose and go wild across the world in their havoc and devastation? We know perfectly well that after a few months they are going to be chained again, and the great reconstructive processes will begin to make the world anew. But why do these reconstructive forces have to wait? They will not exist any more truly then than they do to-day. Why not re-
