THE KING’ S BUSINESS 365 that are in such great distress at this present time, but in practicing these, economies shall we forget our crucified Lord and His parting message to the Church, that we should go and make disciples of all the nations? A hundred dollars given now will count more than a thousand dollars given a few years from now'. We have learned that we can go without luxuries that we once almost considered necessities. There is no doubt that we are all better off physically because we have to cut down in our eating, and especially in our use of meats and sweets. It will be for our ultimate benefit to economize even more rigidly in the matter of eating and the matter of dressing, and in other ways. It was considered, not more than a year ago, a disgrace to wear a shabby coat or shabby dress, but we are coming to look upon it as a mark of patriotism and not of disgrace to do so. Why can we not go further and make larger sacrifices for a cause that is even dearer to a true Christian’s heart than our national interests, viz., the cause of our crucified and risen Lord? Henry Watterson, in a Christmas editorial in the Louisville Courier- Journal, expressed a fear that the. world “may stand upon the edge of a new descent into the Dark Ages.” To many this may seem preposterous, and yet to one who is at all acquainted with history it is not at all unlikely, provided the Lord tarries. President Wilson and others may entertain the hope that as the outcome of this war we shall have an international league of peace that will make war impossible, but there is no basis for such hope either in the teaching of history in the past, nor in any known facts regarding the character o f statesmen and rulers in our day, nor in the Word of God. When we look at the wonderful civilization of our own day it would at first glance seem impossible that we could ever revert to the Dark Ages, but the student -of history knows that there was a civilization in Rome, under Octavius Augustus and his successors of a very high type, so high a type that if any scholar in Rome at that time had been told that the whole world would plunge into such universal intellectual chaos-as ruled in the Dark Ages it would have seemed to him an impossibility. But we know as a matter of history what did occur. Mr. Watterson’s editorial is worthy of careful thought, not merely because of its expression of this fear, but because of its strong presentation of the only hope. He says: “ Surely the future looks black enough, yet it holds a hope, a single hope. One, and one power only, can arrest the descent and save us. That is the Christian religion. Democracy is but a side issue. The% paramount issue underlying the issue of democracy, is the religion of Christ and Him crucified; the bed-rock of civilization; the source and resource of all that is worth having in the world that is, that gives promise in the world to come; not as an abstraction; not as a huddle of sects and factionsbut as a mighty force and principle of being. The Word of God, delivered by the gentle Nazarene upon the hillsides of Judea, sanctified by the Cross of Calvary, has survived every assault. It is now arrayed upon land and sea to meet the deadliest of all assaults, Satan turned loose for one last, final struggle. “ The Kaiser boldly threw down the gage of battle—Infidel Germany against the believing world—Kultur against Christianity—the Gospel of Hate against the Gospel of Love. Thus is he Satan personified— ‘Myself and God,’ ■ p ETURN TO THE DARK AGES.
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