488 THE KING’S. BUSINESS pressed by the hard facts of the situation. Sorrow has invaded many homes in the land, but by no means all. Disaster has overtaken many a small business man, who knows only too well what war means; but others have profited beyond their wildest dreams, and are living selfishly and wantonly in their new-found prosperity. Hunger may have attacked a few, but up to the present the majority of people have continued to fare as well as they ever did, and even better. Now, at length, if the Nation does not realize what is demanded of every citizen, it is not for want of telling on the part of the man who bears the ultimate responsibility. The Prime Minister has told us the truth, but we shrewdly suspect that he has not told us all the truth. The restrictive measures which have been announced in regard to many of the commodities of life are by no means all that we may expect in this direction. They are probably only the beginning of a severe cutting-down process which will affect us all to a far greater extent than we now realize. Luxuries are, of course, banned by every moral as Well as material consideration. Necessaries, at present left to voluntary limitation, will in all likelihood be subject in the near future to drastic regulation. All men are challenged to put themselves at the State’s disposal for service of some sort. Equality of inconvenience, if not of actual sacrifice, must at once become the order of life, if this last stage of the War is to result in that measure of victory which is the only possible foundation for stable peace. This much is at least unmistakable, if we read the Prime Minister’s historic speech aright. Its serious tone was certainly no mere pose of oratory. He spoke as one who had looked the situation squarely in the face, and who turned from it to his fellow-citizens in the confidence that they would not flinch from all that is there involved. Upon the justification of that confidence everything depends. There cannot fail to-be heard in the grave warning, rebuke, and appeal which have thus been addressed the Nation, the echo of an older and stronger voice bidding us— ’’gird up the loins of your mind.” For at the back of much of our foolish over-confidence and careless indifference to the demand of such a day as this, lies a good deal of loose thinking both on the part of leaders and people. Many miscalculations have been made, and many glaring mistakes. We have waited to see what would evolve itself and have seen disaster. We have invested ourselves with a fancied omnipotence, which has again and again been discredited. We have tinkered away—by no means always successfully— at consequences, when wisdom would have dictated a drastic dealing with causes. We have imagined that \ye could go on living very much as in other days, and yet win the War. • . T ' . . Above all, we have, as a nation, almost entirely left God out of account. While boastful of the righteousness of our aim, and the cleanness of our blade, we have planned and parried without seeking counsel and strength from Him. Taking every care to cement our alliances with those other nations whose aims correspond with our own, we have treated as of no moment our alliance with Heaven. In a vague sort of way we have trusted that GOD is on our side, but have paid little attention to the. all-important matter of assuring ourselves that we are on His side. We have erected with amazing energy and skill enormous munition factories. But we have not laid to heart the greater need of rebuilding the LORD’S-altar, which has been broken down in the days of our recent affluence and ease. We have enlisted, by invitation and compulsion, millions of men to face the German guns, not hesitating to call them from every class and occupation. But we have avoided, calling upon the other millions of the people to face God in humiliation and prayer. Surely of all conceivable loose thinking this is the worst. Until we quit it, and gird up the loins of our mind, there is little hope for us. The solution of all, Britain’s problems is to be found alone in the Sanctuary of GOD, Unless we begin earnestly to acknowledge Him, we shall continue to make disastrous mistakes and great victories will not fall to us. And, therefore, even at the risk of being considered wearisomely repeti tious, we again call upon the Government to set apart a Day of National Prayer, to declare a solemn fast, to stop all the machinery of manufacture and trade, and to summon every town and village in the land to the Throne of Grace.
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