when he stands before his parliament, I was going to saybefore his debating club? What appeal did he make as the great representative of the best civilisation the world has ever seen? What appeal did he make to the honour and the integrity and the conscience and the righteousness of the people? He said this: "Gentlemen, we are in a state of necessity "-I wonder how they got there?—" and necessity knows no law." Well, the Prussian diplomacy has never known any law from the time of Frederick down to the present day whenever there was an aggrandisement of territory in the balance. "France could give a guarantee respecting Belgium; we could not give any such guarantee. France could wait; we could not wait." When did ever honour and integrity wait on opportunism, we wonder? He went on to say, The wrong, which is contrary to the dictates of international law, the wrong we do we will try to atone for when we have achieved our object." If that is not Machiavelli again, I do not know where you will find it. A Faust trying to explain the sale of his soul. That is the difference in the attitude; it is shown also in the last interview which Bethmann-Hollweg had with Goschen, the British Ambassador. You remember how the German Chancellor fumed up and down for twenty minutes, and at last Goschen got in one word, and that was the word "Neutrality." Only a word.' "But," said Goschen, "it was a treaty." A scrap of paper." I admire that man immensely because he could keep his head; he said, "You must remember, though it may make no difference to you, that the German Empire's name is at the foot of that treaty; it makes a great difference to us because Great Britain's name is there.' And then that German Chancellor shoved his Prussian proboscis up into the face of Goschen and he said, "Well, have you considered the cost of keeping your faith?" And Goschen still kept his composure and said, It has never been characteristic of the British Empire to break its faith through fear, and it will not begin now." There is a difference in the genius also as represented by the literary productions of the two countries. Just think of the national Hymn of Hate which has been produced by the Germans. Just think of how it runs: H "French or Russian, it matters not, A blow for a blow and a shot for a shot, And we will never forego our hate; Hate of the head and hate of the hand, We love as one, we hate as one, We have one foe and only one- Hearken, O Mother, hearken to thy daughter! But that these others-so the tale is spoken-- Me-whom thou barest where thy waves should guard me, Behold,' they cry,' she is grown soft and strengthless, Say, thou who hast watched through ages that are lengthless, Whom have I feared, and when did I forget? What sons of mine have shunned thy whorls and races ? And bid go forth to share thy fierce embraces Sea-ducks, sea-wolves, sea-rovers, and sea-men? Names that thou knowest-great hearts that thou holdest, Nelson-bravest of them all-the master Who swept across thee like a shooting star, Mother, they knew me then as thou didst know me; Wherefore, O Sea, I, standing thus before thee, God grant to us the old Armada weather, The winds that rip, the heavens that stoop and lour Not till the Sea and England sink together Shall they be master! Let them boast that hour!'"' The thanks of the meeting were tendered to the speaker by the President. THE WAR AND THE CHURCH AN ADDRESS BY REV. DR. W. T. HERRIDGE MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN,-I thank you for the kindly way in which you have been good enough to introduce me to this club, and I count it an interesting circumstance that the subject of "The Church and the War," on which I am to say a few things, was not chosen by me but by the representative of your club who conveyed to me your kind invitation that I should be your guest to-day. I cannot but feel that there must be a substantial reason why this subject was selected by you. As I dare say you know, in his earlier years the poet Coleridge was a Unitarian clergyman, and though he soon left the pulpit he never lost that oracular manner which some people seem to think is its exclusive monopoly. One day, walking with his friend Charles Lamb, he said in his finely pompous way, "Charles, did you ever hear me preach? To which Lamb answered with a merry chuckle, I never heard you do anything else." It may be that your club felt that as I happened to be a preacher, they had better make a virtue of necessity and take a sermon as genially as possible, because that is what might happen, whatever the subject. But I think there is another reason why you chose to ask me to speak on this subject to-day, because are we not all feeling just now the seriousness of life? Whatever our attitude towards creeds and churches, to whatever church we belong, or even if we belong to no church at all, we are trying to get down to the roots of things, and the religious instincts, which, I need not remind you, are part and parcel of our being, are coming into more active exercise. Amid all the changing tumult of the time, we want to reach certain truths which are unchangeable and eternal, and you will allow me to say that I do not think that we preachers ever had a better chance than we have just now; and if people will not listen to us, it is no use putting it down to the unconquerable depravity of the human heart; it will be our own fault. All kinds of men are challenging the church to-day; it will not be enough for her to point to her creeds, however orthodox, nor to rest upon her ecclesiastical authority, however well buttressed and defended. She will be tested and valued according to the work which she accomplished in actual life, according to the quality of her guidance and inspiration. There is no doubt about it that the church in the past has been too other-worldly, too much concerned about the life to come and too little concerned about the things that she should do every day. It used to be thought a sign of exalted piety to be always sighing for a mansion in the skies. There is nothing necessarily pious about it; one may have a healthy desire to live and yet be a good man. There was a bishop once who was sick, and the doctor came to him and examined his lungs and said, "Bishop, your lungs are in a bad state, and I think that in your condition of health the climate of Algiers will suit you best." And the bishop said, "I do not see how I can leave my work; I have a large diocese to look after, and no one to take my place." The doctor said, "I may just as well be plain with you; you have either got to go to Algiers or go to heaven.' Oh, well," he said, "I think in that case I will go to Algiers. We preachers have got to vindicate our existence in this present world; we have got to show a healthy, normal delight in the things that are seen and temporal, and have that attitude of mind-the attitude of the man of the world in the best sense of the term-tolerant, broad-minded, sympathetic, believing and feeling that nothing is foreign to him. If we have any decent work to do, we cannot be blamed for wanting to have a chance to do it, and we need not concern ourselves so much about the future-that will come all right-so long as we as men, whether we are connected actively with the church or not, as men on this earth of God's are trying to live as men should. Now I want to say to you that I cannot but believe that war and Christianity, as I understand its teaching, are incompatible. Alfred Noyes, the English poet, has a |