under Condé and Admiral Coligny were children of the same liberty-loving faith, as were those who fought with Cromwell at Naseby and Marston Moor, with those who filled the undaunted ranks of Scotch Covenanters and the Protestant ranks in the battle of the Boyne. The same libertyloving faith animated those brave lovers of freedom in Holland, who made answer at the siege of Leyden, when summoned to surrender, "When you no longer hear the cries of a cat or a dog, then know that we subsist on our left arm, while with our right we defend our liberty."

The Mecklenburg Convention in North Carolina, which composed the first Declaration of American Independence, had as its members, twenty-seven men, all of them Elders in the Presbyterian Church. The church played no small part in the dark days of the Civil War, nor is she playing a less part today. A part of our heritage is to feel a pride in the fact that President Wilson is a Presbyterian Elder who knows how to ask divine guidance at Cabinet meetings; that the late Ambassador to the United States, Balfour, is a Presbyterian leader; that General Haig is of the same company, and Joffre is the product of a Huguenot home.

The church makes answer to the query, "Shall we go out against the Philistines?" not alone by summoning her sons to the spirit of sacrifice, but also by urging all the people to give their heartiest coöperation in the support of the military needs of the government.

For this cause the church makes of herself a tribune, proclaiming to the people the necessity of every citizen purchasing Liberty bonds, supporting the Y. M. C. A. and the Red Cross, the practising of thrift and the coöperation with the Food Administration-all to the limit. As a tribune, the church fulfils the function of proclaiming the righteousness of our cause, as involving all the hopes of humanity, democracy, justice, and enduring peace in the future. The Presbyterian Church through its General Assembly, and the other great churches of America, have given utterance to the most devoted patriotism and at the same time to the loftiest idealism, in the supporting of America in the war. The Presbyterian General Assembly telegraphed to the President last May, "We pledge to you our support in holding the American people to the high idealism with which we entered this war and to the keeping of our hearts free from hate and revenge." The same Assembly appointed a National Service Commission of one hundred leading laymen and ministers for effectively aiding the government in any possible way, for ministering to the moral and spiritual need of the soldiers and sailors in the great cantonments. In common with other Protestant churches, the Presbyterian Church has heartily united in the work of the Y. M. C. A. as one of its own agencies, peculiarly adapted to ministering, in a Christian sense, to the body, mind, and spirit of American manhood at war.

When the author of "Peter Warming Him

self" casts a slurring reflection at the Christian churches, because this work is done through the Y. M. C. A. as a great layman's organization, rather than through the organizations of the churches themselves, he apparently forgets that the glory of Protestantism is its expression of Christianity in action through laymen. The Y. M. C. A. is the church in action. And no one knows this better than the Y. M. C. A. leaders.

The church is steadfastly giving herself to the cultivation of that spirit of kinship to the Eternal, which cannot but be needed in this great hour. In an address of deep feeling, President Wilson, when visited by the Presbyterian National Service Commission, stated that the greatest service they could render would be to hold the people at the highest spiritual level.

Our author pronounces anathema on modern historical study of the Bible as if that had been particeps criminis with Peter warming himself at the fire. This, he says, has removed the supernatural and hence the barbarism of Germany and the tameness of American clergy. How the same cause could have produced such dissimilar results is not obvious. He wants more of the supernatural. So does the Kaiser, who cries aloud as to what the Lord God and himself are doing. Samuel hewing Agag to pieces before the altar had a very vivid sense of the supernatural. St. Paul proclaiming, "God hath made all men of one blood, all men that on earth do dwell, that they might feel after Him

in whom they live and move and have their being," was the prophet of the spiritual and it is the spiritual that the world needs. The sense of the spiritual, the recognition of God in His world, the moral passion that comes from knowing that God can only attain justice and brotherhood for men through men who are just and brotherly, is what the world needs. The knowledge that God marches forward with humanity in the eternal struggle for justice and brotherhood is what the world needs and what the scriptures give, but this does not depend upon any particular method of Biblical interpreta

tion.

The church to which we belong does not claim to be infallible. The church in the war is learning lessons for the future. More than ever the church is realizing that religion must get down to bed rock. In his picture of religion at the front, Donald Hankey has emphasized that the man in the trenches is overflowing with the fundamental elements of Christianity, with unselfishness, with devotion, with gentleness, with heroism, with sacrifice, but he does not know that this is essential Christianity. He does not know that the Christ speaks through these very attributes of character. He thinks of Christianity only in its smug and conventional types. By believing in the Bible, the man in the trenches too frequently thinks only of Jonah and the whale. The church is realizing, too, as never before, that she can reach the great mass of men, only by dealing with questions of religion and of life in true

man fashion. The church, as never before, will endeavour to hoop up the elemental goodness of men with the dynamic of Jesus Christ.

The church in going up against the Philistines, has a prophetic eye to the future. She would help build the day of international relations founded on brotherhood.

The Presbyterian General Assembly last May, in tendering its service to the President, used these words, "Convinced that war in itself is irrational and that it must finally be abolished by the spiritual force of international good will, we appeal to you to use your great office-that when the time comes to end the war, in harmony with the principles you have laid down, you help to secure such terms of peace as shall prepare the way for an organization of the world that will make war impossible."

In going up at the sound of a marching, the church hears the call of democracy. She realizes that the social principles of Jesus and the Prophets are the only hope of the world. The Presbyterian General Assembly, through its Commission on Social Service, is leading its people into a study of social welfare, women in industry, the claims of the labouring ranks for a more equitable share of the world's production, the problem of alcohol, and the other questions that cry for Christian solution.

In going up at the sound of a marching in the tops of the mulberry trees, the church hears the