And that brings us straight up to the New Testament, expecting the very story—yes, asking for the very chapters—to carry on the great witness of Nature and of conscience. And there we find the story just as we should expect, only more so. To use Archbishop Temple's phrase, the character depicted in the New Testament educates our conscience instead of merely satisfying it. It is a more glorious exhibition of the character of God than we had any right to ask, and all carried out personally by Himself. The help that was brought to earth, He brought it Himself. And just as, on a gloomy day, when bright sunshine bursts through clouds, it changes everything, so this revelation changes everything. It does not do away with difficulties; it lights them up. It does not do away with suffering, but lights it up. It is quite another thing to suffer or to see suffering if God suffered. "Then I can feel the bullet tear out my eyes and still believe," as a young officer to whom this happened still believes. It does not do away with the crime of the men who have wantonly produced this unnecessary war, and who have trampled underfoot every law of chivalry and humanity in carrying it out. But it does give great inspiration to those who die for what has been called the nailed hand against the mailed fist. "As Christ died for the salvation of the world, my two boys have died according to their lights for the same cause. May I not think"—asked a Colonel who lost both his sons in one week—"that Christ counts them as His comrades in arms?"
And what that thought did for him it will do for others. It does not do away with the inequalities of human life, but like a trumpet note it summons every man and woman to come and rally round Him who sprang into the midst of them and gave His life, and who, while employing human minds and hearts for His work, means that the help that is done upon earth He doeth it Himself.
What, then, has all this to say to a conference of women workers? It suggests a warning, and flashes an inspiration to you. It suggests a warning. It is possible that the keenest, ablest women, like the keenest, ablest men, may make a mistake which might more clearly be seen to be ludicrous if it were not so common, that they imagine they can accomplish great things without God. History is strewn with the failures of those who have made this tragic and hopeless mistake. Many humble and noble souls who in infinite distress have found faith impossible have been really in touch with this wonderful and righteous and loving Person without knowing it, and have left behind them on earth the work which God did through them, and who acknowledge now in a clearer atmosphere that the work that they had done He did it Himself. But the merely busy men and women, the man or woman who deliberately believes like Nebuchadnezzar: "Is not this great Babylon that I have built by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?" have been the failure, the laughing-stock of the world; they have been out of touch with the Source of all power, and wisdom, and grace, and the world, when they have passed, will be the same as it was before.
But if it suggests a warning, what inspiration, dear sisters, it flashes before you! not so much to do something you have never done before, but possibly to do it in a different spirit; for the first time in your life, perhaps, to be consciously fellow-workers with God, to come again and again to God, and to fill yourselves with great heartfuls of His power and love, to unite yourself in sacramental union to Him who came to seek for the lost, to lift up all work into a new atmosphere, and to find a joy in it which the world can neither give nor take away.
That is the glorious prospect which opens out before us all. God has no favourites; He is the same for all, and invites all to join in the great comradeship which changes life. It is the chance of our life to accept His offer. "The help that is done upon earth He doeth it Himself;" and as you find the reality of that help at your disposal more and more, day by day and year by year, you will look up as trench after trench is taken in a power obviously not yours, to gladly acknowledge: "Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but to Thy name give the praise."
IV
MISSIONARY WORK THE ONLY FINAL CURE FOR WAR[5]
"They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain: for the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea."—Isa. xi. 9.