Before beginning, and without an end,
As space eternal, and as surety sure,
Is fixed a Power divine which moves to good,
Only its laws endure.
This is its touch upon the blossomed rose,
The fashion of its hand shaped lotus-leaves;
In dark soil and the silence of the seeds
The robe of Spring it weaves.
It maketh and unmaketh, mending all;
What it hath wrought is better than had been;
Slow grows the splendid pattern that it plans,
Its wistful hands between.
This is its work upon the things ye see:
The unseen things are more; men’s hearts and minds,
The thoughts of peoples and their ways and wills,
Those, too, the great Law binds.
—Sir Edwin Arnold, Light of Asia.
Is it asked: “Who is the Law-giver, and to what end is the Law?” The question is foolish. Parts cannot know wholes, and the whole does not want parts to be anything but what they obviously are. Each fits into its place, and can do useful work there. Let it keep to tasks “of a size with its capacity”—as à Kempis says—and leave the rest. “What doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God?”
RELIGIOUS BELIEF AFTER THE WAR
There is naturally and rightly a great deal of anxiety in the minds of most thoughtful people as to the state of religion after the war. The old order seems to have come down in chaos about our ears, and we are wondering what shape the new building will take. Even our clergy, or some of them, are honestly confessing that beliefs can never be just the same again; to name only two things, they feel that the literal acceptance of the non-resistance doctrine is no longer unqualifiedly possible, as many were formerly inclined to maintain; for the aggression of Germany has made clear the necessity of resisting evil; second, that the old Protestant doctrine of immediate heaven or hell cannot satisfactorily be applied to many of the millions of young fellows who have gone over; some idea of more gradual progress through an intermediate state seems more reasonable. But will this be sufficient? Shall we jog on again, after this world-shaking cataclysm, with such a very microscopical trimming—such an almost imperceptible sail-reefing—as this? Will not rather the whole theological scheme have to be remodelled? Can nations which have suffered as the belligerents have suffered—even those at home, still more the brave lads who have gone through experiences such as they never dreamed of in their worst nightmares—can these people, even if they wish, accept the old scheme, or anything like it?