Victory out of Ruin

by Norman Maclean

I

It is difficult for men to learn the lesson of their own most bitter experience. Only when the Cross stands far back across the years does its meaning and purpose faintly gleam on the minds of men. It need be no matter for surprise that men who did not themselves stand in the breach of death should be unable to articulate the master-word of the future. That great word will be—Spirit. What the world gazed on for four years of woe was the triumph of the spirit. To the men who, footsore and limping, marched back from Mons, defeat was incredible—their souls knew not the word. And because victory, even as they retreated, was in their souls, they swept the enemy back from the gates of Paris. For four years in mud and misery and defeat the soul endured and triumphed. It was the greatest of all the soldiers of France who said to his body as it shrank in his first battle: 'Tremblest thou? If thou knewest the dangers into which I shall this day carry thee, thou wouldest tremble!' Often and often in these four years the poor worn suffering body said, 'I have had enough—enough of mud and vermin—I am fed up; I will do no more,' but when the call of duty came the soul said to the body, 'I will make you face it, make you go through with it'; and the soul compelled the body to charge into the very face of death. It was the spark of the Divine in the soul that enabled our brothers to conquer the shrinking of flesh and blood and so to conquer the foe. It is in the measure that armies are souls that armies conquer. And it has been the same at home in castle and cot-house. We have but to think of the wives and mothers.

'They let them go forth at the wheels
Of the guns and denied not. But then the surprise
When one sits quiet alone! Then one weeps, then one kneels,
God! how the house feels.'

However deeply the iron pierced, there was never a thought of defeat being even possible. And when the call came the women toiled in the factories, and the ammunition dumps were their spirit materialised. At home and in the battle-line the final destiny of every nation depends upon the soul.

II

Still more is the mastery of this word apparent when we consider the future destiny of the world. One result of the world's blood-bath is that all thoughtful men are asking, How can the world be saved in the future? And multitudes discuss the way of the world's salvation by a League of Nations or other method. By parchments and signatures the world is to be saved! All that is but the folly with which men have deceived themselves in all ages. The folly is apparent when we ask, Whence do wars spring? They spring from greed and lust and ambition—from the life surrendered to evil. We speak of the horror of war; what we should speak of is the horror of wickedness. For war is only a symptom, not the disease. What all these weary discussions about 'Leagues to make an end of war,' and the new watchword 'No more war,' aim at is the doing away with the symptom—leaving the disease to run its deadly course. To suppress symptoms without removal of the hidden cause is the way of death. What the nations must face is the disease and its healing!

It is with nations as with individuals! How can a man protect himself against a thief. He can do it in three ways. He may (1) use force; or (2) he may make an agreement with the thief—enter into a treaty with him; or (3) he may endeavour to reform the thief. The first method is militarism and, whether in the form of armies or policemen, is costly and uncertain. The second only protects so long as the thief finds it convenient or in his own interest to keep it. Neither a burglar nor a robber-state can be warded off by treaties. The third alone provides a certain protection; the only safety is that the thief experience a change of spirit—be, in short, converted. 'Admirable,' said Cardinal Fleury, when a scheme for 'perpetual peace' was submitted to him; 'admirable, save for one omission—I find no provision for sending missionaries to convert the hearts of princes.' The day of princes is over, and the day of democracy has come. The first requisite of perpetual peace is that the nations of the world experience a change of heart and spirit—should repent. But in all the schemes for ending war there is no suggestion of sending missionaries to convert the world's democracies. France has 'extinguished the lights of heaven which none shall rekindle'; England, if the number of worshippers in the churches be any gauge, is rapidly sinking back into paganism; and across the Atlantic the United States is resolved to live unto itself alone, separating itself from the perishing nations; while on the Continent of Europe there is but one ritual: 'We did no wrong: we did not begin the war.' Missionaries to convert the democracies of the world—they are needed in legions. But such a need is not in all the thoughts of the orators. They can only think of forming leagues to abolish the vultures that swoop down on the carcases. They cannot realise that the only way to make an end of the swooping vulture is to make an end of carcases. Unless the world experiences a spiritual and moral renewal, any league that would secure it peace in the midst of its depravity would only secure its moral doom. It is manifest then that the only way to abolish war is to bring the body into subjection to the spirit. The way of salvation is the way of spiritual renewal. Love does not kill or poison, and humanity's feet need to be guided into the way of love. Along that road there is but the one guide: He who said 'I am the way.... Love as I have loved you.' The measure of that love is the Cross. And that is why the way to salvation leads through Calvary.... Peace will only come when the kingdoms of this world shall submit to that kingdom of the soul whose dominion is from sea to sea. 'I find a hundred little indications to reassure one that God comes,' writes H. G. Wells. 'The time draws near when mankind will awake ... and there shall be ... no leader but the one God of mankind.' But though Mr. Wells writes sentences so vital as that, yet when one asks him what God is—he is silent. Is He holy and righteous? Though Mr. Wells' God is but an abstraction, yet the truth remains. The coming of the Kingdom of God is the one hope of mankind—that Kingdom which Jesus preached. And the entrance into that Kingdom is by way of repentance and love and faith. When the soul of the world awakes to that, the day of deliverance shall have dawned.

III

This, then, must be the goal of human effort, to bring the nations of the world into such a unity of spirit that war will no longer be thinkable. But we, as a nation, can only do this if we ourselves bring our lives into conformity with the laws of righteousness. It is manifest that no amount of oratory will enable us to raise the world to any higher level than we have attained ourselves.

The first duty, then, is to see that we base our own lives on righteousness. The problem is how to bring to bear on the human heart those motives that will move it irresistibly towards righteousness. That road is not easy to travel and the choice of it means effort and travail. It means a battle against selfishness and self-seeking—a battle long-drawn-out. Why should men choose that conflict rather than ease and self-indulgence? There can be no reason save this: that God wills and enjoins righteousness. But does He? We know very little about God, and the strange thing is that the more knowledge that comes to us regarding Him, the more mysterious He becomes. But there is one thing that we do know with absolute certainty regarding God, and it is this—that all down the thousands of years of recorded history the power of the Unseen Ruler of the universe can be traced fighting against iniquity, burying corrupt nations under the avalanche, digging the grave for tyranny and corruption. The history of the world is the history of God making an end of crime. The way to destruction has been the way of iniquity. That God should have so ordered the universe that the stars in their courses fight against the Siseras, that all its forces are at last arrayed for the destruction of evil, is the proof that God is righteous and holy and that the passion in His heart is that His children should be righteous and holy. The world, as God means it, is the school for the training of men and women in goodness—and so in the image of God.... It is only the call of the Unseen Ruler as He summons His children to bring their lives into unison with Himself, that can turn the feet into the way of righteousness. There is no impelling force equal to the choice of good rather than evil except this—that God wills goodness. No other motive save that can turn the faces of men towards the heights.