Article August 18, 1917 Issue

From Our Exchanges

with contributions from A. Maude Royden, Peter Ainslee

[The Congregationalist and Christian World]

Ex-President Eliot of Harvard University was right when he said at the recent dinner of the alumni of Andover Theological Seminary that one cause of the war was the failure of the churches to put before the world an adequate conception of God. It is true that those who profess to believe in Him, whether they call themselves Roman Catholic or Jewish or Protestant, have not succeeded in making His existence so real and His will for His children so clear and commanding as to enable them to live together without resorting to arms for the composing of their differences. If a sense of the majesty, righteousness, and love of God had pervaded mankind generally, war would have been an impossibility. But already one effect of the war has been the discovery of God on the part of many who did not know Him before, and the rediscovery of Him by those who have had only a formal or traditional knowledge of Him. [Miss A. Maude Royden in The Christian Commonwealth]

Is it perhaps possible that out of the very anguish and darkness of war, out of the very depth of our economic misery, our industrial struggle, our international strife, we, who cannot live without God, who dare not, who cannot face life, if these terrific physical forces are all—may it not be that out of the very heart of this misery we shall be shocked into a realization of the greatness of the soul of man, and these still greater spiritual powers which dominate the physical world? Greater works than these shall ye do, said he who healed the sick and raised the dead. His promise no more fails than do his laws. It is we who have failed, it is we who turned our backs upon the truth in fear. But greater works than these shall ye do. "Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends."

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