The Great Discovery Part 4

There is a tablet where formerly stood the door that led to Haddo's Hole, and there hangs on a pillar the flag that pertains of truth to the realm of romance. Men with their hearts hot with indignation buried it in Pretoria in 1880, and put above it the inscription "Resurgam." Afterwards the Colonel recovered it and brought it home.

When war broke out again his widow restored it to the regiment--the Royal Scots Fusiliers. In 1881 that regiment was the last to leave the Transvaal; in 1900 it was the first to enter the Transvaal--as the inscription narrates. And by the direction of Lord Roberts, when Pretoria was occupied, this identical flag was run up amid the shouts of the victors. Now it rests here. "Resurgam"--it is the unquenchable spirit of an invincible nation.

If only the manhood of Scotland could be gathered into this Church, under these flags, and the story they tell were put into words, pulsating with pa.s.sion--then the ranks of our Army would be filled up in a week. What a lack of imagination we reveal! We teach dates, thinking we are teaching history. The only way to teach history is by flags, and all they stand for. When Douglas threw the heart of Bruce among his enemies he cried, "Lead thou on as thou wast wont and Douglas will follow thee or die." In the spirit of Douglas our fathers followed the flags, and we will follow in the steps of our fathers and face death with undaunted hearts as they were wont. There comes to us the shouting of their triumph, and we cry: "Lead on; we will follow or die." This grey church, St. Giles', is the temple of patriotism.

Therefore our feet turn towards it in dark days, and we say, "Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem!"

How the old words are born for us anew as we thus meet as one "to entreat G.o.d for the broken peace of Christendom." We sing "G.o.d is our refuge and our strength," but there is a note of intensity in the singing now such as we never knew before. Men close their eyes, and stand, the world blotted out, before their G.o.d, realising that He and He alone is the one refuge, the only giver of victory. We hear the old story read of Moses holding up his hands and Israel prevailing on the plains below; but it is not Israel we see travailing in battle, but our own brothers in the rain-sodden trenches, and we feel the uprising of the ceaseless intercession of a nation that has anew found its G.o.d. It is not the right hand that a.s.sureth victories; it is that spirit of enthusiasm, that pa.s.sion for righteousness which filleth the heart, and that spirit is as the wind blowing where it listeth--and it cometh out of the Unseen at the call of our prayers.

When in other days we prayed for the King it was in the spirit of cold formalism. But now a lump rises in the throat as we invoke the blessing and protection of Heaven for the solitary man who is the symbol of the unity of our Empire, and who watcheth over its destinies day and night, and who has sent his son to face death with the meanest of his subjects. We hear the glorious words: "If G.o.d be for us, who can be against us?" and they are written for ourselves. We, who fight for the truth of word and for the freedom and deliverance of the oppressed, can feel that G.o.d is for us, and that all is well.

And when we pray, our voices rising as one, "Thy kingdom come," we can see that kingdom coming through blood and tears, cleansing the foul places and establishing peace on everlasting foundations. It is a new day that has dawned for us--a day in which we stand united as the subjects of the one King, as the sons of the one G.o.d--and the things that separated us one from another are swept away. What the conferring of the wise found so difficult to achieve, the roaring of the guns has accomplished. G.o.d teacheth his people by sending them through the purifying fires.

In these prayers in St. Giles' there is a directness which shows that we are there for a definite purpose. We no longer use qualifying words. We cry for victory. There is a bloodless form of prayer which some use and which sends the worshipper away with an aching heart. It is the prayer that never prays directly for victory. "Thy will be done," it prays, in the spirit of submission. But prayer is not submission; it is a wrestling. In other days our fathers wrestled in prayer and prevailed. "I spent the night in prayer," wrote Oliver Cromwell, in critical days; "I prayed G.o.d that He would guide us against the enemy. We were simple fellows of the country, and they were men of blood and fashion, but the Lord delivered them into our hands. By His grace we killed five thousand. If He continues to show mercy we will kill some more to-morrow." Such were the Ironsides, "men of a spirit," who broke the charges of the Cavaliers, as the cliff dashes back in white spray the rush of the billows.

This was also the language of the Covenanters of old; and though we no longer use such plainness of speech, we mean the same. There is a place for tenderness; but when men are ground to powder by the judgment of G.o.d, tenderness is not manifest then. When the heart whispers "Spare" and justice says "Smite," men must obey the voice of justice, stifling the voice of the heart.

Our prayers are now for justice. Better far a righteous war than an immoral peace. We have been compelled to unsheath the sword, and we pray that no heart may falter, and no cry arise for the sheathing of the sword, until justice be done. Thus our prayers have become a cry for victory.

As one sits in an ancient church such as this, there comes knocking at the heart many questions regarding that service of prayer which within its walls has linked the generations together. Can prayer really prevail with G.o.d? Can it alter the will of the Unchangeable? If there be no power in it, why should men go on praying?

We must distinguish between the will of G.o.d which is unchangeable, and His lower will which is his purpose towards us and His att.i.tude to us.

The former is unalterable; the latter varies according to the varying of our hearts. With that lower will we are called to wrestle. A man is born in poverty and obscurity, and the will of G.o.d seems to be that he should continue poor and obscure. But he wrestles with that lower will until he prevails. He ultimately moves out into the great tide of life and becomes a power. The will of G.o.d towards that man is changed.

It is the same with a nation. Here is a nation sinking on its lees with its ideals dimmed and the shrines of its fathers' G.o.d forsaken and desolate. It has fashioned to itself other G.o.ds, and the mult.i.tudes crowd the temples of the G.o.ddess of pleasure. The very race itself is sacrificed on the altar of gross pleasure, and the laughter of little children is being little by little silenced. The fires of patriotism are dying low, and the love of country gives place to the love of party. There are mean victories rejoiced over, but they are the victories of the cynic and the sensualist. There is the sound of shouting, but it is the shouting over the triumph of one self-seeking politician over another self-seeking partisan. Saintliness, which other generations held in awe and reverence, provokes now a pitying smile. Mammon alone is held in high honour and sitteth in the high places. What is the will of G.o.d towards that nation? It is this--ruin and utter destruction. Over every nation that thus succ.u.mbed to the gross and sensual, history shows the sword of G.o.d unsheathed, and at last the devouring flames of judgment.

But to such a nation there comes as if out of the silent heaven a call as a trumpet sound, summoning it to the judgment-seat of G.o.d. Over the sea comes the roar of guns. The foundations which the fathers laid in righteousness, through long neglect and decay are crumbling. An empire encircling the globe is tottering to destruction. The hay and the stubble cannot come scathless through the flames. The writing is on the wall, and as the eyes see the hand that writes, trembling seizeth upon men. And then there cometh a sudden change. The nation in a day rises out of the mora.s.s of its self-indulgence. It sets itself to lay hold again upon the eternal law of righteousness. They seek once more the shrines of their G.o.d. They set themselves to fast and to pray.

"Who can tell," they whisper one to another, "if G.o.d will turn and repent, and turn away from His fierce anger, that we perish not?"

The fields of their inglorious shouting over their games are deserted for the fields of hardness and grim preparation. Once more they gird themselves for conflict, as their fathers so often girded, that truth and righteousness may prevail over all the earth. Sharply the choice is presented to them between Christ or Odin, and though choosing the Christ means agony and woe they make their choice unhesitatingly. A new light shines in their eyes, and the work of their hands and the devisings of their hearts become the spirit of prayer. Yesterday the will of G.o.d towards that nation, sinking on its lees, was destruction; to-day towards that same nation, thus risen out of the foul miasma that was stifling its soul, the will of G.o.d is salvation.

Because prayer is the greatest power in the world; because it can alter the will of G.o.d towards us, because it can move the hand of the omnipotent G.o.d and is thus endued with His omnipotence, our prayers as we gather in the sanctuaries are no longer the submission of quietism, but a wrestling with G.o.d--the crying of a soul as in agony for victory based on the triumph of righteousness. It was such a cry that rose on that day in St. Giles.

As the second paraphrase was being sung there came the memory of words spoken in the pulpit of the great Cathedral by Dr. Cameron Lees. It was at evening service, when the shadows were gathering. "I have often sat in this pulpit," said Dr. Lees, "on the edge of the evening, and watched the shadows enveloping the Cathedral. They invaded the side chapels first, and then the nave, creeping onwards through the transepts, until the chancel was reached. After that they gathered in strength, until the whole building was in darkness, with the exception of the white figure of Christ in the great east window. I pray that the last vision vouchsafed me on earth may be just that--the Saviour of men. I can then close my eyes in the knowledge that He will lead me through the dark valley that leadeth to the eternal home."

It has been like that with the whole nation. Around our sh.o.r.es the darkness gathered, until all the horizon was black with threatening clouds. Then we lifted up our eyes and saw.... He will bring deliverance and peace. As we moved along the crowded aisles towards the door the white figure of Christ glowed in the great east window, and we felt that He will bless His people at last with peace--the peace not of death, but of life.

"Down the dark future, through long generations, The echoing sounds grow fainter and then cease, And, like a bell, with solemn sweet vibrations, I hear once more the voice of Christ say Peace.

Peace! and no longer from its brazen portals The clash of war's great organ shakes the skies; But beautiful as songs of the immortals, The holy melodies of love arise."

V

The Victory

V

The blinds were all drawn in the red-roofed house that stands at the cross-roads. It was not empty, for the smoke arose from its chimneys in the clear morning air. In other days the music of song and laughter often floated from its open windows, but now it was stricken dumb.

From it two sons had gone to take their place in the line of soul and fire that girdles these islands, warding them from destruction.

In a moment the veiled windows flashed their meaning. In the long lists of the dead I found the name I looked for. I had schooled myself to look at these lists, thinking of them in the ma.s.s as force or power; but that one name insisted on its individuality. They were all individual lives, each throbbing with intensest self-realisation, each with his love and hope and fear. There was none among them so poor but some heart clung to them. They may die, no longer in units, but in broad swathes, mown down by machine guns, but they are individual hearts still. In ma.s.ses the sea swallows them up, trenches are filled with them, but however much we try we cannot narcotise our hearts by sophistries. Some day a name stands out alone--and we realise.

All over the land, in every parish, blinds are being drawn in houses where music and laughter are silenced. There comes the surge of a wild revolt. It is not these individual hearts alone that lie stricken, it is the joy of the centuries yet to be. In nameless graves lie the dream-children who will never now be born. This criminal sealing up of the very fountain of life--how can we bear it?

And yet we open not our mouths in protest. Is it because we are losing our sensitiveness--becoming brutalised? It might be that. For nothing coa.r.s.ens the mind like that tide of hatred and pa.s.sion which war sends sweeping through the hearts of men. And yet it is not that. For when they told the mother, breaking it gently as love alone can do, that her son was dead, she bowed her head in silence, yielding herself to the solace of tears; but in a little while she said brokenly: "It is good to die so: I would not have my son shelter himself behind other mothers' sons."

No, it is not because we are already coa.r.s.ened that the heart can bear.

It is rather because we have realised with the pa.s.sing away of the old world of the last long summer days (it seems already centuries remote) that there are some things so great that they can transfigure even death. When the loyalty to the highest can only be fulfilled through death, we acquiesce in the sacrifice. In our parish we have not been coa.r.s.ened--we have been quickened.

It seems as if it were in another era that my friend at the top of the Gallows' Road proved to me convincingly that death alone was king.

With a keen irony he depicted this little globule of a world, a third-rate satellite of a fifth-rate star, floating in the abysses, in relation to the universe but as a mere grain of sand amid all the sand on the world's sh.o.r.es; and on that puny speck of a world he pictured the ephemeral generations, mere flashes of troubled consciousness--and then darkness.

It was reasonable when they thought this world the centre of all things, with the sun and moon and stars circling it round as humble ministrants, that they should believe in some high destiny for themselves. But now that they know how miserably and unspeakably insignificant the world is, it was but vanity and arrogance for any man to think of himself as of any value whatever in the scheme of things.

His life was as the flashing of a midge's wings. His end was as a candle blown out in the night.

One evening, when the air was vibrant with the melody of birds and laden with the perfume of the roses that filled the garden, he developed another train of thought. He pictured the glut of life there would be if all the generations on this and millions unnumbered of worlds all survived. With vivid gestures he pa.s.sed them all before the eye--low-browed savages, cannibals, fetish-worshippers, Calvinists, and at last the aesthetics of our day. "There would be no room for them--no use for them at all--it would be a glut which baffles all imagination."

There was no way out but that the individual perished to prevent the universe from being crowded out.

And the cobbler at the top of the brae described to me how his dog was run over in the street. "He gaed a bark--and he never gaed anither.

It'll be like that at the end with us a'. We'll gae out like my dawg."

It was a queer result of the glimpse which came to us of an illimitable universe--this cheapening of ourselves. There was nothing at last but the charnel-house of the crowded kirkyard, where the generations lay layer upon layer, and where the opening of a grave reminded the old clerk, as he quaintly declared, of nothing but a dentist's shop. The teeth survived for unrecorded centuries--but that was all.

It is strange the tricks the memory plays. For, sitting here, glancing over the crowded sheet filled with the names of the dead, I remembered these things. And there came the sense of the madness of the universe and the intolerableness of life, if the end of all heroism was but that--nothingness and corruption. A handful of bones thrown up by the beadle to make room for the dead of to-day--is that all that is left of those who handed down the lamp of life to us? Is that all that will be left of us too at the last?

In the ordinary day my friend at the top of the Gallows' Road and the cobbler on the breast of the brae would have said that that was the end. But the extraordinary day has come upon us unawares, and in the extraordinary day this little, burdened, pain-racked life becomes suddenly unendurable unless it lie in the bosom of eternity. If there be no rainbow circling the heavens above the carnage heaps of the stricken battlefields, if the farewell of death be a farewell for ever, how can the heart endure?

It certainly looks to the seeing of the eye as if destruction were the end. With the perishing of the body everything seemeth to perish: all love, all thought, all tenderness vanish for ever. But the eyes and the ears are for ever playing us false; and here, too, they deceive us.

For the world is so ordered that nothing ever perishes. In nature there is no destruction. A handful of ashes in a grate look like annihilation, but what it represents is really resurrection. The imprisoned sunrays of uncounted aeons, stored up in the lumps of coal, have been released from the prison-house, and gone forth again as heat and as light. The physical body may seem to perish; what really happens is that its const.i.tuent elements are re-grouped.

But in the realm of beauty, is there not destruction possible there?