Danger such as we are facing should drive the petty little meannesses
out of us, one would think, and call out all the latent heroism of our
people. People talk about this being the Church's day of opportunity.
So it is, for the war is teaching us ethical values, which has always
been a difficult matter. We like things that we can see, lay out, and
count! But the war has changed our appraisement of things, both of men
and of nations. A country may be rich in armies, ships, guns, and
wealth, and yet poor, naked, and dishonored in the eyes of the world;
a country may be broken, desolate, shell-riven, and yet have a name
that is honorable in all the earth. So with individuals. We have set
too high a value on property and wealth, too low an estimate on
service.

Our ideas of labor have been wrong. Labor to us has meant something
disagreeable, which, if we endure patiently for a season, we may then
be able to "chuck." Its highest reward is to be able to quit it--to go
on the retired list.

"Mary married well," declared a proud mother, "and now she does not
lift a hand to anything."

Poor Mary! What a slow time she must have!

The war is changing this; people are suddenly stripped of their
possessions, whether they be railroad stock, houses, or lands, or,
like that of a poor fellow recently tried for vagrancy here, whose
assets were found to be a third interest in a bear. It does not
matter--the wealthy slacker is no more admired than the poor one.
Money has lost its purchasing quality when it comes to immunity from
responsibility.

The cooerdination of our people has begun, the forces of unity are
working; but they are still hindered by the petty little jealousies
and disputes of small people who do not yet understand the seriousness
of the occasion. So long as church bodies spend time fighting about
methods of baptism, and call conventions to pass resolutions against
church union, which would unquestionably add to the effectiveness of
the Church and enable it to make greater headway against the powers of
evil; so long as the channels through which God's love should flow to
the people are so choked with denominational prejudice, it is not much
wonder that many people are experiencing a long, dry spell, bitterly
complaining that the fountain has gone dry. Love, such as Christ
demonstrated, is the only hope of this sin-mad world. When the Church
shows forth that love and leads the people to see that the reservoirs
of