the full; and seeing the futility in other years of
every pathetic makeshift to annoy or circumvent the enemy, put by
futilities and do a great work to justify our time.

V

We have, then, to consider and decide our immediate attitude to life,
where we stand. There are errors to remove. The first is the assumption
that we are only required to acknowledge the flag in places, offer it
allegiance at certain meetings at certain times that form but a small
part of our existence; while we allow ourselves to be dispensed from
fidelity to our principles when in other places, where other standards
are either explicitly or tacitly recognised. That we must carry our flag
everywhere; that there must be no dispensation: these are the cardinal
points of our philosophy. Life is a great battlefield, and any hour in
the day a man's flag may be challenged and he must stand and justify it.
An idea you hold as true is not to be professed only where it is
proclaimed; it will whisper and you must be its prophet in strange
places; it is insistent of all things--you must glory in it or deny it;
there is no escaping it, and there is no middle way; wherever your path
lies it will cross you and you must choose.

Beware lest on any plea you put it by. You cannot elect to do nothing;
the concourse of circumstances would take you to some side; to do
nothing is still to take a side. Priest, poet, professor, public man,
professional man, business man, tradesman--everyone will be called to
answer; in every walk of life the true idea will find the false in
conflict and the battle must be fought out there--the battle is lost
when we satisfy ourselves with an academic debate in our spare moments.
This is a debating club age, and a plea for an ideal is often wasted,
taken as a mere point in an argument; but to walk among men fighting
passionately for it as a thing believed in, is to make it real, to
influence men never reached in other ways; it is to arrest attention,
arouse interest and quicken the masses to advance. And wherever the
appeal for the flag is calling us the snare of the enemy is in wait. Our
history so bristles with instances that a particular concrete case need
not be cited. We know that priests will get more patronage if they
discourage the national idea; that professors will get more emoluments
and honours if they can ban it; that public men will receive places and
titles if they betray it; that the professional man will be promise