o hit it; his will be done! This attitude, thus absurdly
applied, had in more important realms a lamentable consequence. The
campaign of Christian missions to foreign lands was bitterly fought in
wide areas of the Christian Church because if God intended to damn the
heathen he should be allowed to do so without interference from us; his
will be done! As for slavery, the last defense which it had in this
country was on religious grounds: that God had ordained it and that it
was blasphemous to oppose his ordination. In a word, this spirit of
passive resignation has been so deeply ingrained in religious thinking
that it has become oftentimes a serious reproach to Christian people.

Now, however, the mood of modern Christianity is decisively in contrast
with that medieval spirit. Moreover, we think that we are close to the
Master in this attitude, for whatever difference in outward form of
expectation there may be between his day and ours, when he said: "Thy
kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth," that was not
passive submission to God's will but an aggressive prayer for the victory
of God and righteousness; it was not lying down under the will of God as
something to be endured, but active loyalty to the will of God as
something to be achieved. To be resigned to evil conditions on this
earth is in our eyes close to essential sin. If any one who calls
himself a conservative Christian doubts his share in this anti-medieval
spirit, let him test himself and see. In 1836 the Rev. Leonard Wood, D.
D., wrote down this interesting statement: "I remember when I could
reckon up among my acquaintances forty ministers, and none of them at a
great distance, who were either drunkards or far addicted to drinking. I
could mention an ordination which took place about twenty years ago at
which I myself was ashamed and grieved to see two aged ministers
literally drunk, and a third indecently excited." [2] Our forefathers
were resigned to that, but we are not. The most conservative of us so
hates the colossal abomination of the liquor traffic, that we do not
propose to cease our fight until victory has been won. We are
belligerently unresigned. Or when militarism proves itself an
intolerable curse, we do not count it a divine punishment and prepare
ourselves to make the best of its continuance. We propose to end it.
Militarism, which in days of peace cries, Build me vast armaments, spend
enough upon a single d