the
different races and tongues of the Russian Empire was a spiritual
force; that the Russian held his faith dearer than his life; and
that even his devotion to the Czar had its origin in religion.
At this moment of perplexity and peril, will the Holy Orthodox
Church manifest her power and instil into her children the primary
conceptions of Christian citizenship?

And if we look nearer home, we must acknowledge that the condition
of England has not always been such as to inspire Heathendom with a
lively desire to be like us. A century and a half ago Charles Wesley
complained that his fellow-citizens, who professed Christianity, "the
sinners unbaptized out-sin." And everyone who remembers the social
and moral state of England during the ten years immediately preceding
the present War will be inclined to think that the twentieth century
had not markedly improved on the eighteenth. Betting and gambling,
and the crimes to which they lead, had increased frightfully, and
were doing as much harm as drunkenness used to do. There was an
open and insolent disregard of religious observance, especially
with respect to the use of Sunday, the weekly Day of Rest being
perverted into a day of extra amusement and resulting labour. There
was a general relaxation of moral tone in those classes of society
which are supposed to set a good example. There was an ever-increasing
invasion of the laws which guard sexual morality, illustrated in
the agitation to make divorce even easier than it is now. Other
and darker touches might be added; but I have said enough to make
my meaning clear. Some say that the war is teaching us to repent of
and to forsake those national offences. If so, but not otherwise,
we can reasonably connect it with the lessons of Epiphany.

II

_THE ROMANCE OF RENUNCIATION_

"What is Romance? The world well lost for an ides." I know no better
definition; and Romance in this sense is perpetually illustrated
in the history of the Church. The highest instance-save One--is,
of course, the instance of the Martyrs. When in human history has
Romance been more splendidly displayed than when the young men
and maidens of Pagan Rome suffered themselves to be flung to the
wild beasts of the arena sooner than abjure the religion of the
Cross? And close on the steps of the Martyrs follow the Confessors,
the "Martyrs-Elect," as Tertullian calls them, who, equally willing
to lay down their lives, yet denied that highest privil