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 morass 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 God. They set themselves to fast and to pray.
"Who can tell," they whisper one to another, "if God 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 God 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 God is salvation.

Because prayer is the greatest power in the world; because it can alter
the will of God towards us, because it can move the hand of the
omnipotent God 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 God--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.