attained a quiet and reasonable confidence in the issue, we turn to
other and broader aspects of this mighty event of our generation. How
comes it that the most enlightened century the world has yet seen should
be thus darkened by one of the bloodiest and most calamitous wars that
have ever spread their awful wings over the life of man? Where is all
the optimism of yesterday? Must we reconsider our reasoned boast that
our civilisation has lifted the life of man to a level hitherto
unattained? Is there something entirely and most mischievously wrong
with the foundations of modern civilisation?

A dozen such questions will press for an answer, but it will be granted
that one of the most urgent and most interesting of the many grave
considerations which the war suggests is its relation to the prevailing
creeds and standards of conduct. The war coincides with an advanced
stage of what is called the spread of unbelief. In each of the nations
of Europe which are engaged in this awful struggle complaints have been
made every year for the last two or three generations that Christianity
is losing its moral control of the white race. In the cities, especially
in the capitals, of Europe there has been a proved and acknowledged
decay of church-going; and, however much we may be disposed to think
that these millions who no longer attend church retain in their minds
the beliefs of their fathers, the slender circulation of religious
literature makes it plain that the vast majority of them do not, in
point of fact, receive either the spoken or written message of the
Christian Church. In the great cities--and it is undoubted that the life
of a nation is mainly controlled by its cities--there has been an
increasing reluctance to listen to the authoritative exponents of the
Christian gospel.

A number of the clergy have very naturally noticed and stressed this