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people. Those who value trade highly, as most do of those to whom war is entirely evil and absolutely wrong, will not be able to blind themselves to the good which may at least be occasioned by evil, if victorious Japan should compel the Chinese to open their whole empire freely to foreign trade. This will do the Chinese themselves more good, in the mere maintenance of physical life and well-being, than they will have suffered harm in the slaughter of their worthless armies and the disabling of costly vessels. A war is sharp, but it does not last long, whilst these vast boons go on spreading their influence from year to year and from generation to generation.

Such historical observations may make us doubtful whether the time has yet come in the counsels of God for the superseding of war, and therefore less willing to risk the honour and greatness of our country on the chance that no foreign Power will ever offer us an insult or do us an injury; but they ought not to persuade statesmen-and I do not believe that they would to speculate in war as a means of gaining something for their country and for mankind. I would echo the doctrine of the Quakers, that where duty is clear, the results of doing it are to be left in God's hands. God knows better than we do how His world is to be governed. He must have ways, whether we can imagine them or not, of governing the world without war. He must know how to save a people from being engrossed by money-getting, or surrendering themselves to the excitements of frivolity and carnal pleasure, or being turned into sheep by the dull and comfortable routine of a quiet life. And nothing can be clearer than the Christian duty of doing what makes for peace. It can never be right to be insolent, grasping, false to engagements. We ought to be lovers of our country, and it cannot be wrong that a blush of anger should come into the

cheek of a Christian citizen if the honour of his nation should be outraged or its rightful interests assailed; but it is still more certainly right that the blush should turn itself into one of shame if the country that he loves should be betrayed by its Government into aggressive or justly irritating action, especially towards a weaker state. The ideal bearing of a Christian Power in international relations seems to be that of a high-spirited gentleman of the old time-of a person, that is, trained to the use of arms, ready to resent a purposed outrage, but mindful of the obligations of courtesy and honour and social harmony, conscious that his station pledges him to self-restraint and magnanimity, unwilling to wound yet not afraid to strike.

THE COLONIES.

BY THE

REV. BERNARD R. WILSON, M.A.,

Rector of Kettering.

"His seed shall become a multitude of nations."-GEN. xlviii. 19.

Summoned

THE old Hebrew patriarch lay dying. to his bedside, his sons are to be "gathered together to hearken unto Israel their father," as with prophetic insight, made more penetrating by approaching death, he gives to each his final message. But first Joseph, his best-loved son, has brought his own two lads, born to him in Egypt, to receive the old man's parting blessing. "God.. . . bless the lads," he says, "and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth." And then, with growing keenness of prophetic vision, he looks down the ages of the future, and, singling out the younger lad, lays upon Ephraim's head his right hand, and promises to his tribe a destiny of growing power. "His seed shall become a multitude of nations."

We must not stay to consider what measure of fulfilment the words received in the later history of the powerful tribe of Ephraim, with its predominant influence, its men of war, its royal house and goodly cities.

They lend themselves to our present purpose, and far more literally describe a national growth and development of modern times even more remarkable

G

and quite as unexpected as that of Israel of old from a clan to a people.

The English people, once isolated among the nations of Europe, numerically insignificant, overshadowed by more powerful neighbours, by a wonderful outburst of national vigour and development, extending over three and a half centuries, has grown into a multitude in the midst of the earth". "a multitude of nations" reproducing in the uttermost parts of the earth their own free institutions of self-government, yet bound together by ties of common kinship and common interest, and by a very real sentiment of common love.

This expansion of England, the causes which have produced it, the essential conditions of its permanent stability, and the larger moral responsibility which devolves upon each citizen of our great empire,-these are the subjects for our consideration to-day, not unfitly introduced by the suggestive words of the dying patriarch, which lend themselves as a suitable motto to the story of the English people. The greatness and importance of the subject may well claim our closest attention, and if the complexity of the issues involved seem to make its adequate treatment well-nigh impossible, I can only ask your pardon, and express the hope that you will follow out for yourselves some of the lines of thought which I can only hope to suggest to you in barest outline.

Only, before we finally turn our thoughts from the death-bed of the patriarch, let me point out that his words are not merely a convenient motto, but to this extent a text that they suggest an underlying moral correspondence with the central thought which I desire to emphasize. The so-called blessings of Jacob to his sons are, as you remember, prophetic outlines of the varying fortunes of their tribes in

later days. And the characteristic feature of his prophecy is this, that the moral and spiritual character of the fathers, reproduced in their children through successive generations, is the determining factor which will shape the social and political fortunes of their several descendants. Reuben and Simeon will hand on characters which will fail to leave a mark upon the world. Their names will be blotted out from the map of the tribes. Judah and Joseph have gained a personal force of character which, if maintained, will make their offspring great and mighty peoples.

It is this suggestive thought, that the political welfare of peoples is determined by moral considerations, which justifies such a subject for a sermon as that proposed to you to-day. It is not, then, wholly unreasonable to go to church to hear about the colonies. Rather we may rejoice that in a course of sermons in which a consistent effort is being made to turn the light of Christian teaching upon modern social problems, space has been found for a brief study of those problems peculiar to us as a people whose "seed has become a multitude of nations."

"The expansion of England" has become the almost hackneyed phrase by which we describe the steady upgrowth of this multitude of nations. Familiar as the thought has become, it still stirs the feelings of most of us. We are proud of our great empire over which the sun never sets, and of the oceans of the world which have become the highways for British commerce. We are proud of the vigorous life of our growing colonies, and of the British flag under which peace and order are secured to distracted peoples. We rejoice at the confidence inspired by the British name among countless uncivilized races of the world. But are we at the pains to study the causes which have led to English greatness,

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