There is a joy in battle; but the greatest of all joys is to take some part, however humble, in the fight for the triumph of righteousness. There is a thrill such as can be found nowhere else in facing a mass of people whose prejudices and social customs are as an unscalable wall, in compelling their attention and, at last, in winning them to espouse your cause. To fight your opponent, loving him all the time, is the essence of Christianity. The excitement of betting on races or watching footbal

Chapters I, II, III, IV, VIII, IX, XI, XII, and XIII appeared in The Glasgow Herald , and Chapters VI, VII, and X in The Scotsman . Chapter V is based on an article in The Glasgow Herald , but it has been rewritten....

'To a large extent the working people of this country do not care any more for the doctrines of Christianity than the upper classes care for the practice of that religion.'—JOHN BRIGHT in the year 1880. It is wonderful how quickly, when a peril is past, men forget about it and straightway compose themselves to slumbrous dreams again. It was so after the Great War; it is so already regarding the great strikes. 'Don't disturb our repose,' they as good as say; 'we have had an anxious time; do let u

'To me through these thin cobwebs Death and Eternity sat gazing.'—THOMAS CARLYLE. Many eager hearts looked for the redemption of mankind to come out of Armageddon. Aceldama has been cleansed, but redemption seems to tarry. And nobody need be surprised. Out of filth and mud and horror the cleansed soul does not emerge. There was a king long ago who saw ten horrible plagues succeed each other until at last the first-born lay dead—but he was the same until the sea overwhelmed him. And man is the sa

'The ranks are gathering; on the one side of men rightly informed and meaning to seek redress by lawful and honourable means only, and on the other of men capable of compassion and open to reason but with personal interests at stake so vast and with all the gear and mechanism of their arts so involved in the web of past iniquity that the best of them are helpless and the wisest blind.'—The Right Hon. C. F. G. MASTEBMAN. It is difficult for men and women to arrive at a true estimate of their own

The deadliest foe of humanity is the deadening power of custom. What we have seen from our earliest days has no power to stir our conscience or kindle the fire of indignation. It may be the case that when Lot went down to Sodom he was at first 'vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked.' But he did not continue vexed very long. He got to like it. At last he sat at the gates of that city with great enjoyment. As he sank into the mire he became unconscious of the slough. Otherwise he would

Every great social advance made by men in the past has been made under the pressure of public opinion. That public opinion was created by a free and an unfettered Press. The grim fact that we are now faced with is that the day of the free Press is over. Syndicates of capitalists control the Press of the country, and newspapers whose circulation approaches a couple of millions create the opinion their owners desire. The duty of the newspaper is to record facts, and communicate to the people the c

The history of humanity is in large measure the history of its own illusions. It has always been towards the mirage that men have tramped with bleeding feet, only to strew the desert with bleached bones. One great illusion has been that the golden age would come when the world's autocracies gave place at last to democracy, and the will of the multitude became law. It has come; democracy now wields the world's sceptre. But alas! the golden age tarries, and the wistful doubt arises whether the gre

It was to attend a Congress of Churches that I crossed the Atlantic, but it is not listening to speeches that gives a realisation of any country. It is when wandering about the streets, sitting in cafés, listening in a smoking-car, or talking to a man in a hotel lounge that one forms some impression of the atmosphere which Americans breathe. It has been asserted, doubtless with truth, that human aberrations are a misplaced worship. That happiness which men were created to find in fellowship with

The supreme need of the world to-day is peace. Europe is sinking into the morass of despair because across their frontiers a dozen nations drilled and armed are watching each other with sullen eyes. From the shores of the Pacific to the long wash of Australasian seas everywhere it is the same. Civilisation is perishing; but it is a civilisation armed to the teeth that is awaiting its obsequies. Every newspaper proclaims the one need is Peace. The Conference on disarmament has but one word to exp

There is an old Gaelic proverb that says: 'Where there is heart-room there also is house-room.' There was room enough in that mean inn for the farmers with their pouches filled with money for the tax, for the soldiers that swaggered with the pride of empire, for the village-talebearers with their rude jests; but for a poor woman in the hour of her need there was no room. She was shut out because there was not found in that inn any with heart big enough to make room for her. What was she anyway?—

No part of the Empire rendered the cause of the world's soul in the world war greater service than Canada. When the clouds of chlorine gas were let loose it was the Canadians who stopped the gap through which the torrent of destruction was flowing. And the question the wounded men gasped out of tortured throats and lungs was not 'Shall I live?' but 'Did the Huns get through?' In the great host that at last swept the wolves back to their lair, the Canadians were foremost. 'We pledge ourselves sol

'He would denounce the horrors of Christmas until it almost made me blush to look at a hollyberry.'—EDMUND GOSSE'S Father and Son . The world is moving so fast that, before each nightfall, yesterday is forgotten. Sitting here before the fire I have been stirring up my memory, and, out of the subconscious, queer recollections have emerged. I can see now the grim-faced Highland minister demonstrating in the month of December to his perfect satisfaction that the Founder of Christianity was born in

If there be no will guiding the affairs of men towards a predestined end, what a meaningless welter it all is! What a record of wars and feuds, of rising and of perishing empires, of civilisations born and civilisations overwhelmed: in very truth 'A tale Told by an idiot: full of sound and fury Signifying nothing.' There is unity and a new dignity in the tale when one gets up on a hill and sees it in far perspective. Things did not happen by chance. There was through it all a purpose at work, we

The world has always been a hard place for minorities. Majorities are capable of crimes which, as individuals, they would shrink from in horror. And no crimes that stain the pages of history can equal in ghastly cruelty those which have been perpetrated under the influence of religious passions. The Founder of Christianity was crucified at the frenzied call of those who were the most devout and religious of their day. The Pharisees prayed nine hours a day! Their cry, 'Crucify! Crucify!' still ri

'It is a book that shakes the heart.... We know no man who has seen into the heart and verity of things more clearly, "Awake thou that sleepest...." In the hands of a master in Israel the same thrilling, disturbing cry will wake men from their apathy and complacency.'— The British Weekly . 'One of our prophetic voices is Norman Maclean.... Some people do not know how dead they are, and others do not know how much life there is in the apparently dead. Let both sorts read this book and awake.... A