Victory out of Ruin

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 same in all ages. Cataclysms do not work renewal. Miracles do not regenerate. Not even the millions dead will mean a new earth or a new Britain. That new Britain of the heart's desire will only come if men and women whose souls are quickened will arise and make their world anew. The world's supreme need is not reorganisation, but a new spirit.

I

The pathos of humanity is that men are ever the victims of illusion. After Waterloo, when a conflict that waged for a quarter of a century ended, our fathers hailed the millennial dawn. But, alas! Peterloo succeeded Waterloo. The natio