arned
very thoroughly in those countries, it is to love England. She has no
braver or more devoted sons and lovers within her own shores than our
kinsmen oversea. You will find we shall have fresh proofs of that very
soon. Meantime, just in passing, I want to tell you this: You have read
something in the papers of _The Citizens_, the organization of
Britishers who are sworn to the defence of Britain. I am here to tell
you about them. Well, in the past fortnight, I have received two hundred
and forty cable messages from representative citizens in Canada, South
Africa, Australia, India, and other parts of the Empire, claiming
membership, and promising support through thick and thin, from thousands
of our kinsfolk oversea. So, before I begin, I give you the greeting of
men of our blood from all the ends of the earth. They are with us heart
and hand, my friends, and eager to prove it. And now I am going to tell
you something about _The Citizens_."

But before that last sentence had left Crondall's lips, we were in the
thick of another storm of cheering. The religious character of the
Canadian preachers' meetings had been sufficient to prevent these
outbursts of popular feeling; but now the public seemed to welcome the
secular freedom of _The Citizens'_ gathering, as an opportunity for
giving their feelings vent. I am not sure that it was John Crondall's
message from the Colonies that they cheered. They were moved, I am sure,
by a vague general approval of the idea of a combination of citizens for
British defence. But their cheering I take to have been produced by
feelings they would have been hard put to it to define in any way. They
had been deeply stirred by the teaching of the Canadian preachers. In
short, they had been seized by the fundamental tenets of the simple
faith which has since come to be known to the world as "British
Christianity"; and they were eager to find some way in which they could
give tangible expression to the faith that was burgeoning within them;
stirring them as young mothers are stirred, filling them with resolves
and aspirations, none the less real and deep-seated because they were as
yet incoherent and shapeless.

I am only quoting the best observers of the time in this description of
public feeling when John Crondall made his great recruiting speech for
_The Citizens_. The event proved my chief to have been absolutely right
in his reckoning, absolutely sound in his judgment. He had urged from