rected to the destruction of human life, such
as the world has never known. Even from the towers of the village
churches floats the Red Cross of St. George, recalling the war-song
of an older patriotism--"In the name of our God we will set up
our banners."[*]

[Footnote: Psalm xx. 5.]

Yes, this fair world of ours wears an altered face, and what this
year is "the promise of May"? It is the promise of good and truth
and fruitfulness forcing their way through "the rank vapours of
this sin-worn mould." It is the promise of strong endurance, which
will bear all and suffer all in a righteous cause, and never fail
or murmur till the crown is won. It is the promise of a brighter
day, when the skill of invention and of handicraft may be once
more directed, not to the devices which destroy life, but to the
sciences which prolong it, and the arts which beautify it. Above
all, it is the promise of a return, through blood and fire, to
the faith which made England great, and the law which yet may wrap
the world in peace.

"For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth
the things that are sown in it to spring forth; so the Lord God
will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all
the nations" (Isa. lxi. II).

VI

_PAGEANTRY AND PATRIOTISM_

Long years ago, when religious people excited themselves almost
to frenzy about Ritualism, Mr. Gladstone surveyed the tumult with
philosophic calm. He recommended his countrymen to look below the
surface of controversy, and to regard the underlying principle.
"In all the more solemn and stated public acts of man," he wrote,
"we find employed that investiture of the acts themselves with
an appropriate exterior, which is the essential idea of Ritual.
The subject-matter is different, but the principle is the same:
it is the use and adaptation of the outward for the expression
of the inward." The word "ritual" is by common usage restricted
to the ecclesiastical sphere, but in reality it has a far wider
significance. It gives us the august rite of the Convocation, the
ceremonial of Courts, the splendour of regiments, the formal usages
of battleships, the silent but expressive language of heraldry and
symbol; and, in its humbler developments, the paraphernalia of
Masonry and Benefit Societies, and the pretty pageantry of Flag-days
and Rose-days. Why should these things be? "Human nature itself,
with a thousand tongues, utters the reply. The marriage of