he Lord of Heaven and Earth before whom we are but as
dust, that we shrink from coupling His great name with ours. "Are you
sure that God is on your side?" Abraham Lincoln was asked in the dark
days of the American Civil War. "I have not thought about that," he
replied; "but I am very anxious to know whether we are on God's side."
And when the causes of this war are examined the assurance grows
stronger and stronger that we are on God's side. That is why the whole
nation has been welded into the unity and consistency of polished
steel; why the fire of patriotism burns in our midst with an intenser
heat than ever before.

***

It is not merely from the righteousness of our cause in this war that
our patriotism draws inspiration, but also from the ideals for which
our Empire stands over all the world. As we look out to-day on the
Empire which our fathers bequeathed us, taking it all in all, it stands
for righteousness as no other on earth. It stands for the freedom of
the soul and the freedom of the body all over the world.

Think of India, whose three hundred millions have been rescued from
tyranny and ceaseless bloodshed, whose widows have been saved from the
flames, whose starving have been fed in famine, and to whom the British
race brought security and peace. "When I think," said ex-President
Taft, "of what England has done in India ... how she found those many
millions torn by internecine strife, disrupted with constant wars,
unable to continue agriculture or the arts of peace, with inferior
roads, tyranny, and oppression; and when I think what the Government of
Great Britain is now doing for these alien races, the debt the world
owes England ought to be acknowledged in no grudging manner."

No work ever done on earth for the elevation of humanity can compare
with that wrought in India by our race for the uplift of humanity; and
it is the same wherever the standard of Britain waves. In our own day
we have seen in Egypt a whole race rising out of the mud and clothed
anew in the garments of self-respect. Through Africa, wherever the
sway of Britain extends, though yesterday the land reeked with blood,
to-day mercy and kindness are healing the woes of men, and millions who
knew not when death lurked for them in the bush now sleep in peace
under the palms. It was the might of Britain that destroyed the slave
trade, and it is nothing except the might of Britain which prevents the
slave raider resuming his ne