the vision
of God, until at last M. Viviani celebrated the final triumph over the
Church in 1907 by exclaiming: "With one magnificent gesture we have
extinguished the lights of heaven, which none shall rekindle." France,
in the words of its present Prime Minister, "extinguished the lights of
heaven," but in so doing it extinguished something else. For to-day
that nation, that not so long ago dominated Europe, can only protect
its capital city by the help of the two nations which have not yet
extinguished the lights of heaven.

Without God patriotism becomes impotent, for God is the source of that
moral law, conformity to which means for a nation life, and defiance of
which means the degeneration that leadeth to destruction. With the
departure from God came moral decay and racial suicide. The hope of
France is this, that through the descent of the nation into the valley
of death the lights of heaven may be once more kindled; the hope of
Britain, that these same lights may shine more brightly.

The spirit of patriotism will again vivify the nation when we seek
after God. In years of prosperity we have forgotten our high calling.
We have pursued vanities and forgotten the living God. When we again
realise our calling and our election as instruments in the hand of God
for the establishment of His Kingdom of Righteousness over all the
earth, our hearts will be filled with ardour, and we shall face
whatever perils may assail us strong in the assurance that the
Omnipotent God is in our midst and that nothing can resist His will.

***

And this true patriotism will mean the salvation of the nation. For it
will strive to realise at home that righteousness which alone exalteth
a nation. Its first task will be to raise the life at home nearer to
God, for we cannot raise the world to higher levels than that on which
we ourselves stand. The vision of the new Jerusalem descending from
God out of heaven will again flame before our eyes. "And I, John, saw
the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven,
prepared as a bride for her husband."

That new Jerusalem is not a city remote in the inaccessible heights,
but a city which descends and permeates the material city now so
polluted by sin, until it becomes the "holy city," with the law of God
obeyed and the will of God done in it. Its citizens shall walk its
streets, pure in heart, seeing God everywhere. "And they shall bring
the glory and the honour