Then again, the Providence of Ged in history is against excess of fear. Again and again, the world has been in the direst straits, yet God has brought it through. "There is a hand that guides." Take the end of the Roman Empire. Wild, barbarous, heathen tribes broke into Europe. They destroyed the cities; they made the whole of mid-Europe a "devastate ed area,"' as the Saxons did England. With the year 1000 AD., the idea spread all over Europe that the end of the world was to come, as it seemed to be prophesied in the Book of Revelations, but the be out for was to "beseech men _to be reconciled to God" through Christ. He was sure that, with that attained in all individuals, all would be right with the world.
The great St. Augustine gives us a needed lesson as to how to take the strange and disconcerting happenings in the chequered history of the world. The barbarians took and sacked Rome in 410 A. D. It looked as if the very foundations of the world had been destroyed when Rome was sacked. en he wrote his great book "The City of God," in which he shows that the Walton Newbold, a Communist, Motherwell division of Elasgow. was ati the top of the poll in the While the Left wing were winning these easy victories by going the whole hog for the Capital Levy and the general socialization of industry, the trade union section were experiencing much harder times. All the winners of the recent by-elections were defeated by candidates of the older political parties, and most of the new trade. union candidates who expected easy victories by reason of their moderation were disappointed and found themselves either at the bottom, of most terrible political disasters the poll or between the winning spiritual Kvagdom a God, that Conservative and the losing Liberal. The many reverses trade unionists had been growing in the past and have suffered in the industrial world that Christ had died for. So he during the past two years have was without fear. The kingdom considerably lowered the estimation of holiness, faith, goodness and in which union officials are held, love cannot be overthrown.
At the by-elections they had plat-Finally, There is the Saviour form support from all the leading Himself. Be of good cheer; it is lights in the Labour movement and I, be not afraid." He is with us. were successful despite their obvious He died and rose again, to be in intellectual disabilities. Their sup-the world with all its sorrows and porters did the talking while they commotions a saving, healing, demonstrated by their colourless uplifting power. "Lo, I am with respectability that they were not you always, to the end of the the blood-stained Bolsheviks their world." "They were distressed in rowing." rue; but He was near. So with us. Begin the year with this great thought, that whatever happens to you, He is not far away. And so with the nations. He is in the world's history. We do not always see Him., We are like soldiers in a battle. We have no idea of the general run of the engagement; we can see only the confused fighting under our eyes. He sees*it all. He knows the run of the whole engagement of life. God is mature ing His purposes, and the kingdom of God comes all the time, though opponents foolishly alleged them to be. At the General Election they had themselves to do most of the work and the talking, and their dimitations were consequently more conspicuous to the electors.
Their timidity and moderation, commendable as it might be, hand-leapped them in another way. Labour candidates for Parliament are largely dependent on the evangelical fervour and enthusiasm of their unpaid street corner workers and house-to-house canvassers. The best of these are young people who believe that if only the socialist gospel can be got to the people the millennial dawn
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.