Have you ever asked yourself, Why am I in the world? Many people say, have a good time. And they are, in time, disillusioned, Dean Inge remarks, this world is a failure as a pleasure garden; but it was never meant to be a pleasure garden. No—surely, the purpose of life is the formation of character. And have you not noticed how very often the noblest and tenderest characters we know are those who have suffered, though to others those sufferings appear so uncalled for, so unfair? Christ's life shows us that though evil often triumphs, good comes out of evil, though not always at once. Our life on earth is too short and our knowledge too limited, to say cither that our prayers are failures or that the world is full of injustice.
God's Will clearly is that there should be peace among men of good will, If men refuse His Will and insist on war, He permits war, horrible though it is. If men are filled with. the desire for God's Will to be done on earth as itis done in Heaven, then they ce-operate with God, and there is peace. Prayers were offered all over the world that war might be averted; all nations showed clearly that they did mot want war, whatever their leaders wanted. Peace, any way for a time, has come; peace cannot remain unless God's Will is done, and it will only be done if enough people pray for it—for it, not for their own pleasures or prosperity.
If our prayers are worth anything, they must focus our thoughts and desires; if they are to be worth anything in God's sight, they must focus our thoughts and desires on cooperating with God, so that His Will shall be done.
Now, if we are really keen about something we don't merely talk about it—we take action. Today, we are to thank God for the averting Of a great European war; if our thanks are to be worth while, we must not merely express out thanks in words. Of course, at this precise hour, that is our part. And rightly are we met in God's House to express, audibly and upashamely, our thanks.
But many do not bother; the danger is averted and they promptly Cecil Cooper, who has spent five weeks in a Drinker "iron lung" apparatus, was taken out yesterday for just long enough to teil how it felt to be the first man in England to be saved by the "iron lung."
Mr. Cooper, aho is 28 and lives in Ealing, W., was il with infantile paralysis when' he was taken to the London Fever Hospital, Islington, on Aug. 8. For five weeks he has been lying on his back, unable to read, scarcely able to sleep and, all the time, under the watch of doctors and nurses.
^I was dying—completely paralysed and unable to breathe—when I came here," he said.
"My greatest impression has been the kindness of the doctors, sisters and nurses.
"I have not been left alone for a minute, and now, for the last few days, although I am still kept in the apparatus, T can breathe freely without it.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.