Chapter IV

For eight centuries the Church of St. Giles has been the centre of the religious life of Scotland. At all times of sorrow the nation has turned to it, and within its walls, consecrated by the prayers of so many generations, the surcharged heart has voiced its woe in the presence of the Unseen. But in all the years of the dim and fading past there never was a day like this in which we now stand. Death has come as a grim spectre, and has looked into our eyes. The winds carry to our ears the moans of our perishing sons, dying gloriously for freedom on the bloody fields of Flanders. The great ships guard our shores, and we know that if that vigil failed, our cities and villages and fair countryside would become as Louvain and the Low Country. Death itself would be welcome rather than that.

If there ever came to any nation a call to seek the refuge which eye has not seen, that call soundeth persistently, compellingly in our ears. And that call soundeth not in vain. To-day[1] the two great Churches of Scotland met as one in St. Giles, the days of their misunderstanding ended, to pray for King and country--for all the things which make life beautiful. They have come through days of alienation and isolation, but to-day they are with one accord in one place. And in their hearts only one purpose--to seek the blessing of God for their nation.

[1] November 18, 1914.

***

As one sat there, under the tattered flags on which many bloody fights for freedom are emblazoned, and watched the stream of men flow into the church, what memories came crowding through the echoing corridors of time.

Four hundred years ago there came to Edinburgh the news of Flodden, and out of the closes the women rushed to St. Giles, until round all the altars there was no room to kneel because of the great crowd wailing for their dead. The moaning of their lamentation was as the sound of the surf wailing on the shore, and their sobbing as the cry of the grinding pebbles in the backwash of the tide. But the city fathers could stand upright even in that most cruel day when the cloud of destruction was creeping over the Pentlands; and there is the note of the heroic in that resolution which called all the able-bodied men to rally to the defence of the capital, and exhorted "the good women to pass to the kyrk, and pray whane tyme requires for our Soveraine Lord and his Army, and neichbouris being thereat."

That proclamation stirs the blood! They are dust, these fathers of ours, but their spirit is all alive, throbbing in the heart of us--their far-away children. Never did a race meet its Sedan in a sublimer spirit than that. The strong, at toll of bell and tuck of drum, manned the ramparts, and the women filled St. Giles' and sent heavenward their cries. The bodies of such a race may for a brief season be brought to subjection, but their souls are invincible--and it is the soul that always conquers.

And here to-day it is the same. From every part of Scotland men have come, and they passed "to the kirk to pray for our Sovereign Lord and his Army." True, there has been no Flodden and no Sedan; but it is by the good hand of God upon us that the enemy was frustrated in his eagerness for another Sedan. And it is in part the prayer of thanksgiving that is laid to-day upon His altar, and in part the petition that His mercies may be continued to the nation in the cruel days to come.

***

What a sanctuary for a nation's prayers, this church, where Kings have prayed and gone forth to die in battle; where Queens have wept as the voice of judgment, grim and stern, untouched by tenderness or love, sounded in the ear; where three thousand people dissolved in tears as the good Regent, foully slain, was borne to his grave. Over it passed wave after wave of fanaticism and barbarism; and at last it fell into the hands of the restorers--more ruthless far than Goths or Vandals! But, through it all, the house of God survived; and, apparelled once more in some of its pristine glory, it opens its doors to a nation that once more seek after its God.

And above us, as we sit there, hang the colours of our Scottish regiments stirring our patriotism, assuring us that the men who guarded these flags on many bloody fields were guarded by God, and that we are still in His keeping.

What a place this is in which to set vibrating that note of patriotism which now quivers from Maiden Kirk to John o' Groat's. These colours there--they are the most eloquent things on earth, for they pertain to the realm of symbols. Words are poor compared to tears, and that is because tears belong to the world of symbols. That tattered banner there belonged to the Gordon Highlanders, and was carried through the Peninsula and the Crimea. Woven in faded letters you can read on it still Corunna, Almarez, Pyrenees, Waterloo. Ah! these flags tell of a devotion stronger than death, rekindle the memories of the day when stern silence fell on the ranks, as the Highland Brigade breasted the slopes of the Alma until Sir Colin Campbell lifted his hat and they rushed on the foe with the slogan of victory; and that other day when "the thin red line tipped with steel" rolled back the surge of the Cossacks; aye, and of a hundred such days when men went down joyously to death that the race might be free and live.

Waterloo!--it is on many flags. And we remember how the Man of Destiny himself, as he saw his ranks yield before the onslaught of the Highlanders, did not restrain his admiration for his enemies, but exclaimed with the true soldier's generosity, "Les braves Ecossais"--"Brave, brave Scotsmen" (what a contrast to "French's contemptible little Army"). The hands that carried, the hearts that thrilled at the waving of these flags, their fame will never perish.

"On the slopes of Quatre Bras
The Frenchmen saw them stand unbroken.
* * * * *
On the day of Waterloo
The pibroch blew where fire was hottest.
* * * * *
When the Alma heights were stormed
Foremost went the Highland bonnets.
* * * * *
As it was in days of yore,
So the story shall be ever.
* * * * *
Think then of the name ye bear,
Ye that wear the Highland tartan.
* * * * *
Zealous of its old renown,
Hand it down without a blemish."

As the eye looks along the nave up into the choir and sees the gleam of red, colours after colours, there comes the memory of words--"We have heard with our ears, O God, and our fathers have told us what work Thou didst in their days in the times of old.... Through Thee will we push down our enemies...." The unseen God who has led His people through so many and great dangers will not forsake them now.

***

There is a tablet where formerly stood the door that led to Haddo's Hole, and there hangs on a pillar the flag that pertains of truth to the realm of romance. Men with their hearts hot with indignation buried it in Pretoria in 1880, and put above it the inscription "Resurgam." Afterwards the Colonel recovered it and brought it home. When war broke out again his widow restored it to the regiment--the Royal Scots Fusiliers. In 1881 that regiment was the last to leave the Transvaal; in 1900 it was the first to enter the Transvaal--as the inscription narrates. And by the direction of Lord Roberts, when Pretoria was occupied, this identical flag was run up amid the shouts of the victors. Now it rests here. "Resurgam"--it is the unquenchable spirit of an invincible nation.

If only the manhood of Scotland could be gathered into this Church, under these flags, and the story they tell were put into words, pulsating with passion--then the ranks of our Army would be filled up in a week. What a lack of imagination we reveal! We teach dates, thinking we are teaching history. The only way to teach history is by flags, and all they stand for. When Douglas threw the heart of Bruce among his enemies he cried, "Lead thou on as thou wast wont and Douglas will follow thee or die." In the spirit of Douglas our fathers followed the flags, and we will follow in the steps of our fathers and face death with undaunted hearts as they were wont. There comes to us the shouting of their triumph, and we cry: "Lead on; we will follow or die." This grey church, St. Giles', is the temple of patriotism. Therefore our feet turn towards it in dark days, and we say, "Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem!"

***

How the old words are born for us anew as we thus meet as one "to entreat God for the broken peace of Christendom." We sing "God is our refuge and our strength," but there is a note of intensity in the singing now such as we never knew before. Men close their eyes, and stand, the world blotted out, before their God, realising that He and He alone is the one refuge, the only giver of victory. We hear the old story read of Moses holding up his hands and Israel prevailing on the plains below; but it is not Israel we see travailing in battle, but our own brothers in the rain-sodden trenches, and we feel the uprising of the ceaseless intercession of a nation that has anew found its God. It is not the right hand that assureth victories; it is that spirit of enthusiasm, that passion for righteousness which filleth the heart, and that spirit is as the wind blowing where it listeth--and it cometh out of the Unseen at the call of our prayers.

When in other days we prayed for the King it was in the spirit of cold formalism. But now a lump rises in the throat as we invoke the blessing and protection of Heaven for the solitary man who is the symbol of the unity of our Empire, and who watcheth over its destinies day and night, and who has sent his son to face death with the meanest of his subjects. We hear the glorious words: "If God be for us, who can be against us?" and they are written for ourselves. We, who fight for the truth of word and for the freedom and deliverance of the oppressed, can feel that God is for us, and that all is well.

And when we pray, our voices rising as one, "Thy kingdom come," we can see that kingdom coming through blood and tears, cleansing the foul places and establishing peace on everlasting foundations. It is a new day that has dawned for us--a day in which we stand united as the subjects of the one King, as the sons of the one God--and the things that separated us one from another are swept away. What the conferring of the wise found so difficult to achieve, the roaring of the guns has accomplished. God teacheth his people by sending them through the purifying fires.

***

In these prayers in St. Giles' there is a directness which shows that we are there for a definite purpose. We no longer use qualifying words. We cry for victory. There is a bloodless form of prayer which some use and which sends the worshipper away with an aching heart. It is the prayer that never prays directly for victory. "Thy will be done," it prays, in the spirit of submission. But prayer is not submission; it is a wrestling. In other days our fathers wrestled in prayer and prevailed. "I spent the night in prayer," wrote Oliver Cromwell, in critical days; "I prayed God that He would guide us against the enemy. We were simple fellows of the country, and they were men of blood and fashion, but the Lord delivered them into our hands. By His grace we killed five thousand. If He continues to show mercy we will kill some more to-morrow." Such were the Ironsides, "men of a spirit," who broke the charges of the Cavaliers, as the cliff dashes back in white spray the rush of the billows.

This was also the language of the Covenanters of old; and though we no longer use such plainness of speech, we mean the same. There is a place for tenderness; but when men are ground to powder by the judgment of God, tenderness is not manifest then. When the heart whispers "Spare" and justice says "Smite," men must obey the voice of justice, stifling the voice of the heart.

Our prayers are now for justice. Better far a righteous war than an immoral peace. We have been compelled to unsheath the sword, and we pray that no heart may falter, and no cry arise for the sheathing of the sword, until justice be done. Thus our prayers have become a cry for victory.

***

As one sits in an ancient church such as this, there comes knocking at the heart many questions regarding that service of prayer which within its walls has linked the generations together. Can prayer really prevail with God? Can it alter the will of the Unchangeable? If there be no power in it, why should men go on praying?

We must distinguish between the will of God which is unchangeable, and His lower will which is his purpose towards us and His attitude to us. The former is unalterable; the latter varies according to the varying of our hearts. With that lower will we are called to wrestle. A man is born in poverty and obscurity, and the will of God seems to be that he should continue poor and obscure. But he wrestles with that lower will until he prevails. He ultimately moves out into the great tide of life and becomes a power. The will of God towards that man is changed.

It is the same with a nation. Here is a nation sinking on its lees with its ideals dimmed and the shrines of its fathers' God forsaken and desolate. It has fashioned to itself other gods, and the multitudes crowd the temples of the goddess of pleasure. The very race itself is sacrificed on the altar of gross pleasure, and the laughter of little children is being little by little silenced. The fires of patriotism are dying low, and the love of country gives place to the love of party. There are mean victories rejoiced over, but they are the victories of the cynic and the sensualist. There is the sound of shouting, but it is the shouting over the triumph of one self-seeking politician over another self-seeking partisan. Saintliness, which other generations held in awe and reverence, provokes now a pitying smile. Mammon alone is held in high honour and sitteth in the high places. What is the will of God towards that nation? It is this--ruin and utter destruction. Over every nation that thus succumbed to the gross and sensual, history shows the sword of God unsheathed, and at last the devouring flames of judgment.

But to such a nation there comes as if out of the silent heaven a call as a trumpet sound, summoning it to the judgment-seat of God. Over the sea comes the roar of guns. The foundations which the fathers laid in righteousness, through long neglect and decay are crumbling. An empire encircling the globe is tottering to destruction. The hay and the stubble cannot come scathless through the flames. The writing is on the wall, and as the eyes see the hand that writes, trembling seizeth upon men. And then there cometh a sudden change. The nation in a day rises out of the morass of its self-indulgence. It sets itself to lay hold again upon the eternal law of righteousness. They seek once more the shrines of their God. They set themselves to fast and to pray. "Who can tell," they whisper one to another, "if God will turn and repent, and turn away from His fierce anger, that we perish not?"

The fields of their inglorious shouting over their games are deserted for the fields of hardness and grim preparation. Once more they gird themselves for conflict, as their fathers so often girded, that truth and righteousness may prevail over all the earth. Sharply the choice is presented to them between Christ or Odin, and though choosing the Christ means agony and woe they make their choice unhesitatingly. A new light shines in their eyes, and the work of their hands and the devisings of their hearts become the spirit of prayer. Yesterday the will of God towards that nation, sinking on its lees, was destruction; to-day towards that same nation, thus risen out of the foul miasma that was stifling its soul, the will of God is salvation.

Because prayer is the greatest power in the world; because it can alter the will of God towards us, because it can move the hand of the omnipotent God and is thus endued with His omnipotence, our prayers as we gather in the sanctuaries are no longer the submission of quietism, but a wrestling with God--the crying of a soul as in agony for victory based on the triumph of righteousness. It was such a cry that rose on that day in St. Giles.

***

As the second paraphrase was being sung there came the memory of words spoken in the pulpit of the great Cathedral by Dr. Cameron Lees. It was at evening service, when the shadows were gathering. "I have often sat in this pulpit," said Dr. Lees, "on the edge of the evening, and watched the shadows enveloping the Cathedral. They invaded the side chapels first, and then the nave, creeping onwards through the transepts, until the chancel was reached. After that they gathered in strength, until the whole building was in darkness, with the exception of the white figure of Christ in the great east window. I pray that the last vision vouchsafed me on earth may be just that--the Saviour of men. I can then close my eyes in the knowledge that He will lead me through the dark valley that leadeth to the eternal home."

It has been like that with the whole nation. Around our shores the darkness gathered, until all the horizon was black with threatening clouds. Then we lifted up our eyes and saw.... He will bring deliverance and peace. As we moved along the crowded aisles towards the door the white figure of Christ glowed in the great east window, and we felt that He will bless His people at last with peace--the peace not of death, but of life.

"Down the dark future, through long generations,
The echoing sounds grow fainter and then cease,
And, like a bell, with solemn sweet vibrations,
I hear once more the voice of Christ say Peace.
Peace! and no longer from its brazen portals
The clash of war's great organ shakes the skies;
But beautiful as songs of the immortals,
The holy melodies of love arise."

V

The Victory