“God’s fruit of justice ripens slow;
  “Men’s souls are narrow; let them grow,
  “My brothers, we must wait.”

Many among us are learning to see more and more clearly that the present “tribulation” is the climax of a long series,—­through almost a century past,—­of errors of which till now we had never been fully conscious,—­of neglect of duty, of casting off of responsibility, of oblivion of the claims of the millions of native inhabitants of Africa who are God’s creatures and the redeemed of Christ as much as we,—­of ambitions and aims purely worldly, of a breathless race among nations for present and material gain.

There are hasty judges it seems to me who look upon this war as the Initial Crime, a sudden and fatal error into which our nation has leapt in a fit of blind passion aroused by some quite recent event, and chiefly chargeable to certain individuals living among us to-day, who represent, in their view, a deplorable deterioration of the whole nation.  The evils (which are not chiefly attributable to our nation) which have led up to this war, and made it from the human point of view, inevitable, are all ignored by these judges.  Like the servant in one of the Parables of Christ, who said “my Lord delayeth his coming,” (God is nowhere among us,) and began to beat and abuse his fellow-servants, they fall to inflicting on their fellow citizens unmeasured blows of the tongue and pen, because of this war.  Their hearts are so full of indignation that they cannot see anything higher or deeper than the material strife.  They judge the combatants, our poor soldiers, the first victims, with little tenderness or sympathy.  When King David was warned by God of approaching chastisement for his sins as a ruler, he pleaded that that chastisement should fall upon himself alone, saying, “these sheep (the people) what have they done?” We may ask the same of the rank and file of our army.  What have they done?  It was not they who ordained the war, and so far as personal influence may have gone to provoke war, many of those who sit at home at ease are more to blame than the men who believe that they are obeying the call of duty when they offer themselves for perils, for hardships, wounds, sickness, and lingering as well as sudden death.

God’s thoughts, however, are “not as our thoughts,” nor “His ways as our ways.”  The record I might give of spiritual awakening and extraordinary blessing bestowed by Him at this time in the very heart of this war on these, the “first victims” of it, would be received I fear with complete incredulity by those to whom I now address myself.  Be it so.  The sources of my information are from “the front,” they are many and they are trustworthy.  It seems to me that in visiting the sins of the fathers on the children, or of rulers on the people, the Great Father of all, in His infinite love has said to these multitudes:  “Your bodies are given to destruction, but I have set wide open for you the door of salvation; you Shall enter into my kingdom through death.”  And many have so entered.[38]