The affairs of the world seem so far from God, we are so tempted to believe that He is remote from it, that nations and their rulers and the field of politics are void of Him.  We see craft and force and villainy ruling, we see kingdoms far from any perception that society is for man and from God.  We see Dei gratia on our coins, and ’by the grace of the Devil’ for real motto.  We see long tracks of godless crime and mean intrigue, and here and there a divine gleam falling from some heroic deed of sacrifice.  We see king and priest playing into each other’s hands, and the people destroyed, whatever be the feud.  But we are to believe that the world is the kingdom of God; to learn whence comes all human rule, and to be sure that even here and now ’Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom.’

‘Thine the Power.’  Not merely has He authority over, but He works indeed through all—­the whole world and all creatures are the field of the ever present energy of God.  That is a simple truth, deep but clear, that all power comes from Him.  He is the cause of all changes, physical and all other.  Force is the garment of the present God, and among men all power is from Him.  His will is the creative word.

‘Thine the Glory.’  God’s glory is the praise which comes from the accomplishment of His purpose and will.  This is the end of all Creation and Manifestation.  The thought of Scripture is that all things are for the greater glory of God.  It may be a most cold-blooded and cruel doctrine, or it may be a most blessed one.  All depends on what is our conception of the character of the God whose self-revelation is His glory.

An almighty Devil is the God of many people.  But we have learned to say ‘Our Father,’ and hence this thought is blessed.  Unless we had so learned, the thought that His end was His glory would make Him a selfish tyrant.  But since we know Him to be our Father, we know that His Glory is the revelation of His Love, His Fatherhood; that when we say that He does all things for His own glory, we say that He does all things that men may know His character as it is, and ‘to know Him is life eternal.’

‘Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory’:  whatsoever we may have lost and suffered in the past; whatsoever fiery baptism and strife of arms or of principles we may yet have to go through; whatsoever shocks of loss and sorrow may strike upon our own hearts; whatsoever untraversed seas our nation or our race may have to embark upon, One abides, the same One remains ours and is ever with us.  We may have to face storm and cloud, and ‘neither sun nor stars may appear’; we may have to fling out the best anchors we can find, if haply they may hold on anything, and may wearily ‘wish for the day.’  But ’the Lord sitteth upon the flood,’ and in the thickest of the night, when we lift our wearied eyes, we shall see Him coming to us across the storm, and the surges smoothing themselves to rest for His pavement, and the waves subside into their caves at His voice.