“The East bow’d low before the blast
     In patient, deep disdain;
   She let the legions thunder past,
     And plunged in thought again.

  “So well she mused, a morning broke
     Across her spirit grey;
   A conquering, new-born joy awoke,
     And fill’d her life with day.”

The Roman Eagles led a momentary triumph, but they fled before the newly discovered Cross.  Endurance won.

And so it has been from that time to this.  The triumphs of endurance have no end.  The barbarism of the Caesars, the barbarism of Islam, the barbarism of Odin and Thor, all in turn did their uttermost to destroy the new religion.  Persecution fell, not on armed men strong to resist, but on slaves and women and boys and girls.  “We could tell of those who fought with savage beasts, yea, of maidens who stept to face them as coolly as a modern bully steps into the ring.  We could tell of those who drank molten lead as cheerfully as we would the juice of the grape, and played with the red fire and the bickering flames as gaily as with golden curls.”  These were the people who by endurance made their souls their own; and, by carrying endurance even unto death, propagated the faith for which they gave their lives.  It did not take Rome long to discover that “the blood of Christians is seed.”

The victorious power of endurance is not yet exhausted; but, on the other hand, the peril of moral defeat must never be ignored.  It was a strange coincidence that the most trying phase of a four-years’ war should have occurred in the week which, for Western Christendom, commemorates the supreme example of endurance.  As far as action is concerned, the national will is not in the slightest danger of collapse.  The British nation will plan, and work and fight for ever, if need be.  Our only danger is in the moral field.  Though our power of action is undiminished, our power of endurance may ebb.  We may begin to cry, in our impatience, “Lord, how long?”; to repine against the fate which condemns us to this protracted agony; to question within ourselves whether the cause which we profess to serve is really worth the sacrifices which it entails.  It is just by mastering these rebellious tendencies that we can make our souls our own.  If we went into the war believing in the sacredness of Freedom, Brotherhood, and Right against Might, it would be a moral collapse to emerge from it believers in tyranny, imperialism, and the rule of the strong.  “He that endureth to the end shall be saved.”  On that “end” we must keep heart and eye unflinchingly fixed; and strive to add one more to the age-long triumphs of endurance.

VIII

A SOLEMN FARCE