heaven, long delayed, will roll out the requiem of a nation. The awful curses ever before them in the book of Deuteronomy are now broadening over them ready to fall. Jerusalem is drunk with iniquity. The rulers of the nation have crucified their own Messiah, the Son of God. As a worldtraveler Paul knows that in every nation under heaven the Jew is hated, and there is no help coming. Conversant with the conditions of Palestine, he knows that the iron hand of Rome that has crushed the liberties of mankind is tightening its grip on the Jewish state. He knows that grinding taxation is eating out the heart of the peasantry; that religious fanaticism and political hatred are inflaming the masses; that the high priests and rulers of the people are divided among themselves; war parties, peace parties, parties of despair, the shadow of coming doom is creeping over the land. That terrible cry, "His blood be upon us and our children," will soon be answered, and the horrors of Jerusalem besieged shall wring a cry of anguish even from the stony heart of Titus the Roman commander. Paul sees it all. He recalls the history of his race; their intended mission, the wonderful interpositions of God in their behalf; their periods of glory and power; their prophets and priests; the Tabernacle, Sinai, the temple; he sees it all, sees it as Jesus saw it when he wept over the city, but he sees it all coming down at last in blood and fire and vapor of smoke and everlasting ruin; the

Day of the Lord has come; there is none to deliver! Swift as the winds come the "Vultures that smell decaying empires from afar." Paul sees it all, and in anguish of soul cries out, "I could wish myself accursed instead for Israel's sake."

It is from the standpoint of Christian patriotism that I would appeal to patriotic Americans, especially to the educated, the well-to-do classes, concerning their obligations as good citizens, whether Christians or not, to the Church of God in the United States.

It is the commonest among the most commonplace assertions that no other nation is more highly favored than our own. But common as it is, we cannot reflect too seriously upon that common but tremendous platitude. Here is a vast territory stretching from arctic circles to tropical seas, enjoying all seasons, all climates; diversified by hills and mountains and plains and lakes and rivers, and, poured round all, the illimitable oceans which have become the highways for travel and commerce with all shores of Europe and Asia. The geographical situation of Palestine, lying in the path of commerce between the east and the west, the north and the south, was no accident. It was the physical base for spiritual mission to all nations. Is the United States an accident? Situated in the midst of the oceans between two continents, and stored with all resources for the building of the mightiest empire

history ever gazed upon, is this land a mere geological upheaval and nothing more? And who can comprehend the astounding development of this country in agriculture, railroads, mines, towns, villages, cities, its growth in population, in wealth, in imports and exports? In ten years our popu lation has increased twenty per cent. There are more than four billions of dollars in the savings banks. Nearly a billion and a half is the value of our manufactured exports, while the harvests of our fields amount in value to nearly ten million dollars.

Now, endowed by heaven with such richness of climate and soil, one would think that a rational, intelligent people inhabiting such a country, and with histories of other nations for thousands of years behind them to guide, warn, and inspire them, would be above all other people a Godhonoring people. One would think that, because of their growth in imperial greatness, their only object of worship would be the great God, the Creator of all things; that his laws would be their laws, and his church which he has estab lished in the earth for righteousness would be reverenced above all institutions. Such I think would be the conclusion of reason.

But what are the facts? Now, we are not radi: cally a bad people. We are not a nation utterly lawless, corrupt in morals, godless in thought and life. The initial impulse of the colonial period is not yet wholly exhausted. The influence of the

Spartan-like character of our people before the Civil War is not yet a spent force.

"I TREMBLE FOR MY COUNTRY”

Nevertheless, no intelligent patriot can sider the signs of the times with complacency. It does not follow that, as the poet Browning says,

God's in his heaven-[therefore]

All's right with the world.

God has always been in his heaven, and it has not always been "right with the world." Thomas Jefferson once exclaimed, as he surveyed the institution of slavery, "I tremble for my country when I remember that God is just." What would he exclaim now? Look back over the history of America, as Paul scanned the history of Israel. Think what it cost to realize on this continent the dream of the ages-"a government of the people, by the people, for the people"; to establish civil and religious liberty; to bring out of the abstract disquisitions of theorists and philosophers the principles of justice, equality and fraternity, and make them the foundation stones of our social and political life. Think of all this, and when the orator, the philosopher, and the poet have glorified our country, then let us look steadily at the appalling fact that God and the institutions of God are becoming practically divorced from the life and the ideals of the na

tion. In spite of all our supposed culture, our literature, our arts and sciences; in spite of all our colleges and universities, and the millions expended for education in the public schools, we, the American people, lead the whole world in crime! Our annual cost of crime is about one billion three hundred and seventy-three million dollars. There are four and a half times as many murders as there were twenty years ago. It was said by high authority a short while since that ten thousand murders are committed in this civilized country of ours every year. Chicago is credited with one hundred and eighteen murders a year. Paris has only fifteen; London, four times the size of Chicago, has only twenty. One State had recently more murders than the whole of the British empire. We are a great people. We have more homicides every year than Italy, France, Austria, Belgium, Spain, Hungary, Holland, Germany, England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales all put together.

Is this not enough to give us pause? And if we consider the frightful ravages of the saloon, that ceaseless promoter of crime, that enemy of God and man, shall we not have ground for more than alarm? And, furthermore, if to this accusing catalogue of national iniquities we add divorce, shall we not, like Saint Paul, cry out for our country? One of the most startling bulletins ever issued by the United States government showed that in a recent period of ten years there