Perhaps one of the most terrible notes struck from the great thunder-echoes of the war is this apparent failure of all churches to cope with the sorrow that has swept over all lands, destroying homes that were once happy. Our Lord’s pitiful and pathetic words are realised to-day:--“Because iniquity shall abound the love of many shall grow cold.” Ah, yes, love for Him and all the tenderness He taught _has_ “grown cold,” and many of His professed ministers are tongue-tied and spirit-frozen, and seem all unable to raise the broken lives from the dust of despair, or dry the weeping eyes which are too tired and heavy to lift themselves to heaven. There is a strong instinctive sense among us all, no matter to what sect we belong or what religious formula we profess, that if the churches had ever truly taught and truly followed the example of Christ, war and its horrors would have been impossible. For He gave us only two commandments--two instead of the Mosaic ten--thus:-- “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it--thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Who is there that can deny that if these two commandments had been obeyed by man in his social and civil life, the whole face of things would have changed to an almost divine betterment, and the world’s progress, assisted by a sanity of thought and a clarity of action, would have been towards beauty and spiritual uplifting? The word “spiritual” is sadly wronged and degraded nowadays by misguided or semi-crazed persons who “blaspheme the Holy Ghost” by their pretensions to psychic power, and play with the names of scared things in order to further their own sinister designs. Our Lord prophesied this evil when He spoke of “false prophets” who should “show signs and wonders,” insomuch “that if it were possible they shall deceive the very elect.”