Is the outlook in allied Russia any more hopeful than in hostile Germany and in neutral Rome? I must confess that I cannot answer. We were always told that the force which welded together in one the different races and tongues of the Russian Empire was a spiritual force; that the Russian held his faith dearer than his life; and that even his devotion to the Czar had its origin in religion. At this moment of perplexity and peril, will the Holy Orthodox Church manifest her power and instil into her children the primary conceptions of Christian citizenship? And if we look nearer home, we must acknowledge that the condition of England has not always been such as to inspire Heathendom with a lively desire to be like us. A century and a half ago Charles Wesley complained that his fellow-citizens, who professed Christianity, "the sinners unbaptized out-sin." And everyone who remembers the social and moral state of England during the ten years immediately preceding the present War will be inclined to think that the twentieth century had not markedly improved on the eighteenth. Betting and gambling, and the crimes to which they lead, had increased frightfully, and were doing as much harm as drunkenness used to do. There was an open and insolent disregard of religious observance, especially with respect to the use of Sunday, the weekly Day of Rest being perverted into a day of extra amusement and resulting labour. There was a general relaxation of moral tone in those classes of society which are supposed to set a good example. There was an ever-increasing invasion of the laws which guard sexual morality, illustrated in the agitation to make divorce even easier than it is now. Other and darker touches might be added; but I have said enough to make my meaning clear. Some say that the war is teaching us to repent of and to forsake those national offences. If so, but not otherwise, we can reasonably connect it with the lessons of Epiphany. II _THE ROMANCE OF RENUNCIATION_