Among the themes which run through the Old Testament this is of paramount importance. It is impossible to do more than refer to the many times the spiritually minded were implored to seek this protection. It was needful to implore them since they found the assurance so difficult to believe. No matter how often it was proved to them they still doubted it. Saved by this method once they would reject it when it came to danger the second time. Saved the second time they rejected it the third. "Thou shalt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee," is the declaration of Jeremiah, who perhaps more than any other was a prophet of disaster. Similar statements are scattered through the Old Testament by the score, by the hundred. It was a point on which leaders, seers, and teachers insisted with a passionate insistence. They knew. They had tested the truth for themselves. Disaster was a common feature in their history. During the three thousand years and more which their experiences cover these Israelites had seen more than one invasion sweep across their land, more than one civilisation come and go. All that Belgium knew in the Great War they knew time and time again. Between Egypt and Assyria, the France and Germany of that special epoch, theirs was a kind of buffer state over which every new anguish rolled. "Let it roll," was the cry of their prophets. "The Lord will fight for you. Stand still and see what he will do. His arm is not shortened neither his strength diminished. It is of the Lord to save whether by many or by few. Trust in the Lord and be doing good, so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed. Oh, how great is thy goodness which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee before the sons of men. I said in my haste, I am cut off! Nevertheless thou heardest the voice of my supplication when I cried unto thee. Be of good courage and he shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord."[14] [14] Various Old Testament Sources. X In many ways this is the burden of the more ancient Scriptures--the protection which surrounds those who know that protection is God. It was a gospel that had to be preached with tears and beseechings from one generation to another. No generation accepted it. The belief in material power was always too dense. It is still too dense. In the Ark of the Great Understanding the Caucasian has practically never seen more than a symbol that has gone out of date. Lost materially in the Tiber mud it was, for him, lost forever. But not so. Its significance remains as vital to mankind as when, veiled and venerated, it stood between the cherubim.