The time may be close at hand when we shall need this assurance as we need nothing else. However optimistic we try to keep ourselves, no thinking man or woman can be free, at this crisis in world-history, from deep foreboding. For the memory to go back ten years is, even for us in the New World, like returning to a Golden Age; while for the Old World mere recollection must be poignant. The possibility that all countries in both hemispheres may find themselves in some such agony as that of the Russia of to-day is not too extravagant to be entertained. This is not saying that they are likely so to find themselves; it means only that in the world as it is the safest is not very safe. My point is that whether catastrophe overwhelms us or not, he who chooses not to fear can be free from fear. There is a refuge for him, a defence, a safeguard which no material attack can break down. "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge--my fortress--my God. In Him will I trust."[15] There is this Ark for me, this Ark of the Great Understanding, and I can retire into it. I can also have this further assurance: "Because thou hast made the Lord which is my refuge--even the Most High--thy habitation, there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. For he shall give his angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways."[16] [15] The Book of Psalms. [16] The Book of Psalms. XI This is the eternal agreement, but an agreement of which we find it difficult to accept the terms. To the material alone we are in the habit of ascribing power. Though we repeat a thousand times in the course of a year, "For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory," we do not believe it. To few of us is it more than a sonorous phrase. I remember the impression of this which one received at the great thanksgiving for peace in St. Paul's Cathedral in London some twenty years ago. The Boer War had ended in an English victory, and while the thanksgiving was not precisely for this, it did express the relief of an anxious nation that peace was again restored. It was what is generally known as a most impressive service. All that a great spectacle can offer to God it offered. King, queen, princes, princesses, ambassadors, ministers, clergy, admirals, generals, and a vast assembly of citizens filled the choir and nave with colour and life, while the music was of that passionless beauty of which the English cathedral choirs guard the secret. But the detail I remember best was the way in which the repetition of the Lord's Prayer rolled from the lips of the assembly like the sound of the surging of the sea. It was the emotional effect of a strongly emotional moment. One felt tense. It was hard to restrain tears. As far as crowd-sympathy has any spiritual value it was there. The Caucasian God was taken out of His pigeon-hole and publicly recognised.