"Far out of sight while sorrows still enfold us Lies the fair country where our hearts abide, And of its joys is nought more wondrous told us But these few words--We shall be satisfied." We may behold the land, although it may seem at present "very far off." Once crush for ever the revived paganism, which perhaps for the last time has challenged the supreme claim of Christ to His own world; when that is in the dust, once astonish the world by the beauty of a chivalry and Christian manhood which shall be seen by contrast to be as day compared to night, and light to darkness; once "placard CHRIST" through every tribe in Africa and Asia, and preach Him effectively in every island of the sea; and as the last hand slipped down in death the flagstaff of the Black Flag at Omdurman, so shall the last hand at last be lifted, in this world, of one man against a brother-man in fratricidal strife, and the great picture shall be true at last: "They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain": for at last the earth is filled with "the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea." V GOD THE CHAMPION OF RIGHTEOUSNESS[7] [7] Preached in St. Martin's-in-the-Fields on Trafalgar Day, 1915. "O LORD, Thou hast been our refuge from one generation to another. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were made, Thou art GOD from everlasting and world without end."--Ps. xc. 1, 2. The story is told of Archbishop Temple that as he was walking away from the House of Lords, after the defeat of the Bill he had brought in for the advancement of Temperance, some well-meaning person was endeavouring to comfort him in his natural disappointment, although, needless to say, he was himself as strong and brave and confident as ever. Was he looking, asked the questioner, to the verdict of posterity? No. Was he looking to the gradual change of public opinion? No. Was he looking to a verdict in another House which would influence the opinion of the house which he had just left? No. What was it he looked to, then? "I look to GOD." It was the answer of a true, brave, and believing Christian man; if the GOD of the Christians exists at all, He is so strong and so powerful and so wise that to be on His side is worth all other aid in the world, and to defy GOD, apart from its blasphemy, is the most colossal mistake which can be made. There is a sense, of course, in which the cynic was right when he said that GOD is on the side of the strongest battalions, for the raising of those battalions means a self-sacrifice and a self-denial which GOD honours and recognizes; but to imagine that those battalions by themselves represent GOD, and can be used successfully to further causes which GOD has beforehand denounced and proclaimed, is to make, in the long-run, the mistake of the ages.