Let us assume, as we are bound to do, that the first design of the Great Potter was a porcelain vase of universal Peace. He made men _of one blood_ in every nation of the earth; he loves to make men "of one mind in a house." Work and trial were to be part of man's lot, but not War. The idea that War is in itself a glorious thing may be the doctrine of Treitschke or Bernhardi, but cannot, I believe, be found in the Bible. This, then, is His first design, but the clay will not take this design. There is a stubborn element in human nature determined upon War; there is a "throw back" to Paganism with which the Potter has to reckon. It is not His fault. To coerce, to crush Freewill is to crush His own Image in mankind, to make any kind of freely chosen goodness impossible. He must give up for the time, with what regret we can never know, His first design. He may see of the travail of His soul _one day_ and be satisfied, but, for the present, He must bring in the "Gospel of the second best." He will bring good out of this evil; He will produce a bowl of unselfish service. The devil makes the War, but GOD will turn the devil's own weapons against himself, for He will produce a spectacle of unselfish service such as the world has never seen before. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what we are looking at to-day, what we are seeing portrayed daily before our eyes. We have never seen such a sight in our time before. With an unselfish devotion which has been the admiration of the world, the young men have flung themselves into the battle. To take our own nation alone, to imagine that five million men would have freely offered themselves for service would have been thought incredible in the year in which Sir Ian Hamilton delivered the interesting address to you, which I have read, on "National Service." Nor is it only the young men; there is not an idle young woman in London to-day, and I do not suppose there is in Birmingham; and as for the children, a little boy of nine shall speak for them. Asked whether he minded his beautiful home being turned into a soldiers' hospital, he replied, "I _love_ having the soldiers here, Bishop." _We can't go back to our old life after the War._