And the need and functions of hope should be viewed in no narrow personal way. We want to-day men who have a large and courageous faith in God for the nation and the world. Of recent years a mood of pessimism has spread through America. In one sense it represents a wholesome reaction from the spirit of braggadocio and spreadeagleism of an earlier day. So far it is wholesome. We need to be sobered and made modest and quiet in our national spirit. But it is a bad thing when a nation loses the zest of a great consciousness and a brave patriotism, and thinks meanly of what God can do with it. Our nation needs now not a timid and fearful sense of its impotence and incapacity, but a realization that, whatever its difficulties and defects, God has a mission for us which only we can fulfill for Him. For this mission those men must be the nation’s soul of hope and expectation who know that our greatest duty and service lie ahead of us and are waiting to be grasped by men whose hearts face the untried without fear. And now shall we have this hope that nothing can slay? Do we want it? Well, it is so near to us that we do not need to reach out after it. You know where it is, “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” “The Lord Jesus Christ,” as Saint Paul says in the opening words of his first Epistle to Timothy, “The Lord Jesus Christ, our hope.” This hope is not something that we work up out of the fragments of moral ideals that we find lying around in our lives or our nation. Jesus Christ is the hope for a man and a people. If we want it, why not now take Him? Genuinely, I mean, in a deep, living, religious way, take Him in His fullness of life? God and the nation want the men who are filled with His courage and hope: “God’s trumpet wakes the slumbering world, Now each man to his post. The red cross banner is unfurl’d, Who joins the glorious host? Who joins the glorious host? He who in fealty to the truth And counting all the cost Doth consecrate his gen’rous youth, He joins the noble host! He joins the noble host! “He who, no anger on his tongue Nor any idle boast, Bears steadfast witness ’gainst the wrong, He joins the sacred host! He joins the sacred host! He who with calm, undaunted will Ne’er counts the battle lost But though defeated battles still, He joins the faithful host! He joins the faithful host! “He who is ready for the cross, The cause despised loves most, And shows not pain or shame or loss, He joins the martyr host! He joins the martyr host! God’s trumpet wakes the slumbering world. Now each man to his post. The red cross banner is unfurled. We join the glorious host! We join the glorious host!” LECTURE IV THE JOY OF THE MINORITY