But if the Cross of Christ is to be the centre of our lives, we must strive to live in all things, and not only in such great crises as those of war and the battlefield, in the spirit which brought our Lord to His Cross--the spirit of absolute obedience in all things to the righteous will of God. What the Spirit of the Cross requires of us is the absolute surrender of our own wills to the will of God, and the constant endeavour to bear witness to that will, and to promote it in every part of our lives. It is not the mere meditation on the sufferings of the Cross which will bring us into harmony with it. The Apostles do not dwell much on them, profoundly as they must have been moved by them. What they dwell on is the spirit which moved our Saviour to accept them and to bear them. That spirit is to be discerned throughout His life, as well as in His agony in the garden and in His sayings on the Cross. It is embodied in His gracious words: “Whoever shall do the will of My Father which is in Heaven, the same is My brother and sister and mother.” The Cross is the highest and final expression of His devotion and His Father’s will; but we can follow that spirit in every duty, however humble. If the National Mission is to fulfil its object, it must impress that spirit of supreme devotion to the will of God, as revealed in Christ, upon the nation as a whole, and the Cross must become the symbol of our national, no less than of our individual, life. THE KING’S ACCESSION AND INTERCESSION. CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL, 1915. “_I exhort, therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings, be made for all men: for kings, and for all that are in authority: that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty._”--1 Tim. ii. 1.