It is a momentous fact, and a surprising one to realize. God has so constituted mankind that the welfare of the masses, of the millions of ordinary men and women, depends upon the actions of a few dozens of the leading men in the various countries of Europe. We are proud of being a constitutional country, and of the fact that by the election of members of Parliament--by selecting, that is, the members of the House of Commons--the vast majority of Englishmen have a voice in creating their own Government; and to a certain extent in that way we govern ourselves. But nevertheless, in the last resort, the fate of the country depends upon the dozen or two men who are placed in power by the House of Commons. It is a simple fact that the mass of the people in this country had no voice whatever in determining whether we should or should not enter upon this terrible war. It was determined for us in the course of a few hours by the King’s Ministers, and by the action they took in their relations with other countries. In the nature of the case it must be so. Whether they will or not, great masses of people and great nations cannot do without a Government; and when they have established one, that Government must necessarily act in many critical emergencies without waiting to consult the people whom it governs. A nation and its King, with his Ministers, constitute as much one body, to use St. Paul’s image, as the various elements and limbs of the human body and its brain. We become one single organism, under the control and management of the brain of that organism, which is the King and his Ministers. It is an awful responsibility for men to have entrusted to them, to be able to declare war and thus to launch many millions of men in their own country, and hundreds of millions of men in the Empire and in other countries, upon a gigantic struggle, of which all we know for certain at the outset is that it will involve a sacrifice of tens of thousands of lives, the devastation of fair countries, and the waste of enormous treasure. But so it is and ever must be. In the freest republics that ever existed the chief rulers have had similarly to act as the brain of the whole people; and it depends on their wisdom and faithfulness, not merely at critical moments, but in that daily administration of affairs out of which critical moments arise, whether the people shall live a quiet and peaceable life or not.