We are assembled here this afternoon, at the call of our King in Council and of our Archbishop, for the purpose of solemn intercession with Almighty God on behalf of his Majesty’s naval and military forces now engaged in war. That is in accordance with the solemn practice of our fathers at all the great crises of our history; and it is only about fourteen years since we were similarly interceding with Almighty God in this cathedral, when the King’s forces were engaged in an arduous struggle in South Africa. But the gravity of our present struggle is greater than that of any in the memory of living men, perhaps greater than that of any other in our history. The very existence of our Empire, and even the independence of our Kingdom, is at stake; and the Power by which we are threatened has been, of late years, deemed the greatest military force in Europe, and a naval force only second to our own. It may be that the capacities and resources of our Kingdom and Empire will be strained as they have never been strained before, and that all our manhood, and even our womanhood, will be called upon for all the force and endurance of which they are capable. Prayer to God is incumbent upon us at all times; but there are special reasons why, in a great war, it is the most important of all duties, and the most precious of all privileges. The issues of war are, in an extraordinary degree, beyond the control of man. The issue of a battle or a campaign may, in fact, be determined by incidents, moral and physical, which no human power can foresee or control. Our own deliverance from the Spanish Armada was certainly determined, in an incalculable degree, by the tremendous storm which wrecked the Spanish fleet at the critical moment; and again and again in history have great battles been decided by influences of that nature, or by some incalculable turn in the feeling and temper of an army. Consequently, when nations go to war they place themselves and their fortunes in the hands of God in a more absolute manner than in any other human affairs. That is what we have now done by declaring war against Germany; and we have, therefore, more reason than at any other time in our history to fall before God’s footstool, and to implore Him for the protection and blessing which He, and He only, can give us. It is still more true now than in the Psalmist’s time that “there is no king that can be saved by the multitude of an host, neither is any mighty man delivered by much strength; an horse is counted but a vain thing to save a man, neither shall he deliver any man by his great strength. Behold the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear Him, and upon them that put their trust in His mercy.” In that spirit we now bow before His throne--in the words of our daily prayer in time of war and tumult--before the throne of “the only Giver of all victory.”