There has been, I fear, some reluctance among us to yield ourselves to this penitent humiliation, and it will be well therefore to remind ourselves a little of the reasons there are for it. Now the first and most patent of all the reasons why we should recognize our sins and wickedness is the bare and ghastly fact of this war in itself. We are all distressed and grieved by it, and are all saying what a horrible thing it is that war--and such a war--should be possible in a Christian Europe. But what we should first of all realize is that it is a horrible exhibition of the sin and wickedness of human nature. Just contrast what Europe was a few months ago with the scenes that are now exhibited in Belgium, France, and Poland. A few months ago, Europe was a prosperous country, full of wealth, comfort, and enjoyment of all kinds. Its many millions were engaged in quiet occupations which employed their energies happily. “They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded.” Fathers and mothers and children, families young and old, cities and villages were in the enjoyment of plenty, and full of hope for the future. God had prospered them, and there was much hope that the wants and sufferings which were still the lot of too many among them might be gradually removed by benevolent legislation and mutual help; but, on a sudden, at a few days’ notice, this scene of happiness, and hope, and well-being is overthrown as if by an earthquake. Some parts of it are overwhelmed by “blood and fire and vapour of smoke,” and the whole of it, from the extreme west of our Isles to the East of Russia, from the Baltic to the Mediterranean is transformed into a vast Barracks, in which sons and fathers are torn from their families, leaving behind them too often the lamentation and mourning of wives and mothers, weeping for those who are not. The language of the prophet is not too strong for the occasion “The land was a Garden of Eden and is become a desolate wilderness.” I ask you, is not such a sudden and disastrous transformation the most clear proof we could have of some deadly evil being at work in human nature? What else, but some deadly, inherent evil could in a few weeks or days blot out all peace in Europe and let loose a sort of hell in human society and human life. We were proud of the growth of civilization, and were constructing all sorts of schemes of social and political development, when, on a sudden, our civilization explodes, and we find ourselves surrounded by its wrecks in fire, and ruin, and carnage, and hatred, and violence of all kinds. All this explosive force of evil must have been there. There must have been corruptions, and sins, and vices at work which we did not surmise; and fair as the life of Europe seemed outside, it must really have been in some respects rotten to the core. This war has not been imposed upon Europe from without, as it was when the great barbarian invaders poured over it fourteen hundred years ago.