"In AMERICA we find a wave of lawlessness and fierce riot passing over the country, such as it has never known before. "The IRISHMEN and ITALIANS, who throng the congested quarters of the great cities, are robbing and murdering PROTESTANTS and JEWS. The UNITED STATES Legislature is paralysed between the necessity of keeping order and the impossibility of resolution in the face of this tremendous _bouleversement_ of belief. "From AUSTRALIA the foremost prelate of the great country writes of the utter overthrow of a communal moral sense, and concludes his communication with the following pathetic words: "_'Everywhere,'_ he says, _'I see morals, no less than the religion which inculcates them, falling into neglect, set aside in a spirit of despair by fathers and mothers, treated with contempt by youths and maidens, spat upon and cursed by a degraded populace, assailed with eager sarcasm by the polite and cultured.'_ * * * * * "The terrible seriousness of the situation need hardly be further insisted on here. Its reality cannot be more vividly indicated than by the statement of a single fact. "CONSOLS ARE DOWN TO SIXTY-FIVE * * * * * "--and therefore we demand, in the name of humanity, a far more comprehensive and representative searching into the facts of the alleged 'discovery' at JERUSALEM. Society is falling to pieces as we write. "Who will deny the reason? "Already, after a few short weeks, we are learning that the world cannot go on without Christianity. That is the Truth which the world is forced to realise. And no essay in sociology, no special pleading on the part of Scientists or Historians, can shake our conviction that a creed which, when sudden doubts are thrown upon it, can be the means of destroying the essential fabric of human society, is not the true and unassailable creed of mankind. * * * * * "We foresee an immediate reaction. The consequences of the wave of antichristian belief are now, and will be, so devastating, that sane men will find in Disbelief and its consequences a glorious recrudescence and assurance of Faith." * * * * * Hands stared into the dying fire. A solemn passage from John Bright's great speech on the Crimean War came into his mind. The plangent power and deep earnestness of the words were even more applicable now than then. _"The Angel of Death has been abroad throughout the land: you may almost hear the beating of his wings. There is no one, as when the first-born were slain of old, to sprinkle with blood the lintel and two side-posts of our doors, that he may spare and pass on."_