_Holy Father, we thank Thee for the privilege of fellowship, and for the help which we can give to one another. May the faith of everyone be strengthened by the faith of all. May our penitence be deepened because we are all engaged in common confession. May our joys be enriched because we are all contemplating the unsearchable riches of Christ. May our obedience become more devoted because we all drink of the waters of inspiration. Impart unto us the grace of sacred sympathy. May we reverently bear one another's burdens and carry them in the arms of intercession. We beseech Thee to grant unto us visions of Thy glory in so far as our eyes are able to bear them. May we make new discoveries among the mysteries of Thy truth. May the whole worship prepare us for a larger ministry in the service of Thy kingdom. Wilt Thou give us the armor we need for the great campaign. Especially may we receive the endowment of the love that never grows faint. Reveal to us our work, and then lead us into a devotion which will never be satisfied until the work is finished. Look upon the whole world in this hour of desolation and woe. Enlarge our hearts to comprehend the sorrow, and may we share the sufferings of our Lord in sacrificial labors. Let Thy kingdom come, O Lord, and let Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Amen._
"And many people shall go up and say, Come ye and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." Isaiah 2: 3, 4.
There is something almost unreal in these words when they are read aloud in the times through which we are passing. They sound like the voice of a mocking-bird calling from the midst of the dust and the debris of a ruined world. It is like hearing the gentle peal of church bells on the bloody field of battle. It is like anything you choose which has become unreal, and which has been transferred from the healthy book of noble prophecy to the bitter pages of satire and the sour lips of the cynic. Yes, I grant that the great passage unfolds ideals which have become mere scraps of paper, torn and retorn into a thousand pieces, and blown about like withered leaves in an autumn gale. What, then, are we to do? I am reminded of what Lord Morley said in Manchester a few weeks ago. "When the war is ended,--this mournful chapter of sore bereavement and wasted treasure, when all that is gone, I ask is there not a moral loss which ought to be counted, a moral loss in the wreck of ideals in which the men of my generation were deeply concerned? That loss has got to be counted and retrieved. The fabric of those ideals has to be built up again in the hearts and minds of men and women." Surely that is an opportune word, and it offers both counsel and warning to the Christian Church. We must not just sit down in the bloody dust, and wail our misereres in deadly impotence. We have got to reconstruct the ruined pile, and we must begin the reconstruction by rebuilding the golden palace of our dreams.
And if we are going to rear again that stately temple of vision and dream, who can give us nobler help than the Hebrew prophets, and who among the prophets can help us more than Isaiah? Isaiah was a prophet interpreting the mind of God. He was a statesman with a keen and comprehensive outlook on human affairs. He was also a poet bringing to human problems the illuminating imagination of the seer. He lived in a time of grave national disloyalties, a time when peoples were abandoning their most sacred trust. His were days of international strife and convulsion, days witnessing vast world movements in which empires were seen at their birth, and empires were seen in withering decline and death. Isaiah was a man whose thought was distinguished by breadth and depth and length. He saw things broadly, he saw things deeply, and he also saw the things which gleamed afar. And as he looked out upon the world to his vision the troubled and chaotic day merged into a reconstituted order of active concord and peace. Isaiah was a confirmed optimist. He had a keen sense of the future. He felt the days before him. He could scent the waving harvest while yet the snow was on the ground. He could catch the sound of harvest-home while the wintry wind was whistling across the ice-bound field. And looking out over the dark scene of convulsion and disaster, and amid the rude and brutal clamour of international strife, he sang this song of the morning,--"They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." If we are purposing to rebuild the fallen ideals of our own day, and so reconstruct our common life, can we do better than stand near this man for guidance and inspiration?