186 RT. REV. BISHOP J. E. C. WELLDON, D.D.,, ON THE INFLUENCE 



higher plane of sentiment and conduct. On the contrary, it 

 looks for certain great periodic convulsions which involve, 

 according to the Scriptural language, " the removing of those 

 things that are shaken .... that those things which cannot 

 he shaken may remain." There must, in fact, as Christians 

 hold, he from time to time a dissolution, and then a reconstruc- 

 tion, of society. Thus human history is Scripturally divisible 

 into aeons or eras or periods, each of them beginning and each 

 ending with some striking and dominating event. Such events 

 in Jewish history were the Exodus from Egypt, the Captivity, 

 the siege and fall of Jerusalem under Titus. Such, too, in 

 Christian history were the destruction of the Roman Empire, 

 the Reformation, the French Revolution. Such, it may be, is 

 the world-wide warfare of the present day. Nor is there any 

 one of these historical events which has not profoundly 

 modified the character and influence of religion in the world. 

 For every catastrophic occurrence in human history is properly 

 regarded as a Day of God. 



The Christian diners, then, from the secular historian, as he 

 differs from the scientific explorer, not in rejecting or disputing 

 any fact which falls within the range of observation or induction, 

 but because among or beyond these facts he is always looking 

 for the hand of God. He believes in God not only as the 

 Creator, but as the Sustainer and Director, of the Universe. 

 He waits humbly upon the authority of Divine Providence. It 

 seems to him that mankind is half unconsciously working out 

 the solution of problems, which are ultimately decided by the 

 will of Heaven. In his eyes God controls the main issues of 

 history : man can do no more than by filling in the details. 

 The essential severance between the white and the coloured 

 races, or between Oriental and Occidental countries ; the ordered 

 progress of civilization from the East to the West ; the gradual 

 submission of monarchical and aristocratical governments to 

 democracy — these are facts harmonious with the Will of God, 

 but ultimately independent of human theory or policy. Nor 

 does it lie within the power of human intellect or effort to 

 determine when or how the war now raging over the world 

 shall be brought to a conclusion. Man knows, and can know, 

 only that the war will end ; God alone knows what the end 

 will be. Yet it is indisputable that the war, alike in its process 

 and in its issue, must vitally and permanently affect religion. 



It is worth while, then, to consider what are and will be, as 

 results of the war, the disturbing influences upon the faith of 

 Christendom. 



