The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1917-09-06

And thus make the God Of our fathers,
and our God, the God of our children
too.
God of our fathers be the God
Of their succeeding race
and Of our succeeding race.
We are now at a time of strong test
ing of our faith. 1t is not call to
commit our souls to God, nor our life,
nor our means of living, nor any Of
those things which we have always felt
able to trust to the Almighty Source of
Wisdom and Mercy. 1t is call to trust
those who are dearer TO US than our
selves, for whom all our anxiety has
been given and all our labor spent.
And the test is sore because we
haven't thought much Of the future of
the race with reference to God. Think
Ing Of the future, we have confined our
selves to the thought Of our own ad-
venturing in the spiritual realm after
We have passed out of the grammar
school OF earth-Efe. But there are
two futures our own elsewhere; our
children's here God is not through
when we pass on, nor is the earth. The
generations of men will continue until
the end, and God will strive with men
to get His will done in the earth. that
this beautiful planet with all its pos
siOilities Of felicity may be brought to
the condition IN which it was meant to
be. God loved the world-this world
with its forests and seas, with its
babes and birds, with its loves and its
marriages, with its mornings and its
sunsets, with its strong maturity Of
men and its old age which was meant
to be beautiful loved it, and will
have'it back yet when the hierarchy Of
eyi! is at last DESTROYED.
We sadly need this faith just now
how sadly most Of US need it. And it
isn't an American need alone. Mothers
and fathers all over the world have had
to seek it. We think of the parents of
Italy and France, of Germany and Eng
land and Scotland, of Ireland and Aus
tria and Russia, of Canada and Belgium
and the islands of the seas; we think of
them in their extremity and what they
have had to do, what faith they have
had to do, what faith they have had to
make. True, another thought crosses
that; if we, the Parents of the World,
had but known how insidiously the
rulers of spiritual darkness had been
plotting against Gods order for the
world, we might have been none active
in cur opposition to 1t. But now they
face it in their children, and the last
act Of faith is to believe that God is the
God of the Younger generation, and
that, committed to Him that genera
tion may yet rescue the world If we
could have Congress of the Parents
of the World today, we think we should
see the powers of evil whipped before
nightfall. Let US be plain about it: our
sons are redressing our failure. 1t may
be the hard school in which they shall
learn to avoid our failure in the future.
For God shall be with them. Many
of the parents will be faring farther,
learning other worlds; but God and the
young shall still wrestle together
against the serpent for the redemption
of the earth. We sometimes have a
feeling, as we see our young men array
ing themselves for the fight, that may
be we have ceased to be Gods hope and
that He has transferred 1t to them. If
so be their state is glorious. fer He
who goes with them has brought the
world from primeval darkness to its
present light and power-and with them
as His men and Himself as their Captain
decisive defeat may be impending for
at least one form of evil in the world.