that the most potent of all these forces is Religion. What a man really believes as to the ultimate meaning of the world and of his own place within it must be the most decisive power in determining the conduct of his life. Looking at the matter in a purely practical aspect, there can be no question that belief in God—the faith that the ultimate meaning of the world is the will and love of an Infinite Person, and that man's place in it is to obey that will and respond to that love—is the belief which, if it be honestly held, does produce the strongest and most durable stuff of character. Without some such controlling faith, character tends to follow the lines of least resistance, to be weak—weak not perhaps in single points, such as personal bravery or resourcefulness or cleverness, but weak in its total consistency and force. And for most men, to be effective when it is most needed, this faith must be a sort of instinct, wrought into the very texture of their life. Now, it is the very primary work of the Christian Church to surround a man's life from the cradle to the grave with the influences of this faith. If the Church is kept ever alert and vigilant in the foreground of Imperial expansion—sounding on the veldt of South Africa, the fields of Canada, the pastures of Australia, the plains of India, its persistent reminder, 'Remember the Lord thy God'—then it will preserve beneath the fabric of Imperial development the indispensable basis of strong and durable character.
2. Secondly, we look to the Church to keep a true ideal before the development of Empire. Few of us would be cynical enough to say that the mere instinct or impulse of expansion carried its own justification with it. Like other natural forces, it must be controlled by some moral principle. We feel that no nation has a right to roam over the world like an overgrown bully forcing elbow-room. Hence we ease our national conscience by claiming that the development of Empire brings *the blessings of civilization.' But we are not always clear as to what we really mean
