events great challenges are hurled from the unknown amongst the sons and daughters of men. Upon the answer which is given to these challenges, and upon the heroism with which the answer is sustained, depends the question whether the world would be better or whether the world be worse for ages to come. These challenges end in terrible conflicts which bring wretchedness, misery, bloodshed, martyrdom in all its myriad forms to the world, and if you look at the pages of history these conflicts stand out like great mountain ranges such as you have in Scotland-scenes of destruction, of vast conflicts, scarred by the volcanoes which threw them up, but drawing blessings from the heavens, they fertilise the valleys and the plains perennially far beyond the horizon of the highest peaks.

You had such a conflict in Scotland in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a great fight for the right of men to worship God according to their consciences. The Scottish Covenanters might have given this answer to the challenge: they might have said, "Let there be peace in our time, O Lord." They might have said, "Why should we suffer for privileges that even our fathers never enjoyed? If we win we may never live to enjoy the fruits of it, but we have got to face privations, unspeakable torture, the destruction of our homes, the scattering of our families, and nameless death. Let there be peace." Scotland would have been a thing of no account among the nations. Its hills would have bowed their heads in shame

for the people they sheltered. But the answer of the old Scottish Covenanter, the old, dying Covenanter Cargill, rings down the ages even to us at this fateful hour. "Satisfy your conscience and go forward." That was the answer. That conflict was fought in the valleys of Scotland and the rich plains and market-places of England, where candles were lighted which will never be put out; and on the plains, too, of Bohemia, and on the fields and in the walled cities of Germany, there Europe suffered unendurable agonies and miseries; but at the end of it humanity took a great leap forward towards the dawn.

Then came the conflict of the eighteenth century, the great fight for the right of men, as men, and Europe again was drenched with blood, but at the end of it the peasantry were free and democracy became a reality.

Now we are faced with the greatest and the grimmest struggle of all. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, not amongst men, but amongst nations-great and small, powerful and weak, exalted and humble, Germany and Belgium, Austria and Serbia-equality, fraternity, amongst peoples as well as amongst men-that is the challenge which has been thrown to us. Europe is again drenched with the blood of its bravest and best. But, do not forget, these are the great successions of hallowed causes; they are the Stations of the Cross on the road to the emancipation of mankind. Let us endure as our fathers did. Every birth is an agony, and the new world

is born out of the agony of the old world. My appeal to the people of this country, and, if my appeal can reach beyond it, is this, that we should continue to fight for the great goal of international right and international justice, so that never again shall brute force sit on the throne of justice, nor barbaric strength wield the sceptre of right.

"VICTORY WILL COME."

EXTRACT FROM A SPEECH DELIVERED AT DUNDEE, ON BEING PRESENTED WITH THE FREEDOM OF THAT CITY, JUNE 30TH, 1917.

I KNOW the struggle is a prolonged one; I always knew it would be. I have always urged plans on the assumption that it was going to be a long one. The evil was a great one and you don't root great evils out of the earth without great struggles. All the same, with a continuous, persistent, unflinching, unfaltering will we shall win. There are occasional discouragements, there are occasional disappointments. So there are in every great struggle; the end seems to be postponed. I remember in the early days of April attending a conference on the Italian frontier. I passed through lands that ought to have been green with springtime. They were bleak and grey; there was not a bud to be seen; the land was still locked in the cells of winter. All was cold and forbidding, and I entered the warm valleys of Savoy and they were blind with a driving blizzard, and I said, "Will the winter ever cease? Will the spring ever come? Shall we ever see the summer sun and the harvest again?" And for the moment I had a thrill of horror that some visitation had come

upon the earth. I came back in a fortnight and the sun was shining, the trees were in bud. The earth of France had burst the shackles of winter; the almond was in bloom; the glorious splendour of spring was upon the earth, and I knew France was free. And I tell you now, although the winter tarries the springtime of victory will come.