THE KING'S LEAD
MHE fact that, by desire of the King, next Thursday, the .1. third anniversary of the outbreak of war, is appointed as a National Day of Prayer and Dedication may seem only obvious and natural. So, in a sense, it is. Yet in fact the King's action is based on tremendous postulates. It assumes an un- questioning belief in the efficacy of prayer—a belief which the Churches hold by the nature of their being, but the majority of the nation probably does not,—and an equal belief in the value of assembling in the places of worship, and the factories and workshops, of the land some millions of men and women whose lives are habitually prayerless to join in a liturgy of prayers of thanksgiving and dedication and intercession. These, it may be repeated, are tremendous postulates. They argue a faith which may seem not far removed from blind credulity. The King's call will -no doubt be answered. Many churches will be fuller on the Thursday than they ever are on a Sunday. Congregations will bow their heads and murmur their responses and listen with respect to the brief addresses they are likely to hear from the pulpits. By Friday what will they feel they have achieved?
That question is asked here neither cynically nor sceptically. It is asked because the whole value of the Day of Dedication depends on the answer to it. It makes all the difference between mere formalism and deep reality. What answer do the Churches give themselves? They at least believe that some- thing, perhaps very much, may be achieved, and they have a duty to make their convictions clear. It would be a powerful reinforcement of the King's call if clergy and ministers took that as the theme of their sermons this coming Sunday, so that those at least who happened to hear them then might go to the services on :Thursday in the spirit best calculated to make those services profitable. The task will not be altogether easy. There are, of course, traditional dogmas about prayer, perfectly just and reasonable and valid. But they have rightly or wrongly only a limited appeal, and this aims at being not a sectional but a national observance. The Church is not asked to modify its message or compromise its doctrines ; it would gain nobody's respect by that ; but it must set itself earnestly on such a day as this to speak specifically to those who come within its doors ready to hear but not ready to make professions of beliefs they do not hold as yet. What they may regard as the preacher's normal stock-in-trade will make much less impression on them than a reminder of the convictions men of unquestioned intellectual range and distinction have held as to the reasonable- ness and efficacy of prayer—such, for example, as Lord Balfour's declaration in his Gifford Lectures that in speaking of God "I mean a God whom men can love, a God to whom men can pray." No one else's authority is a substitute for personal faith, but belief in prayer comes above all things by practising it, and it can mean much to have that practice vindicated by persons to whom a superficial or credulous piety could never be ascribed.
Moreover, though the average man of today may feel as great a distaste as Christ Himself for those who for a parade the pretence may even deceive themselves) make long prayers, he does not reject a priori belief in spiritual forces with which contact can be made and by 'which men's actions may be prompted and determined. If no more is asked of him than that, he will join in the Day of Prayer without hesitations or reserves, finding here sufficient basis for true community of attitude and purpose with all who are observing it. And no more on this occasion should be asked, for to this observance are called not communicants or church-members as such but the great body of citizens. To those of them who genuinely regard religion as a superstitious survival the day can mean nothing, but if they understand at all that most understandable paradox "Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief" then their place is with all those who are dedicating themseWes humbly and sincerely to the service of God and man and seeking strength to make that dedication effective. The declaration that "he that is not with me is against me" has its meaning in its context. But so have those other words "he that is not against us is for us," and it is these that are relevant here. None but claimants to unblemished virtue and complete self-sufficiency will find themselves in an alien atmosphere.
The Order of Service framed by the Archbishops has been wisely and discerningly conceived. The First Lesson, for example, is not, as it might have been, the familiar "Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered" (on which the Metropolitan of Moscow preached in 1812 as Napoleon was retreating from the still smoking capital), but a passage from St. Peter which opens with the impressive and enheartening charge, "Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time." The nation as a nation and the individuals as individuals that compose it are called to repentance in terms that no honest critic could misconstrue. There is no room for the comment that it is Germany that needs repentance, not Britain. Germany does need it. Not to believe that she needs it even more than we do would be carrying humility to the point of insincerity, and later in the service a prayer for our enemies includes, in words that say neither too little nor too much, the petition that she may repent and change her ways. But the purpose of the observance of next Thursday is that this nation may re-dedicate itself to God, and in that third parties have no place. Concern for our own needs and our own deficiencies will take us all the time we have to give.
But there is more than that to be said about repentance. There is no suggestion here that "in asking God's forgiveness for all that has been amiss in our national life over the years that are past" we are proclaiming to the world sins and shortcomings in our national policy. What is in question is the stains and imperfections that everyone must recognise in the life of the nation, and that for so many of its citizens have made their lives hard and hopeless and incomplete. But in a democracy everything begins with the individual. There is not much need to trouble about the submission of the nation to the will of God if its individual citizens are ready to submit to it. It is here that a Day of Dedication makes its challenge, for it implies before all things sacrifice. And that in no mere theory. Sacrifice may be the one condition of peace and public welfare when the war is_ over, and everything will depend on whether it is spontaneous or compelled. No one doubts, for example, that every citizen of this land must somehow be assured of an income that will enable a certain minimum standard of living to be maintained. Is insistence on that to come first, as it should, from the rich, who know they will be taxed to make it possible, or from the potential beneficiaries and their accredited spokesmen? Any who are not ready for such sacrifice can have no place in a service of dedication. There must be readiness equally for national sacrifices—of prestige or of actual dominion. Are we prepared to give immediate self-government to this or that dependent colony, or to India, if we are satisfied that such a course is in their interests, even if not in ours? That is not to suggest that it is at this moment in their interests ; there are good reasons for thinking it is not. But it is to insist that our own self-interest shall play no major part in determining policy.
No thoughtful person with a touch of imagination can fail to see what the possibilities of a Day of National Prayer and Dedication seriously faced by a serious people are. Whether that seriousness will in fact be manifest is not yet certain. The King has ordered the observance ; there has been no indication so far whether the Government is to take any corporate part in it ; Ministers who can meet the Premier at Paddington at midnight should not find it difficult to gather in the Abbey at midday. But they and all others in city and village will gather in vain unless one condition is fulfilled. Faith in the efficacy of sustained prayer does not justify much belief in the value of sporadic prayer. An observance such as this can have little place in the pattern of national or individual life if it ends with the day. For some it may be a continuance and intensification of a familiar practice, for others a starting-point to new experience and new discovery. If it is neither it is nothing. That is not the goal to which the King, in high leadership, has called the nation.
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