SAMUEL ZANE BATTEN WAS born at Swedesboro, New Jersey, August 10, 1859. Educated at Bucknell University, 1885-1888; Crozer Theological Seminary, 1885-1886; (D.D., Bucknell, 1905). Was ordained to the Baptist Ministry, 1886; pastor at Tioga, Pa., 1886-7; Brookville, Pa., 1888-1891; Manayunk Church, Philadelphia, 1891-1893; Amity Church, New York, 1894-1895; Morristown, N. J., 1895-1903; First Church, Lincoln, Nebraska, 1903-1910; head of social science department in the Des Moines College, Iowa, 1910–12. Interested in many forms of social service. Author: Prophets True and False (booklet), 1897; The New Citizenship, 1898; The Christian State, 1909; The Social Task of Christianity, 1911; A Working Temperance Program, 1911; The Social Problem, 1915. Editor Social Service Series. Secretary War Commission of Northern Baptist Convention. Published Monthly by Funk & Wagnalls Company, 354-360 Fourth Avenue, New York. (Adam W. Wagnalls, Pres.; Wilfred J. Funk, Vice-Pres.; Robert J. Cuddihy, Treas.; William Neisel, Sec'y.) VOL. LXXVI. NOVEMBER, 1918 No. 5 The Devotional Hour XXI. Peace that Passes Understanding WE are all familiar with the coming of a peace into our life. at the terminus of some great strain, or after we have weathered a staggering crisis. When a long continued pain, which has racked our nerves, passes away, and leaves us free, we suddenly come into a sense of peace. When we have been watching by a bedside, where a life, unspeakably precious to us, has rain in the grip of some terrible disease, and at length successfully passes the crisis, we walk out into the fields, under the altered sky, and feel a peace settle down upon us, which makes the whole world look different. Or, again we have been facing some threatening catastrophe which seemed likely to break in on our life and perhaps end forever the calm and even tenor of it, and just when the hour of danger seemed darkest, and our fear was at its height, some sudden turn of things has brought a happy shift of events, the danger has passed, and a great peace has come over us instead of the threatened trouble. In all these cases the peace which succeeds pain and strain and anxiety is a thoroughly natural, reasonable peace, a peace which comes in normal sequence, and is quite accessible to the understanding. We should be surprized, and should need an explanation, if we heard of an instance of a passing pain or a yielding strain that was not followed by a corresponding sense of peace. One who has seen a child that was lost in a crowded city, suddenly find its mother and find safety in her dear arms, has seen a good case of this sequential peace, this peace which the understanding can grasp and comprehend. We behold it and say, "how otherwise!" There is, St. Paul reminds, another kind of peace, of quite a different order. It baffles the understanding and transcends its categories. It is a peace which comes, not after the pain is relieved, not after the crisis has passed, not after the danger has disappeared; but in the midst of the pain, while the crisis is still on, and even in the imminent presence of the danger. It is a peace that is not banished or destroyed by the frustrations which beset our lives; rather, it is in, and through, the frustrations that we first come upon it, and enter into it, as, to use St. Paul's phrase, into a garrison which guards our hearts and minds. Each tested soul has to meet its own peculiar frustrations. All of us who work for "causes," or who take up any great piece of moral or spiritual service in the world, know more about defeats and disappointments than we do about successes and triumphs. We have to learn to be patient and long suffering. We must become accustomed to postponements and delays, and sometimes we see the work of almost a life-time suddenly fail of its end. Some turn of events upsets all our noble plans and frustrates the result, just when it appeared ready to arrive. Death falls like lightning on a home that had always before seemed sheltered and protected, and instantly life is profoundly altered for those who are left behind. Nothing can make up for the loss. There is no substitute for what is gone. The accounts will not balance. Frustration in another form confronts us. Or it may be a breakdown of physical or mental powers, or peradventure both together, just when the emergencies of the world called for added energy and increased range of power from us. The need is plain, the harvest is ripe, but the worker's hand fails and he must contract when he would most expand. Frustration looks him straight in the face. Well, to achieve a peace under those circumstances is to have a peace which does not follow a normal sequence. It is not what the world expects. It does not accord with the ways of thought and reasoning. It passes all understanding. It brings another kind of world into operation, and reveals a play of invisible forces upon which the understanding had not reckoned. In fact, this strange, intellect-transcending peace, in the very midst of storm and strain and trial, is one of the surest evidences there is for God. One may, in his own human nerve-power, succeed in acquiring a stoic resignation so that he can say: "In the fell clutch of circumstance, I have not winced nor cried aloud; He may, by sheer effort of will, keep down the lid upon his emotions and go on so nearly unmoved that his fellows can hear no groan, and will wonder at the way he stands the universe. But peace in the soul is another matter. To have the whole heart and mind garrisoned with peace, even in Nero's dungeon, when the imperial death sentence brings frustration to all plans and a terminus to all spiritual work, calls for some world-transcending assistance to the human spirit. Such peace is explained only when we discover that it is "the peace of God," and that it came because the soul broke through the ebbings and flowings of time and space and allied itself with the Eternal.' HAVERFORD COLLEGE, Haverford, Pa. Rufus M. Jones 1 For a further development of the main idea of the above article the reader is referred to Felix Adler's new book, An Ethical Philosophy of Life (Appleton, N. Y.) JESUS THE SOLDIER WILLIAM ELLIOT GRIFFIS, D.D., L.H.D., Ithaca, N. Y. SET in the forefront of human history is the flaming sword. The initial song of Lamech (Gen. 4:23, 24) is in praise of the same weapon. On the Biblical page, no figure looms above that of the soldier. From his weapons, armor, ideals, duties, and experiences are drawn innumerable allusions, references, metaphors, and incentives to action. Peace is the dream of philosophers, the hope of the Christian, and the promise of ultimate certainty in the Scriptures; but war is the story of our race. The Prince of Peace came on earth to bring a sword. To save themselves, he urged upon his disciples, even to the selling of their coats, the purchase of weapons for defense. To win tranquil calm, under liberty, the sword seems as necessary as the ploughshare. From Joshua to Joffre, men in righteous defense have appealed to God, trusted their leaders, and counted not their lives dear unto them. Throughout all ages, and in every clime, the soldier hero, living or dead, is honored. The true end of war is to secure peace. In this year of grace, 1918, the nations are united in one purpose the first of its kind on earth to make this, if God will, the last war. With this noble end in view, we look first to the soldier to carry that purpose into effect. What is a soldier? a stipend. Hence, he is the man who is paid solid money for his service. Required to give up his earning power, the State justly reimburses him for his sacrifice. After service, the veterans of the ancient world received land in lieu of a pension, and they formed colonies. In one of these, Philippi, the gospel was first preached in Europe. From another, at Lindum, in Britain, comes the name Lincoln. Thus the ages touch each other. The traits of the true patriot, serving in arms to save the nation, are presented to us clearly in the divine Word. For in every campaign, from Abraham and Joshua to Foch, Haig, and Pershing, the morale of an army transcends in war value its weapons or its commissariat. The gun is as worthless without the man behind it as is the bullet without powder. The material may be in the machine, but man's spirit is the motor. Behold, in the Bible, a manual of arms and the right philosophy of both tactics and strategy. Yet of even more value, spiritual and practical, is the inculcation and example given, of the virtues indispensable in the soldier. Among these are consecration, obedience, discipline, courage, loyalty, whole-heartedness, chivalry, patience in reverses, and mercy to the fallen foe. Of all these, Jesus, the Christ of God, was a true exemplar. A man of Nazareth, and bearing one of the names most common among his people -a soldier, Joshua being his namesake he is known to us under his Greek name, Jesus. Viewed in the Inquiring of language the verbal shadow of reality-we find the Hebrew is personal; it tells of "a son of the troop," an "armed man," and when in numbers a "host." The Greek, more picturesque, reveals the soldier in action, or deploying for combat, as well as in formations, tactics, or camps. The Latins, with a genius for organization and stability, tell us of the standing army. In their view, mander," who not only fights in the light of Bible history, Jesus, above all a professional warrior should receive else, was a soldier, our file leader (archegos), and our great Captain. Note the croix de guerre on him. He was our archegos-" originating com war of the spirit, but who plans the |