futile, and then relapse into helplessness again.  They lack the vision that inspires every moment, discerns a sure way, and heightens the spirit to battle without ceasing, which is characteristic of the great years.  They tacitly accept that theirs is a useless generation, that the enemy is in the ascendant, that they cannot unseat him, and their action, where any is made, is but to show their attitude, never to convince opponents that the battle is again beginning, that this is a bid for freedom, that history will be called on to record their fight and pay tribute to their times.  Their action has never this great significance.  When stung to fitful madness by the boastful votaries of power, their occasional frantic efforts are more as relief to their feelings than destructive to the tyranny in being.  Let us realise this to the full; and seeing the futility in other years of every pathetic makeshift to annoy or circumvent the enemy, put by futilities and do a great work to justify our time.

V

We have, then, to consider and decide our immediate attitude to life, where we stand.  There are errors to remove.  The first is the assumption that we are only required to acknowledge the flag in places, offer it allegiance at certain meetings at certain times that form but a small part of our existence; while we allow ourselves to be dispensed from fidelity to our principles when in other places, where other standards are either explicitly or tacitly recognised.  That we must carry our flag everywhere; that there must be no dispensation:  these are the cardinal points of our philosophy.  Life is a great battlefield, and any hour in the day a man’s flag may be challenged and he must stand and justify it.  An idea you hold as true is not to be professed only where it is proclaimed; it will whisper and you must be its prophet in strange places; it is insistent of all things—­you must glory in it or deny it; there is no escaping it, and there is no middle way; wherever your path lies it will cross you and you must choose.

Beware lest on any plea you put it by.  You cannot elect to do nothing; the concourse of circumstances would take you to some side; to do nothing is still to take a side.  Priest, poet, professor, public man, professional man, business man, tradesman—­everyone will be called to answer; in every walk of life the true idea will find the false in conflict and the battle must be fought out there—­the battle is lost when we satisfy ourselves with an academic debate in our spare moments.  This is a debating club age, and a plea for an ideal is often wasted, taken as a mere point in an argument; but to walk among men fighting passionately for it as a thing believed in, is to make it real, to influence men never reached in other ways; it is to arrest attention, arouse interest and quicken the masses to advance.  And wherever the appeal for the flag is calling us the snare of