The Kingdom of God Has Come Nigh

Surely the effects of this calamity upon our national life will prove to be not unlike those that follow a widespread revival of religion. Sometimes it takes an event like this to shock a people out of its materialism, to prove through one such approach to the kingdom of God that he waits to be recognized in all the experiences of life, that he and not Mammon is to be worshipped and served. Who could have foreseen a fortnight ago the changed national mood? A deeper sense of the mystery that surrounds these earthly years, a more tender feeling towards sorrow and suffering the world over, a profounder realization of our transgressions, personal and corporate, a keener susceptibility to the thought of God and his vast purposes for mankind—are not all these things signs that the kingdom has come nigh unto us and that we should, from this time forth, seek it with all our hearts, and serve it with our utmost strength?