Читать книгу Stand Up, Ye Dead - Norman Maclean - Страница 20

In the so-called dark ages the mother and the child were an object of veneration if not of worship. Men thrilled with the sense of the sacredness of life because they feared God—the source of life. What the race needs is to go on pilgrimage back to the Manger—back to the Child. But, alas! the spiritually dead cannot go on pilgrimage. First the dead must be quickened. What we need most of all is to cleanse these self-filled, soiled hearts in the fountain of self-sacrifice. The soul of the race, if the race is to be saved, must go on pilgrimage back to the Manger—back to the Mother and the Child.

'And he who gives a child a home

Builds palaces in kingdom come.

And she who gives a baby birth

Brings Saviour Christ again to earth.'

When, last winter, the enemy poured into a trench, and almost all the defenders were killed, a French sergeant, grievously wounded, grasped a rifle and began to shoot, crying out to his semi-conscious comrades, 'Stand up, ye dead.' At the wild cry the wounded arose, and the half-dead began to shoot with unsteady hands. By a resurrection from the dead the trench was saved. To a race that has set its face towards decay, there ringeth from heaven the cry, 'Stand up, ye dead.' It is not yet too late to save the race, the empire, and the world.

[1] The Declining Birthrate, p. 247.

[2] The Declining Birthrate, p. 343.

[3] The Declining Birthrate, p. 93.

[4] The Declining Birthrate, p. 126.