I
_A STRANGE EPIPHANY_
Whenever the State meddles with the Church's business, it contrives
to make a muddle. This familiar truth has been exemplified afresh
by the decree which dedicated last Sunday[*] to devotions connected
with the War. The Feast of the Epiphany has had, at least since
the fourth century, its definite place in the Christian year, its
special function, and its peculiar lesson. The function is to
commemorate the revelation of Christianity to the Gentile world;
and the lesson is the fulfilment of all that the better part of
Heathendom had believed in and sought after, in the religion which
emanates from Bethlehem. To confuse the traditional observance of
this day with the horrors and agonies of war, its mixed motives
and its dubious issues, was indeed a triumph of ineptitude.
[Footnote *: January 6th, 1918.]