



Produced by Al Haines, prepared from scans obtained from
The Internet Archive.










STAND UP, YE DEAD


BY

NORMAN MACLEAN




HODDER AND STOUGHTON

LONDON -- NEW YORK -- TORONTO

MCMXVI




_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_


  DWELLERS IN THE MIST
  HILLS OF HOME
  CAN THE WORLD BE WON FOR CHRIST?
  THE BURNT-OFFERING
  AFRICA IN TRANSFORMATION
  THE GREAT DISCOVERY




{v}

PREFACE

Two years ago the writer published a book called _The Great Discovery_.
It seemed to him in those days, when the nation chose the ordeal of
battle rather than dishonour, that the people, as if waking from sleep,
discovered God once more.  But, now, after an agony unparalleled in the
history of the world, the vision of God has faded, and men are left
groping in the darkness of a great bewilderment.  The cause may not be
far to seek.  For every vision of God summons men to the girding of
themselves that they may bring their lives more into conformity with
His holy will.  And when men decline the venture to which the vision
beckons, then the vision fades.

It is there that we have failed.  We were called to put an end to
social evils {vi} which are sapping our strength and enfeebling our arm
in battle, but we refused.  We wanted victory over the enemy, but we
deemed the price of moral surgery too great even for victory.  In the
rush and crowding of world-shaking cataclysms, memory is short.  We
have already almost forgotten the moral tragedy of April 1915.  It was
then that the White Paper was issued by the Government, and the nation
was informed of startling facts which our statesmen knew all the time.
At last the nation was told that our armies were wellnigh paralysed for
lack of munitions, while thousands of men were daily away from their
work because of drunkenness; that the repairing of ships was delayed
and transports unable to put to sea because of drunkenness; that goods,
vital to the State, could not be delivered because of drunkenness; that
Admiral Jellicoe had warned the Government that the efficiency of the
Fleet was threatened because of drunkenness; and that shipbuilders and
munition manufacturers had made a strong {vii} appeal to our rulers to
put an end to drunkenness.  It was then that the King, by his example,
called upon the people to renounce alcohol, and the nation waited for
its deliverance.  But the Government refused to follow the King.  There
is but one law for nations, as for individuals, if they would save
their souls: 'If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off.'  But our
statesmen could not brace themselves to an act of surgery; they devised
a scheme for putting the offending member into splints.  And, since
then, it looks as if the wheels of the chariot of victory were stuck in
the bog of the national drunkenness.  The vision of God has faded
before the eyes of a nation that refused its beckoning.

This book deals, therefore, with those evils which now hide the face of
God from us.  If drunkenness be the greatest of these evils, there are
others closely allied to it.  Two Commissions have recently issued
Reports, the one on 'The Declining Birthrate,' and the other on 'The
Social Evil,' {viii} which reveal the perilous condition of
degeneration into which the nation is falling.  It is difficult for
people, engrossed in the labours and anxieties of these days, to grasp
the meaning of the facts as presented in these Reports.  In these pages
an effort is made to look the facts in the face and to make the danger
clear, so that he who runs may read.  And