



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 the writer has had but one
purpose: to show that there is but one remedy for all our grievous
ills, even a return to God.

As we think of the millions who have taken all that makes life dear and
laid it down that we might live; who have gone down to an earthly hell
that we might not lose our heaven; who have wrestled with the powers of
destruction on sea and land that these isles might continue to be the
sanctuary of freedom and the home of righteousness; who in the midst of
their torment never flinched; and of the fathers, mothers, and wives
who have laid on the altar the sacrifice of all their love and
hope--the question arises, how can {ix} we show our love and our
gratitude to those who have redeemed us?  We can only prove our
gratitude by making a new world for those who have saved us--a world in
which men and women shall no longer be doomed to live lives of
sordidness and misery.  When we shall set ourselves to that task,
seeking to meet the sacrifice of heroism by the sacrifice of our
service, deeming no labour too great and no effort too arduous, then
the vision of God will again arise upon us and will abide.

N. M.

_October_ 7, 1916.




{xi}

CONTENTS


CHAPTER I

THE EMPTY CRADLE


CHAPTER II

THE ROOTS OF THE EVIL


CHAPTER III

THE EMPTY COUNTRYSIDE


CHAPTER IV

THE MAN IN THE SLUM


CHAPTER V

THE LORD OF THE SLUM


CHAPTER VI

THE GREAT REFUSAL


{xii}

CHAPTER VII

THE SLUM IN THE MAN


CHAPTER VIII

BEHIND YOU IS GOD




{1}

CHAPTER I

THE EMPTY