From the INTRODUCTORY.
When some great Christian kingdom has along its borders no rest from war, many young .citizens-the lion being still supreme in them1-can recognise but one service of the state. The watch upon the frontier, with its discipline of arms and its incessant energies of defense and attack, is to them at once the duty of a man and the meaning of citizenship and the ideal life. But the years bring a graver wisdom; the man who went out eagerly to the tented field-if he has retained the clear sense of devotion to the state, and has not become merely subdued to the trade of war-comes more and more to see that, great as is his present service to the state, there is another, quieter and greater. The ultimate strength of the state lies other where: in patient processes and structures of industry and commerce and legislation; in unnumbered school-rooms; in those ancient houses where learning is cherished for its own sake, and for their own sake the sciences are cultivated, and out of piety the memory of far-off benefactors is kept alive; above all, in the relations dear of the homes, with their charities of father, son, and brother, and their establishment in uprightness and integrity of the characters of those who presently are to do the worlds work and shape the worlds life; and in those companions of the homes, without which homes are scarcely homes at all, the parish churches that with sacraments and holy observances and the making of habitual prayer lie close to our mortal life from its beginning to its close: -parish churches where the vows of baptism are made for little children; and with Morning Prayer and Evensong the growing life is reminded day by day of the heavenly glory which is its end; and to each relationship of life, with all that is in it of labour or sacred promise or discipline of grief, there is brought by solemn offices the assistance of the heavenly grace; and all, at last, the young with the old, the poor side by side with the great, lay themselves down together to their sleep in the shadow of the ancient walls. In these things is the strength and true life of the state; nay, these tilings are the state; and to them the man upon the frontier-if he is a man indeed, and the times are not too grim-makes soon or late his way, leaving the vigil upon the border to the younger men with whom the inward and spiritual voices of the rational s0ul have not yet come to mastery and the call of the trumpet remains the one voice of duty....