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BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 THE SONG OF OUR SYRIAN GUEST 
 
 THE LOVE WATCH 
 
 SAINT ABIGAIL OF THE PINES 
 
 THE SIGNS IN THE CHRISTMAS FIRE 
 
 THE SHEPHERD OF JEBEL NUR 
 
 NO ROOM IN THE INN 
 
 THE SONG OF OUR SYRIAN GUEST (with notes) 
 
 PETER IN THE FIRELIGHT 
 
 AT THE CROSSING WITH DENIS McSHANE 
 
 OUTSIDE A CITY WALL 
 
 ON THE WAY TO BETHLEHEM 
 
 TO LITTLE DAVID OF SMYRNA 
 
 A BEDOUIN LOVER 
 
 THE WELL BY BETHLEHEM'S GATE 
 
 THE PICTURELAND OF THE HEART 
 
WAR-TIME "OVER HERE" 
 
WAR-TIME OVER HERE 
 
 WILLIAM ALLEN KNIGHT 
 
 Author of 
 " The Song of Our Syrian Guest " 
 
 THE PILGRIM PRESS 
 
 BOSTON CHICAGO 
 
\ 
 
 r^^ 
 
 Copyright 1918 
 Bt WILLIAM ALLEN KNIGHT 
 
 Copyright in England 
 
 All Rights Reserved 
 PubUshed 1918 
 
 APR 30 1918 
 
 THE PILGEIM PRESS 
 BOSTON 
 
 )Ci.A497134 
 
TO 
 
 StPtttrnant (titan BpaJtlpg 
 an& d^nr (Btxixnht 
 
 MARRIED, DECEMBER X 
 MCMXVII 
 
 ▼ii 
 
AUTHOR'S FOREWORD 
 
 These sketches have been written from day to 
 day throughout the time of America's prepara- 
 tion for the part she is now beginning to play in 
 the drama of world war. When the President at 
 last severed diplomatic relations with Germany, 
 " Two Voices " was published while the news 
 was on every lip. Soon a group of Grammar 
 School children, of various race stocks and 
 strangers to me, rendered this " piece in the 
 paper " in a manner that awed me. Their 
 American hearts understood! Thereupon I re- 
 solved to do my best to interpret for our people 
 the deeper meanings of the things that were to 
 follow. . The reception given many of the com- 
 positions thus put forth, as they appeared edi- 
 torially in the Boston Herald, sustains my hope 
 that friends who have wished to see some of them 
 gathered into a book are not mistaken. To- 
 gether they make a story — a story of the heart 
 and soul of Anaerica at a time which will be il- 
 lumined by the reverence of generations to come. 
 The rapidly shifting phases of public affairs, as 
 the nation moved with inexperienced and often 
 confused action toward its task of destinv, are 
 
AUTHOR'S FOREWORD 
 
 here touched upon one by one, and always on the 
 human side of their significance. This httle 
 book witnesses to the spirit I have seen in our 
 people as they faced the abhorred but now im- 
 perative ordeal of war. 
 
 W. A. K. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 pxaa 
 
 I A Guest's Forecast 3 
 
 II Two Voices 6 
 
 III " We Can Do No Other " 10 
 
 IV War's Wonder Works 13 
 
 V Paying for Our Soul's Desire 16 
 
 VI Poor Richard's Vindication 19 
 
 VII " Arms and a Man " 22 
 
 VIII A Seer on a Street Car 24 
 
 IX A Living God 28 
 
 X The Victory of the Cheerful 31 
 
 XI The Spirit of " Strike-the-Ree " 34 
 
 XII Nero's Folly Brought Down to Date 37 
 
 XIII The War and the Coming MiUions 39 
 
 XIV To the Legion of the Cheerful 43 
 
 XV The Nugget in the Road 46 
 
 XVI Patriots as of Old 49 
 
 XVII The Rambler Rose 51 
 
 XVIII The Draft Day 63 
 
 XIX After the Draft Day 56 
 
 XX The Draft Seen in Larger Light 58 
 
 XXI Hollyhocks 61 
 
 XXII The First Home-Coming 64 
 
 XXIII A Sentence That Will Live 67 
 
 XXIV " Carry On " 69 
 
 XXV The Men Behind the Marchers 72 
 
 XXVI The Blessing of Books 76 
 
 xi 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 XXVII "They also Serve Who only Stand 
 
 and Wait " 77 
 
 XXVIII Tire Punctures Ahead 80 
 
 XXIX Roosevelt's Single Eye 83 
 
 XXX " Where There Is No Vision " 85 
 
 XXXI " Somewhere m France " 88 
 
 XXXII Thankfulness as a Fine Art 91 
 
 XXXIII Jerusalem in War Light 93 
 
 XXXIV The Women at Home 96 
 
 XXXV The Pair on the Mall 98 
 
 XXXVI London Bridge 101 
 
 XXXVII Light Your Christmas Candles 107 
 
 XXXVIII A Christmas Song 109 
 
 XXXIX As Years Pass 110 
 
 XL Jacob's Ladder in To-day's News 112 
 
 XLI The Mystery of the Smoking Ledge .... 115 
 
 XLII Enter New Actors on an Ancient Stage 118 
 
 XLIII A Text for the Times 121 
 
 XLIV " Be Not Weary in Bad Doing " . . . . 124 
 
 XLV Our Benefactor — The Sun 127 
 
 XLVI " But Peter FoUov/ed " . 130 
 
 XLVII " Deep Calleth unto Deep " 133 
 
 XLVIII Rising to the Heroic Mood 136 
 
 XLIX The Service Flag 139 
 
WAR-TIME "OVER HERE" 
 
WAR-TIME '*OVER HERE" 
 
 A GUEST'S FORECAST 
 
 It is New Year's Day — the world is crashing 
 into " the year of our Lord 1917." What will 
 this year bring to pass? Lord Kitchener's seem- 
 ingly unbelievable expectation that the war would 
 last three years will be fulfilled in this year's mid- 
 summer. And the end is not in sight. Will this 
 year bring any sign of the war's outcome? 
 America will make answer. 
 
 On the first Christmas of this war we had 
 a guest never seen before nor since. He was a 
 German of towering stature and powerful men- 
 tality. Accredited by his family's great kindness 
 to one dear to us, he was cordially welcomed in 
 spite of war's predicaments for so marked a man. 
 The freedom of such hospitality warranted the 
 following conversation: 
 
 " Johann, won't you tell us your view of the 
 war? " 
 
 " I would go tomorrow to fight for the father- 
 land — if I only could." 
 
 " Certainlj^; but I wish I might know what 
 you really think about the outcome of it all." 
 3 
 
WAR-TIME " OVER HERE " 
 
 There was a pause. Then, with a straight 
 gaze at his host, the stalwart young German 
 said: " Germany cannot win." 
 
 " Is that understood at home — among men 
 like your father, I mean? " 
 
 " Yes — absolutely, it is." 
 
 " Why do you think Germany cannot win, 
 Johann? " 
 
 " Too many against her." 
 
 " What will be the outcome, then? " 
 
 " They cannot crush her, either." 
 
 " Well, what do you expect — a stalemate, a 
 draw? " 
 
 " Ah, nein, mein Herr! " was the solemn reply. 
 " They will — what is that word — shtarve? 
 They will bring her to nothing left." 
 
 " Do you mean cut off her food supplies? " 
 
 " It may be so — but I think we can manage 
 that a long time; but metals, petroleum for gaso- 
 hne — all such things without which we can not 
 fight — they will shtarve us for such things, by 
 and by — not soon, but by and by. Of food 
 they may shtarve us only if our crops fail, and 
 then " — he paused, but presently went on — 
 " and then your country becomes no longer neu- 
 tral — joins our enemies." 
 
 " Johann, do Germans at home — men like 
 your civiHan father — think as you do about 
 America's part in determining the outcome ?" 
 
 " We know that we can stay in the game until 
 America shakes the dice-box — and throws 
 4 
 
A GUEST'S FORECAST 
 
 against us. That will end the playing of the 
 game for us." 
 
 The great question now is, How much longer 
 will the war last? This German forecast seems 
 worth repeating in answer to that question. For 
 America is now shaking the dice-box. 
 
11 
 
 TWO VOICES 
 
 " The United States is again the great republic of Lincoln 
 and Washington." — A Madrid newspaper, when the Presi- 
 dent severed diplomatic relations with Germany, Febru- 
 ary 3. 
 
 Heard you two voices from our winter skies, 
 Serene above the world's embattled roar ? 
 
 What time I hearkened, held in rapt surprise, 
 There came a peace I had not found before. 
 
 FIRST VOICE 
 
 Come, let us watch together — come! 
 
 SECOND VOICE 
 
 It is the month in which we two were born 
 On yonder globe, in that far-spreading land. 
 How strange that through these peaceful years 
 
 for us 
 Those new-born millions keep our natal days — 
 Recall the words we spoke in bygone times 
 To guide them row, amid their vaster life! 
 Strange, too, that he who stands in our old place 
 Shall speak the fateful word in this same month! 
 
 FIRST VOICE 
 
 Come, let us watch together, friend! 
 6 
 
TWO VOICES 
 
 The voices hushed. Meanwhile the shocks of 
 war 
 Went crashing through the pulsing hearts of 
 men. 
 A patient voice on earth rang out afar! 
 And then I heard the voices twain again. 
 
 FIRST VOICE 
 
 See, how in bloody clench all Europe writhes! 
 And Asia's outcry sweeps the westward sea! 
 
 SECOND VOICE 
 
 We Httle knew in those old days of ours, 
 When we upbore our country's sacred life, 
 What huger struggle would engulf it now. 
 Marked you whence came that patient, mighty 
 
 voice? 
 God keep the man who holds our place today! 
 
 Once more earth's fury raged — the voices stilled. 
 
 The stars were dimmed while heaven's snow- 
 flakes fell. 
 At length these words the upper silence filled — 
 
 / listened, and my spirit marked them well. 
 
 FIRST VOICE 
 
 Ah, how I strove to set our young land free — 
 And then, to keep its life forever safe 
 From Europe's ancient, dire entanglements! 
 But now — I see it can no longer be ; 
 7 
 
WAR-TIME "OVER HERE" 
 
 The nation I established, you preserved, 
 Has grown too great to live henceforth alone! 
 
 SECOND VOICE 
 
 The world awaits the touch of freemen's power - 
 Its human might of words and acts that glow 
 With scorn of racial hate and hoary wrongs. 
 
 FIRST VOICE 
 
 The Father of us all on yonder throne, 
 
 Who once through me made free our new-born 
 
 land 
 And kept it whole for freedom's sake through 
 
 you, 
 
 Now wills that it shall speak with might for 
 
 Him, 
 To end war's slavery for all the world. 
 
 SECOND VOICE 
 
 Oh, will they wake and stand like freemen still — 
 Those millions thriving all from coast to coast? 
 I well remember even yet how oft, 
 When war imperilled our dear country's life, 
 I pondered how you prayed at Valley Forge. 
 Will they remember now your prayers, and 
 
 mine — 
 Recall what kept us right and made us strong? 
 Will he remember who now holds our place? 
 8 
 
TWO VOICES 
 
 FIRST VOICE 
 
 Come, we may pray for them together, now — 
 May go and stand for them by heaven's throne! 
 
 So heard I voices from the ivinter skies. 
 Serene above the ivorld's embattled roar. 
 
 And while I listened, held in rapt surprise, 
 There came a peace I sought in vain before. 
 
Ill 
 
 " WE CAN DO NO OTHER " 
 
 On April 2 the President addressed Congress 
 in special session, calling for a declaration of war 
 against Germany. The Senate so voted on the 
 4th, the House on the 6th, the President sign- 
 ing the declaration on the same day, which was 
 Good Friday. In the spirit of Calvary we took 
 up our Cross! 
 
 " God helping her," thus the President ended 
 the fateful utterance that would throw our coun- 
 try into the world war, " God helping her, she 
 can do no other." And those are the very words 
 of an immortal German! — " Ich kann nicht 
 anders! Gott helf mir, Amen! " 
 
 Surely the President's scholarly mind was 
 fully aware whence came those words with which 
 he crowned his august pronouncement. Surely, 
 in choosing them at such a historic climax of 
 speech, he deliberately meant to show venera- 
 tion for the true spirit of the German people as 
 the modern world has known it. Here is some- 
 thing too significant, too delicately noble to be 
 overlooked amid war's awakening uproar. 
 
 The President's kind and even fond thought 
 
 of the German people was clear and persistent 
 
 throughout his momentous address calUng for a 
 
 declaration of war on their intolerable govern- 
 
 10 
 
"WE CAN DO NO OTHER" 
 
 ment. In these last words that fell from his hps, 
 he paid tribute to the German folk-soul, as if to 
 crown all he had said with good will. It is so 
 deftly done that it is all the more a high token 
 of sincerity. 
 
 Our German fellow-citizens will do well to take 
 to heart such tokens of the spirit that is in this 
 nation as we go to war with Germany. As the 
 President is careful to emphasize, we enter the 
 conflict " not in enmity towards a people or with 
 desire to bring any injury or disadvantage upon 
 them, but only in armed opposition to an irre- 
 sponsible government which has thrown aside 
 all consideration of humanity and of right and 
 is running amuck." To that discriminating de- 
 cision of this nation all who live here will do well 
 to conform with absolute fidelity. They who 
 are of German blood may find great aid in so 
 doing in the President's abounding care to voice 
 the high friendship of our people for the people 
 of Germany. And all the rest of us should keep 
 before our eyes his declaration, " We shall, hap- 
 pily, still have opportunity to prove that friend- 
 ship in our daily attitude and actions toward 
 men and women of German birth and native 
 sympathy who live amongst us and share our 
 life." 
 
 But this in no way implies soft-handed pro- 
 cedure from this day forward. These German 
 words throb on our lips with their original pas- 
 sion — defiance of wrong insufferable, unflinch- 
 11 
 
WAR-TIME "OVER HERE" 
 
 ing resolve to face and overpower it at all costs. 
 We, too, will go forward " though there be as 
 many devils in Germany as tiles on the house- 
 tops." 
 
 Both our good will and our grimly inevitable 
 action can best be viewed by all, here at home and 
 across the sea, through those last words of the 
 President's call to war, when, with fine discern- 
 ment and gracious but herculean poise, he gath- 
 ered up the spirit of this nation into the words 
 of a German — " We can do no other; God help 
 us." 
 
 12 
 
IV 
 WAR'S WONDER WORKS 
 
 Some of war's marvels come to pass so silently 
 and in such widely sundered outreaches of human 
 life that the mind must focus its vision to discern 
 them amid more obvious affairs. 
 
 " Isabelle was to have been married in June, 
 you know," so reads many a letter in the mail- 
 bags these mid-April days, " but her fianc6 re- 
 ceived word to hold himself ready to be called 
 out, and — there was a quiet little wedding at 
 our house last night! You will understand why 
 you did not receive an invitation. Nobody did." 
 Maiden hearts are roused from ecstasies of 
 preparation to sudden resoluteness of womanly 
 adventure in claiming their own against the omi- 
 nous future. And away yonder, the autocrat of 
 all Russia falls from his erstwhile adamantine 
 throne as the shriveled apple drops from a wind- 
 shaken bough; and still further off, thousands of 
 exiles, shaggy and emaciated and hopeless until 
 now, are journeying out of Siberia — homeward 
 bound ! Meanwhile, yesterday six children — 
 five boys and a curly-headed girl — were seen 
 marching on the sidewalk of mansioned Beacon 
 Street, a fine Uttle lad commanding and a toy 
 drum firmly tapping. So vast is the range of 
 war's wonder works. 
 
 13 
 
WAR-TIME "OVER HERE" 
 
 Between such extremes what mysteries of 
 change are taking place, in our land now as in 
 many another heretofore; for the government 
 has called for 500,C00 volunteers. In homes of 
 the poor and the lowly, oncoming ravages are al- 
 ready being confronted by manoeuvres of the 
 spirit — perils of livelihood faced, perils of the 
 simples of human contentment. In all homes, 
 rich or poor, mothers are victoriously marshal- 
 ling their souls to realize that their fondly cher- 
 ished boys are and must be men from this day 
 forward — their boys are enlisting. And, presto, 
 men all but fossilized in self-enriching ways of 
 life are suddenly pondering generous acts — to 
 forego opportunities for shrewdly enlarged 
 profits, to give over a favorite yacht or country 
 house for the nation's use, to provide time and 
 place for employes to drill, to hoist the flag on 
 rigidly managed store or factory and let love of 
 country flame in the breast of elevator boy 
 or salesman or machinist unabashed. 
 
 Women sumptuously housed and habituated 
 to delicate pleasures of body and mind are trans- 
 formed into earnest plan-makers and hand- 
 workers — achieving exactitude in making band- 
 ages as prescribed by hospital experts, skilled in 
 producing articles of comfort for fighting men 
 in camp and field, their instinctive powers of 
 womanUness strangely resurrected as if by a 
 human Easter day. Boys and girls at school are 
 listing vacant lots which may become the scene 
 14 
 
WAR'S WONDER WORKS 
 
 of their summer toil, potatoes and beans loom- 
 ing in their minds with a charm Uke that of the 
 golden apples of Hesperides. And the day's 
 news tells of Elihu Root and Theodore Roose- 
 velt — "burying the hatchet," manfully calling 
 on all to join in supporting the Democratic 
 President in words that sound as if the millen- 
 nium had come. 
 
 These things are but samples of war's manifold 
 wonder works. Amid the more obvious aspects, 
 sometimes inspiring but often abhorrent, such 
 magic effects lend deeper meaning. What is it? 
 From Italy, D'Annunzio, the soldier-poet, sends 
 a message to America that gives answer. Its last 
 words are these: "April 15 is the anniversary of 
 Lincoln's death. From his sepulchre there issue 
 again the noble words that fell from his lips at 
 Gettysburg: ' I say to you that this nation, 
 under God, shall have a new birth of freedom.' " 
 
 16 
 
PAYING FOR OUR SOUL'S DESIRE 
 
 At the opening of the Civil War Charles EUot 
 Norton was as sharp a critic of Lincoln as any 
 one has been of Roosevelt in recent affairs. 
 When that war was scarcely half over the scholar- 
 patriot wrote: " I conceive Lincoln's character 
 to be on the whole the great net gain of the war." 
 Roosevelt is saying and doing much these days 
 which is producing a like change in the thought 
 of many who have been his critics. As April 
 goes by the real Roosevelt is showing out in the 
 high light of another great national struggle. 
 
 Man of action that he is, a veritable dynamo 
 of energy and motive power, yet he is the man 
 who when crises come is surest to forge the cold 
 truth we need into words fired by much ponder- 
 ing and moulded with masterly skill. Once again 
 it is Roosevelt who has put the truth for the 
 present hour into words that ring like a bell: 
 " For the sake of our own soil, for the sake of 
 memories of the great Americans of the past, we 
 must show that we do not intend to make this 
 merely a dollar war. Let us pay with our bodies 
 for our soul's desire." 
 
 Bishop Lawrence has stated the present sit- 
 uation with precision: " We're at war. You 
 wouldn't think it from the way people you meet 
 16 
 
PAYING FOR OUR SOUL'S DESIRE 
 
 on the streets act and talk. But we are at war. 
 That's going to cost lives and money and possibly 
 chagrin, because we may discover that we are 
 not ready." Our returned ambassador, fresh 
 from Berlin, is now unsealing his lips and de- 
 claring: " The Germans were to bring on this 
 submarine war, force England to surrender and 
 then come here to get the expenses of the war 
 from America. Those are the matters that have 
 been openly discussed in the Prussian ParHament, 
 in the Reichstag and in the best-known news- 
 papers of Germany. If we had not gone into 
 this war, I am absolutely convinced that Ger- 
 many, after the war had been won by her, or 
 after the war had ended in a draw, would have 
 come over to attack us." General Leonard Wood 
 is speaking to us with the solemnity of expert 
 certitude, as Kitchener spoke at the beginning 
 to lethargic England — " Get ready. Begin 
 seriously. You women have got to check up the 
 slackers. Get ready to send men across the sea. 
 Back up the President." And it is Roosevelt 
 who forges into a single sentence the imminent 
 need, the impelling motives, the requisite spirit 
 of self-devotement, the sublime cause to be 
 served — " Let us pay with our bodies for our 
 soul's desire." 
 
 Our soul's desire? Have we been so long se- 
 cure in liberty and peace that we have no soul's 
 desire — so lulled by immunity that we are 
 dulled until our soul's desire has expired? Is the 
 17 
 
WAR-TIME "OVER HERE" 
 
 spirit of our great past atrophied in the men and 
 women and youth of today? It may be that our 
 human spirits have become habituated to ease 
 through long freedom from war's perils. It may 
 seem to many unbelievable that war, so pro- 
 foundly hated and so long repudiated as an 
 anachronism by us, has actually raised its huge 
 bulk in our waters — cast its bl^ck shadow on 
 our shores. But once the fact is realized, our 
 soul's desire will burn anew, and like a beacon 
 rally our millions to the heroism known of old. 
 Now that the issue in this monstrous eruption 
 of war has become clear; now that we see " the 
 standards of the people plunging through 
 the thunder-storm," our course can no longer 
 be doubted. The foremost people's nation of the 
 earth, seeing that the welfare of all is bound up 
 with the outcome of Europe's struggle, will not 
 fail to show itself a freedom-guarding nation. 
 Our young men and those who love them will, if 
 it must be, " pay with our bodies for our soul's 
 desire." 
 
 18 
 
VI 
 
 POOR RICHARD'S VINDICATION 
 
 The anniversary of Benjamin Franklin's death 
 went by only a few clays since. Immediately 
 thereafter in this momentous April we are wit- 
 nessing the arrival on our shores of the high 
 commissioners of England and France. In view 
 of the circumstances that bring them here and 
 the purpose of their coming, there is great force 
 in a remark dropped by a Boston woman. 
 " This," said she, " is Poor Richard's coronation 
 day." 
 
 It was Franklin whose homely wisdom drove 
 home to the minds of distraught Americans in 
 colonial times the value of thrift. His " Poor 
 Richard's Almanac," unfaihng in its eagerly 
 awaited appearance for a quarter of a century, 
 taught the people of the colonies, among many 
 other practical bits of wisdom, to put money in 
 their purse. " As Poor Richard says " became 
 a household form of speech throughout the land. 
 And he steadily urged the blessings gained by 
 economy and enterprise and consequent full- 
 handedness in money matters. " It is hard for 
 an empty bag to stand upright," said Poor 
 Richard. " Sensible people will give a bucket or 
 two of water to a dry pump, that they may after- 
 ward get from it all they have occasion for." So 
 19 
 
WAR-TIME "OVER HERE" 
 
 the sound mind of Franklin buoyed up the 
 heavy-laden souls of America in those early 
 times. 
 
 To add to the charm of his words, he it was 
 who, before the war for independence, took 
 charge of the postal service and made it a source 
 of revenue instead of debt. When the war came 
 on, he it was who went to France, induced the 
 authorities there to guarantee a loan of two 
 million francs a year in quarterly payments, got 
 them to permit arms and ammunition to be sent 
 from France to America and the fitting out of 
 privateers there. When the young nation was 
 established, and many were bewailing blighted 
 business and the high cost of living and the gen- 
 eral hard times, he issued his " Consolation to 
 America." Every man that put a seed into the 
 ground, he declared, was recompensed forty- 
 fold; every man that drew a fish out of the 
 waters drew up a piece of silver. With so many 
 industrious people in the land, said he with grim 
 geniality, on cool examination the prospect 
 would appear less gloomy than was imagined. 
 What wonder that Poor Richard had the ear 
 and heart of Americans in those days as no other 
 man did in the matter of making them realize 
 that " money makes the mare go "! 
 
 True, some charged him with teaching a 
 " candle-end-saving philosophy " — with stoop- 
 ing to the low-browed shrewdness of " laying up 
 treasure on earth." But his high ideals, his 
 20 
 
POOR RICHARD'S VINDICATION 
 
 noble self-surrender to public service, his insis- 
 tence on daily appeals to Heaven for guidance in 
 the nation's business, rendered such charges in- 
 nocuous. And the people heeded his voice as he 
 went on insisting that " Heaven helps those who 
 help themselves, as Poor Richard says." 
 
 And now? Now America, great in her history, 
 mighty in her ideals, superb in her resources, has 
 just welcomed to her shores Viviani and Joffre 
 from France, Balfour from England. They come 
 out of the maelstrom of Europe's war. They 
 come with grateful and reverent honor — to ac- 
 cept America's regal loans, to help throw Ameri- 
 ca's huge resources into the titanic scales of war 
 wherein the destinies of civihzation are being 
 weighed. The determinative wealth of the 
 world is in America now. The thrift and enter- 
 prise, the achieving skill and toil of America's 
 laborers and business men are to master the 
 world's fate. The bag stands upright now, be- 
 cause it is not empty, but full. Poor Richard is 
 smihng, no doubt, up in the heavenlies. For his 
 vindication has come. This is his coronation 
 day. 
 
 21 
 
VII 
 ARMS AND A MAN 
 
 When Virgil struck that ringing chord, " Arms 
 and a man I sing," he sounded the octave notes 
 of an age-long song. Arms, and with them a 
 man — that is the gamut of one of humanity's 
 endless joys. It has been so from the song which 
 Deborah sang when she herself rallied Israel's 
 men and sent forth Barak at their head to drive 
 back Sisera's hosts, to this May day's jubilation 
 when Boston hails the man who withstood Ger- 
 many's onrush and saved Paris. Arms and a 
 man we sing. 
 
 Only one other strain in the music of man- 
 kind has been so vibrant and so undying. It is 
 that of love — at base, love and woman. Of 
 these two the human spirit has sung evermore. 
 In Virgil's tongue the very words are strikingly 
 alike — arma for arms, amor for love. And, 
 moreover, revolt as we may and doubtless should 
 from the terrors of war, from the havoc it brings 
 in love's bright realm, nevertheless it is true that 
 arms and love have ever been strangely com- 
 mingled. Men wield arms for love's sake; love 
 crowns the heroes of arms. Was it hate or love 
 that wrested the victory of the Marne from 
 the drive against beautiful Paris? And how 
 Marshal Joffre is enshrined by love — fondly 
 22 
 
ARMS AND A MAN 
 
 called Papa now, forever set in the glowing heart 
 of France as her savior! 
 
 Shall we acclaim this latest embodiment of the 
 world's ancient ideal of heroic manhood, and add 
 our love's radiance to the glory his own country 
 has poured about this silent veteran's immortal- 
 ized person, and yet forget what his presence 
 among us really means? Arms and a man, of 
 that supreme combination must our hearts sing 
 today. Marshal Joffre and the statesman 
 Viviani are here as men who, each in his place, 
 have given proof of what manhood in arms can 
 do and will do for love's sake. They are here 
 because they are now looking to us to do the 
 same — looking to the men of America to join 
 the men overseas in showing what love of right, 
 love of liberty, love of country and homes and 
 dear ones can do and will do. They are here to 
 receive the majestic token we Americans can 
 give that we also know the ringing music of 
 " Arms and a man." It is ours to sound that 
 music clear and full, as each man and each 
 woman may, by the sacrifices and the service we 
 render for love's sake. This should be for us a 
 day of consecration. So shall Marshal Joffre, 
 panoplied in his battle glory, find us a people 
 who share his spirit's fire and are worthy to join 
 in his praise. 
 
 23 
 
VIII 
 A SEER ON A STREET CAR 
 
 " Will this car land me in Newton, sir? " 
 He was a grizzled stranger who had just sur- 
 vived the crush about the door of a subway 
 car at Park Street and was doubly happy in 
 finding a seat. His voice had the sign royal 
 of a gentleman. There was that unmistakable 
 something about him which marks the traveled 
 man. The May sunshine awoke memories of the 
 Mediterranean. We were soon conversing. Paris, 
 Constantinople, Port Said, Colombo — all seemed 
 near in the light of his pensive eyes. The 
 swaying of the strap-hangers added to the sense 
 of being on shipboard which his talk imparted. 
 
 " Terrible as it is," he was saying presently, 
 " this war is a sort of world house-cleaning. 
 While writing a friend the other day I found 
 myself listing the things it has done or is 
 sure to do for the world's bettering. The list 
 grew surprisingly long. Strange, isn't it? " 
 
 As the crowded car rolled on the stranger 
 talked of his tabulation: " England needed a 
 leveling of class barriers to clear the way for 
 her long process toward democracy to become 
 effective. She's getting it now. France needed 
 spiritualizing, a deepening of her life to the 
 soul's realities, to make her democracy safe 
 24 
 
A SEER ON A STREET CAR 
 
 and sound. She's got just that. Russia's 
 deep-souled people were bound in the irons of 
 despotism. Her bonds are broken as if they 
 were but withes of straw. The Turkish em- 
 pire, long like a stenchful carcass on the high- 
 way between the East and the West, is 
 actually about to be pushed aside and may 
 be buried from sight. Palestine, whose plight 
 under Moslem rule has been a mortification to 
 Christendom since the Crusades, and a grief 
 to Judaism, is now as good as won back to 
 the keeping of those who will love and cherish 
 its sanctities." 
 
 A stalwart young American in khaki just 
 then pushed his way to the strap above us. 
 The stranger ran his eyes up and down the 
 hthe form. 
 
 " America," he went on, " has lived so long 
 in plentj'^ and security that her ideals were 
 dying out. She was gaining the world of the 
 body and losing her own soul. Democracy, 
 human liberty, was languishing in the land of 
 its greatest triumphs. The caste spirit of the 
 East was taking root here, the social code of 
 Europe was spreading. Now America is find- 
 ing her soul again. Her youth is resurgent. 
 That young fellow's eyes have caught the 
 gleam of something finer than dollars or plea- 
 sures or privileged pride. As Lincoln said, 
 ' This nation will under God have a new birth 
 of freedom.' " 
 
 25 
 
WAR-TIME "OVER HERE" 
 
 The stranger smiled and tossed his gray head 
 as if diverting himself from possibly too much 
 speaking. But a few words of appreciation suf- 
 ficed to reassure and lead him on, 
 
 " Your prosperity, really imperilled from 
 within by growing prodigality, will be advanced 
 immensely in the time to come because this war 
 will force your people to learn the forgotten arts 
 of conservation, of common-sense economy. 
 Your health and mental keenness will be greatly 
 advantaged by the abandonment of costly cater- 
 ing to the palate and the simplifying of diet 
 which will come for a time in the stress of war. 
 Your temperance problems, which have gained 
 so much by becoming questions of business effi- 
 ciency, will now gain far more by becoming a 
 matter of saving the vast quantities of grain 
 used for making drink that all may provide food 
 for your people and their allies overseas. Your 
 labor men, who by unionism have won so much 
 for their own welfare, will now see the importance 
 of thinking and acting for the good of all — a 
 thing which had become of the most imperative 
 urgency. For what are all their labor victories 
 worth if the industries of the land and the wel- 
 fare of the purchasing public are ruined by enemy 
 aggression? Your moneyed men of business 
 will now awake to their utter dependence on the 
 nation's security and welfare. There will be no 
 more of ' the public be damned ' spirit — not for 
 a while at least. Your polyglot citizenship will 
 26 
 
A SEER ON A STREET CAR 
 
 be welded in war's fire into a solid Americanism 
 — a thing which the huge immigration of the 
 past has made a matter of life or death to your 
 country. And America will be shaken out of her 
 self-centered life, awakened to a realization of 
 the part she must take in meeting the needs 
 of the world to save her own life. * No man 
 lives to himself, and no man dies to himself,' is 
 going to come true in America's thinking now." 
 We reluctantly reached the button to stop the 
 car at the next street. " Do you go ashore 
 here? " said the stranger. 
 
 27 
 
IX 
 A LIVING GOD 
 
 In this bright week of May churches have 
 celebrated what is known as Ascension Day. The 
 week just ending is therefore the crown of the 
 " Christian Year." The round of commemora- 
 tive celebrations which begins with Advent, 
 bursts into the gladness of Christmastide, deep- 
 ens to the solemnities of Good Friday, and pours 
 the mellow light of Easter on all believers — 
 this would be as a firmament of cold stars, beau- 
 tiful and impressive, yet distant and cold like 
 night skies, if there were no rising sun, no 
 ascending Lord, no living God. 
 
 " In the trenches," a Cambridge man recently 
 wrote home from a battlefield in France, " in 
 the trenches there are three imperatives — food, 
 work, God." Men simply cannot live there 
 without God! As our experience of life, trying 
 enough for most of us in ordinary times, now 
 deepens to compass the things we must face as 
 we go forward into the trials of a people at war, 
 we too shall find ourselves driven to conscious 
 need of God — of the living God. Amid the 
 babel of these days, therefore, amid the tumult 
 of threshing out methods for providing ways and 
 means, amid the discussion of tax bills, the 
 issuing of bonds to let the future share our bur- 
 28 
 
A LIVING GOD 
 
 den, the proclaiming of selective draft measures ; 
 amid the mingled heartaches and thrills of pride 
 as parents and young wives and younger sweet- 
 hearts take leave of husky youths going away in 
 khaki; amid the disordering of all ordinary 
 sources of supply for daily needs and the soaring 
 costs of living and the unfamiliar rushing to get 
 as much ground broken up and planted as pos- 
 sible — amid all these things, it will be well for 
 us to take to heart that for which this week of the 
 Christian year stands. Others have found it 
 imperative. We shall, also, sooner or later. 
 
 The war of a half century ago was ended at 
 last. The relieved heart of the nation was sud- 
 denly plunged once more into anguish. Men and 
 women heard with blanched faces that President 
 Lincoln had been shot to death. A frenzied 
 crowd, surging in a New York street, saw a man 
 appear in a balcony. It was General James A. 
 Garfield — he who was himself to be the next 
 martyred President. He lifted his arm to still 
 the multitude. Then his wonderful voice sent 
 these words over the listening people: " Clouds 
 and darkness are round about Him. Righteous- 
 ness and judgment are the habitation of His 
 throne. Fellow-citizens, God reigns; and the 
 government at Washington still hves! " The 
 hush that fell at those words was magical, heal- 
 ing, strength-giving. 
 
 Charles Kingsley left a fragment among his 
 papers which is all the more impressive because 
 29 
 
WAR-TIME "OVER HERE" 
 
 uncompleted. None of us can quite complete 
 expression of our thoughts on the subject of 
 which he tried to sing. But we can try to sing 
 of it — can try to realize its strangely healing 
 consolations and strong upholdings. Here is the 
 substance of Kingsley's fragment of song: 
 
 " They drift away. Ah, God! they drift forever. 
 I watch the stream sweep onward to the sea, 
 Like some lone buoy upon a roaring river 
 
 Round which the tide- waifs hang — then drift 
 to sea. 
 
 " Yet overhead the boundless arch of heaven 
 Still fades to night, still blazes into day. 
 
 Ah, God! my God! Thou wilt not drift 
 away I " 
 
 30 
 
X 
 
 THE VICTORY OF THE CHEERFUL 
 
 " Tell her our first victory must be cheerful- 
 ness — and we'll dig ourselves in to hold it." 
 The train was moving off. He was young enough 
 to have a figure that was captivating in khaki, 
 old enough to have a face that did not hide ten- 
 derness for some woman left behind. His mes- 
 sage was one that may well be heralded to all 
 homes from which men and youths are going to 
 war as May closes. " Our first victory must be 
 cheerfulness — and we'll dig ourselves in to hold 
 it." 
 
 Everybody ought to see by this time that the 
 war we are entering is so great that it is to be 
 won only by stages, not by single decisive dashes 
 of any sort. This was revealed when the victory 
 of the Marne turned back the German hosts that 
 had broken through the defence lines in Belgium 
 and were on their way to Paris. It has been 
 demonstrated by the stupendous grapple from 
 trench to trench ever since then. Everything 
 that has loomed clear before the watching world 
 out of the whole vast welter of war has added to 
 the adamantine certainty that the final victors 
 must be content with winning one step and then 
 another — one step at a time, held with a spirit 
 undespairing and of unquenchable cheer. 
 31 
 
WAR-TIME "OVER HERE" 
 
 We ought to begin at once to learn and apply 
 this lesson from the struggle overseas. And the 
 first victory we can win, the first trench we can 
 gain and hold, is to make our way to cheerfulness, 
 good courage, a robust and buoyant state of 
 mind. While the huge process of making ready 
 for the big drive goes on, while billions of money 
 and hosts of men and mountains of munitions 
 and measureless food supplies and unnumbered 
 ships are being made ready, " our first victory 
 must be cheerfulness — and we must dig our- 
 selves in to hold it." Yielding to anxiety, fore- 
 boding ill, giving way to heartache as loved men 
 and boys go from us, is weakening and disabling 
 to us as a people. It makes things all the harder 
 for those who must go. It strips us who stay 
 behind of that immense power which inspiring 
 love can put forth for the upholding of men who 
 must face present hardships and impending 
 perils. And it does so prematurely, before there 
 is any real occasion for such disaster to our re- 
 sources of heart. For it is obviously altogether 
 likely that months will pass before any large 
 number of Americans besides regulars will leave 
 home shores. And who knows what may come 
 to pass in that time to alter the part of our citi- 
 zen soldiers in the war! 
 
 It is high time, indeed, that a legion of the 
 cheerful should form and move in solid ranks to 
 win our first victory as a nation. Every sound- 
 hearted man should enlist therein at once. No 
 32 
 
THE VICTORY OF THE CHEERFUL 
 
 matter, in this case, if he be past the draft age. 
 No matter if he has some bodily defect. If only 
 his spirit is brave and able to keep a cheerful 
 courage, let him join the ranks. All true women 
 should enlist, too. Every one of them who does 
 so will resolutely stop letting dark forebodings 
 depress her, will cease gloomy talk in her home, 
 or when she meets a friend, or as she works in 
 her club or church or sewing-circle group pre- 
 paring Red Cross supplies and the like. And in 
 her letters to son or husband, brother or lover, 
 she will remember to do her bit as a recruit in 
 the legion of the cheerful. There will be many a 
 reHeved smile in soldier camps, many a strength- 
 ened heart-beat under khaki, when such letters 
 begin to reach the men preparing for war! Both 
 men and women can begin at once to win this 
 victory by talking and acting with good cheer 
 and courage, in home and business and national 
 affairs. 
 
 Heaven only knows what victories our men in 
 arms may have to win by and by. But we all 
 know this, that they will win them, if they must, 
 all the more surely when the time comes, if we at 
 home now win this first victory and dig ourselves 
 in to hold it against all assaults of anxiety, lone- 
 liness, longing and fear. This war must be won 
 by stages. Remember the message of the man 
 in khaki, and enlist now in the legion of the 
 cheerful. 
 
 33 
 
XI 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF " STRIKE-THE-REE " 
 
 In the land of the Dakotas there was once an 
 old Indian chief whose name was Strike-the-Ree. 
 The city of Yankton and Yankton College pre- 
 serve the name of his tribe. His own name is 
 still revered thereabout. For old Strike-the- 
 Ree steadfastly held the Yanktons loyal to the 
 " great father," the United States government; 
 and he did so because he never forgot that when 
 he was a papoose he was wrapped in the stars 
 and stripes. When a certain tribe, the Rees, be- 
 came turbulent, put on their war-paint and at- 
 tacked the friends and people of the " great 
 father," he smote them man-fashion. Hence the 
 name — Struck-by-the-Ree some records have 
 it, while others feature the man himself by call- 
 ing him Strike-the-Ree. The point of interest is 
 that he gave the strength of his manhood to be- 
 friending the government whose jQag enfolded 
 him in childhood. 
 
 On a journey through the Middle West, amid 
 the eager life of early June we found the people 
 there reproducing the spirit of Strike-the-Ree. 
 They are doing so in a manner which ought to 
 arouse New England's historic patriotism. They 
 seemed to have little or no sense of any impend- 
 ing danger to themselves or their immediate 
 34 
 
THE SPIRIT OF " STRIKE-THE-REE " 
 
 interests. Living far inland, amid vast expanses 
 of productive soil and all sorts of natural re- 
 sources, they do not share with us who dwell on 
 the Atlantic coast any thought of what German 
 guns might and would do to homes and bank 
 vaults and business or public structures, should 
 those guns somehow get by the British fleet at 
 last. Yet our Western fellow-countrymen are 
 rallying to the nation's call with a loyalty noth- 
 ing short of stupendous. Everywhere cities and 
 towns were seen to be awake as they are not in 
 New England, each striving to reach its Liberty 
 Bond quota or to fill up its enrolment possibil- 
 ities, and to go beyond the same as far and as 
 soon as possible. 
 
 Why are they doing all this — these Middle 
 West people who feel quite secure themselves? 
 It was clear that they are moved by loyalty to 
 the nation that has shielded them and theirs. In 
 other words, they are reproducing the spirit 
 of Strike-the-Ree. American to the backbone, 
 they are of the sort that put the " can " on the 
 end of that name by putting " I " in the middle 
 of it. Each man, woman and child seemed to 
 have caught that spirit. 
 
 Shall not we of New England be true to our 
 inspiring traditions? The whole country has 
 greatened its soul on them — on the story of 
 Pilgrims, patriots, heroes of the common weal. 
 But the zeal of the Middle West, in spite of its 
 inland security, may well awaken New Eng- 
 35 
 
WAR-TIME ''OVER HERE" 
 
 land here on the exposed seaboard. Both East 
 and West now have huge need for quick and 
 unflinching action in the spirit of Strike-the- 
 Ree. 
 
 36 
 
XII 
 
 NERO'S FOLLY BROUGHT DOWN TO 
 DATE 
 
 They were two plain men in the smoker of a 
 local train beyond the Mississippi River. A 
 stranger chanced to be seated in front of them. 
 It was early June. 
 
 " What d'you think Fd better do about these 
 Liberty Bonds everybody is so stirred up over? " 
 said the younger of the two. " I don't see any 
 good reason," answered the older man, " why 
 you or me should put good money into them 
 things that give us only 3^^ per cent., when we 
 can get s' much more out of a lot of other 
 things." 
 
 A moment was allowed to pass. Then the fol- 
 lowing conversation took place : 
 
 " Gentlemen, what kind of trees are those off 
 there — those tall ones in clumps? " 
 
 " Cottonwood and box-elder." 
 
 " Fine looking, aren't they? Why is it that 
 they are clustered like great bouquets all over 
 this fine open country, where trees are so 
 scarce? " 
 
 " They're homesteader plantings — folks set 
 'em out round their houses and barns in the early 
 days." 
 
 " How long have they been growing? " 
 37 
 
WAR-TIME "OVER HERE** 
 
 " Oh, thirty or forty years," said the older 
 man. 
 
 " There has been a lot of trouble in these parts 
 in that time, hasn't there — Indian raids, for 
 instance? " 
 
 " Sure; but Uncle Sam looked out for things 
 purty sharp around here." 
 
 " Ah, I see. Gentlemen, I heard you say just 
 now that you saw no good reason why you 
 should put money into these Liberty Bonds at 
 3H per cent., when you can get much more out of 
 other things. Did you ever stop to think that 
 all these other fine things that have grown up in 
 this country, just like those trees out there on 
 the prairie, would never have got established here 
 but for Uncle Sam's protection, and that they 
 may be utterly ruined now, blown into smither- 
 eens, if we don't all stand by the government in 
 this big war? " 
 
 The older man looked out of the window and 
 whistled indifferently. The stranger thought of 
 how Nero fiddled while Rome burned — while its 
 time-grown glories went up in flame and smoke! 
 
 Presently the younger man leaned over the 
 seat's back and said: " Stranger, I get you. I 
 guess you're right. It's up to us now. And I'm 
 going to buy one of these Liberty Bonds myself, 
 anyway." 
 
 But the old blockhead by the window whistled 
 on. 
 
 38 
 
XIII 
 THE WAR AND THE COMING MILLIONS 
 
 Once when Henry Clay was traveling by car- 
 riage, as men did in his day, on a mountain road 
 affording an extensive outlook over the then 
 primitive Ohio valley, he ahghted and stood as if 
 listening intently. Asked what he heard, he 
 replied: " I seem to hear the tread of the coming 
 millions." 
 
 This incident was recently recalled by a 
 teacher cherished by many. The June " drive " 
 for the first Liberty Loan was at its final stage, 
 and everybody was anxious about the outcome. 
 " We greatly need just now," said she, " to be 
 mindful of the Americans of the future — to 
 * hear the tread of the coming milUons.' We 
 need to do this for our own sake as well as for 
 theirs." 
 
 " Why for our own sake? — Do you mean that 
 we need the inspiration of feeling that we are 
 charged with safeguarding the American heri- 
 tage, now in peril, for the coming millions? " 
 
 "Oh! yes, that — of course! But we simply 
 must let them help us — must let them bear 
 their part in this awful war." 
 
 " But how, pray, can that be done? " we 
 asked, with a pardonable air of wonderment at 
 such a proposal. 
 
 39 
 
WAR-TIME "OVER HERE" 
 
 " That is the very point which so many will 
 fail to see, I'm afraid," our friend repHed. Her 
 teacherly heart soon lighted her frown with 
 a smile. Then she talked in substance as 
 follows : 
 
 One of the most fate-deciding matters, as we 
 go into this war, is the course we take in pro- 
 viding the vast sums of money we must now raise 
 for ourselves and our allies. This is a matter in 
 which we can let coming Americans help us, if 
 we only see that we can and then do it. Long 
 after the guns have hushed on land and sea, long 
 after the as yet almost inconceivable scene of the 
 signing of peace documents has been enacted, 
 this matter of paying such staggering sums of 
 money will be a very present actuality. When 
 the young men of our day have finished under- 
 going the hardships of leaving home and school 
 and business, when this generation has com- 
 pleted its sacrifice of body-wholeness and life 
 itself, when the war sorrows of Americans now 
 Uving have become calm and hallowed memo- 
 ries, our war debt will not be a thing of the past. 
 It alone, of all our present war burdens, will re- 
 main tangible, unabated, unmellowed by time. 
 It will still loom as real as granite mountains. 
 It, therefore, is the only thing which the coming 
 milhons can possibly help us handle. 
 
 It is thoroughly right that they should help 
 us; for they will benefit immeasurably by what 
 we now do — that is, if we do it victoriously. 
 40 
 
THE WAR AND THE COMING MILLIONS 
 
 And it is immensely important, both for their 
 sakes and for our own, that we should see how 
 they can help us and deliberately let them do it. 
 Too heavy immediate taxation on ourselves will 
 prove disabling to us who must fight this war 
 through — who alone can do so. This, of course, 
 would be calamitous, both for us and for those 
 who shall come after us. All is at stake now — 
 we ourselves must decide the awful issue! What 
 folly to weight and weaken our battle powers by 
 attempting to carry too much of the financial 
 load which the coming millions could share with 
 us, and will if we only let them! 
 
 Now, that is precisely what this Liberty Loan 
 means, and what other bond issues that ought 
 to follow should be understood to mean. These 
 bond issues simply capitahze the nation's future 
 resources to help us in winning our fight for all 
 we cherish against present perils. A nation's 
 credit is as practical and actual an asset as a 
 man's in business — as practical and as actual 
 an asset as bullion or coal or crops or man-power. 
 These bonds utilize that asset, just as a business 
 man does to survive an emergency. They pass 
 on to the future the burdens which would break 
 our powers and resources now — pass them on 
 to a time in the nation's life when they can be 
 borne without ruin — pass them on to times 
 which will be prosperous because of our vaUant 
 safeguarding of the common welfare now — pass 
 on the only portion of our present burdens which 
 41 
 
WAR-TIME "OVER HERE" 
 
 future Americans can help us bear. In this 
 Liberty Loan we really " hear the tread of the 
 coming miUions." 
 
 " And it is simply a matter," said we, " of 
 whether we loan the government the money it 
 must have and receive interest on it, or let the 
 government put its hand in our pockets by taxa- 
 tion and take it without interest or repayment." 
 
 " Yes," said the veteran teacher, with a look 
 of satisfaction. 
 
 42 
 
XIV 
 
 TO THE LEGION OF THE CHEERFUL 
 
 An unusual v/elcome has been given to the 
 message of the man in khaki which we passed on 
 some weeks ago, " Tell her," said he, as the 
 soldier-train started, " that our first victory 
 must be cheerfulness — and we'll dig ourselves 
 in to hold it." He little dreamed, this man so 
 stanchly tender, that his words would reach such 
 numbers of people besides that one woman up- 
 permost in his thoughts. Yet, should he ever 
 chance to hear of what has come to pass, we 
 trust him to smile good-naturedly and forgive 
 our invasion of his rightful privacy. There are 
 so many these June days who need such a mes- 
 sage as his! 
 
 From near and far have come the responses to 
 our proposal that a legion of the cheerful be 
 formed at once to withstand the assaults of anx- 
 ieties, hardships and losses, to do away with 
 gloomy talk and depressed action. Indeed, our 
 man in khaki seems to rival the wonderful Roose- 
 velt in power to draw a valiant host after him. 
 Better still, his legion is sure of a prompt wel- 
 come into the nation's fighting array. We there- 
 fore proceed forthwith to salute the Legion of 
 the Cheerful and to issue, as it were, the order 
 of the day. 
 
 43 
 
WAR-TIME "OVER HERE" 
 
 The victory of cheerfulness, it is hereby bul- 
 letined, is never to be sought by indifference to 
 actual conditions or neglect of the duties they 
 impose. On the contrary, it is to be won by 
 buoyancy of spirit in full view of conditions as 
 they are, by firm refusal to let ill forebodings 
 make them worse than they really are, and by 
 courageous self-giving to help meet and master 
 them. These three regulations should be thor- 
 oughly fixed in mind and strictly maintained in 
 action by all recruits in the Legion of the 
 Cheerful. 
 
 When Thomas Carlyle heard of Margaret 
 Fuller's declaration that she had made up her 
 mind to take the universe as she found it, the 
 old sage chortled: " Gad, she'd better! " The 
 sooner we do the same in this dazing war busi- 
 ness, so like the universe in its dire inevitabilities 
 and mysteries of suffering through man's strange 
 blend of evil and good, the sooner and the more 
 surely will the end of it all be ours to welcome. 
 The spirit of a people has often been the deciding 
 factor in the ordeal of war. " Optimism," as a 
 writer in the British Weekly recently said, " op- 
 timism is the invariable specific for success in 
 war." Depression, gloom, dark brooding — 
 these are the worn stones in the descent to the 
 inferno of incompetence, helplessness, delayed 
 victory or even ultimate defeat. This, we 
 know, is true evermore in our individual life 
 struggles. It is just as true of nations. 
 44 
 
TO THE LEGION OF THE CHEERFUL 
 
 And the heart of a nation, whence flows the 
 vitaUty that nerves and empowers the whole 
 body, is its homes. If they be depressed, weak- 
 ened of cheer and buoyant courage, the nation 
 will be like a man whose heart is functioning 
 amiss — tremulous, unable to achieve. The 
 deepest reason for cheerfulness is that it is the 
 surest way to end troubles which we must face 
 until we ourselves end them. While young men 
 are training, while munition plants are turning 
 out war's terrible tools, while shipyards are 
 clangorously fashioning a host of sea servants, 
 while Red Cross funds and supplies are growing 
 like summer's yield under the warmth of our love 
 and compassion, we who are left in the homes of 
 the land must generate in fullest stores the spirit 
 of victory, the cheer of the undaunted and over- 
 coming heart. For this only can send the thrill 
 of power through all the rest. Women are the 
 most valuable recruits in making up the legion 
 of the cheerful which must do this indispensable 
 part in winning victory. But they, alas, suffer 
 most from the terrors of war. Home-bound men 
 should therefore see to it, by all that manhood's 
 strength and tenderness can devise, that noth- 
 ing is left undone to help them win this victory. 
 So shall victory be ours at the front — and then, 
 then onlv, will our troubles end. 
 
 45 
 
XV 
 
 THE NUGGET IN THE ROAD 
 
 Did you chance to read, amid the pardonably 
 tumultuous news pages of these late June days, a 
 certain little item from a Montana town, re- 
 cently published? It was to the effect that a 
 nugget of gold, not very big, but pure and of 
 large worth, had been found lying in the common- 
 place roadway of the Western community. The 
 news item had the human touch of skilled jour- 
 nalism in that it instinctively added enough 
 to the statement of the fact reported to satisfy 
 the query, " How did it get there? " It appears 
 that there are mountains round about that town 
 — mountains whence vast minings of precious 
 ore have been taken in time past, though men 
 have deemed them pretty well exhausted of late 
 years and have given them but little attention. 
 And there had been a heavy rain, a prolonged 
 downpour — to be brief, amid the wash from 
 these mountains, all agleam as it lay in wet sand, 
 had come down that nugget in the road. 
 
 The suggestiveness of this quaint bit of news, 
 its symbolic worth, is too fine and vital to go by 
 unheralded. There are mountains round about 
 common human life, mountains whence a price- 
 less yield has been gathered in the past, moun- 
 tains which busy moderns have neglected as ex- 
 46 
 
THE NUGGET IN THE ROAD 
 
 hausted for practical purposes — the mountains 
 of things spiritual and eternal. A drenching 
 and destructive storm of anxiety, trouble and 
 suffering has been flooding all life. And amid 
 this overwhelming of all common human affairs, 
 men everywhere are finding — strangely enough 
 amid such ruin — a nugget in the road. 
 
 What is it? Let the letters going from heart 
 to heart these days answer — those simple, 
 friendship-guarded and therefore open-hearted 
 and genuine records of what is now going on in 
 the breasts of men and women. 
 
 We recently quoted from the letter of a Cam- 
 bridge man now at the front in France, in which 
 he wrote to friends here that there are three im- 
 peratives in the trenches — food, work, God. 
 A number of inquiries have come for " the book 
 quoted." Those words are from nothing so for- 
 mal as a book; they were written in a letter to 
 friends at home. In response to them a young 
 man in the hardships of an ill-equipped training 
 station has written: " I don't seem to feel that 
 third imperative. I would say that the impera- 
 tives here are food, work, and a chum. Can you 
 tell me what is the matter and how I can get that 
 third imperative? For I need it and want it." 
 The reply sent him was that he had the basis of 
 what his compatriot in the trenches had gained, 
 in his sense of the need of a chum — of one who 
 would be true to him and to whom he would be 
 true for mutual help and comfort and cheer. 
 47 
 
WAR-TIME ''OVER HERE" 
 
 He needed only to lift his idea of a chum's worth 
 to its highest terms to find the supreme One who 
 would be true to him and to whom he would be 
 true. This comes to pass by doing what Lady 
 Henry Somerset affirms she once heard, as it 
 were, a voice bidding her do: " Act as though 
 God were, and thou shalt know God is." 
 
 A brilHant young officer in a far-away training 
 camp recently wrote home, out of his soul's strug- 
 gle in view of the horrible thing war is to a fine 
 nature: " I think I'm more religious since I've 
 been here, more really religious, than ever be- 
 fore. In the first place, I've been thinking a 
 good deal about it. And then, I suppose, I'm 
 living a more normal life in a way. No use talk- 
 ing, being busy outdoors brings a man closer to 
 his Maker. And then, presumptuous as it may 
 seem, I feel as though I begin to see a little way 
 into the inscrutability of this war and the great 
 power of God ' keeping watch above His own.' " 
 
 Do not such words, abounding in the heart 
 to heart communications which the mails are 
 now bearing over land and sea, make clear what 
 this world storm has brought into common life 
 — the golden nugget in the road? 
 
 48 
 
XVI 
 
 PATRIOTS AS OF OLD 
 
 There are many acts of patriotism without 
 parade or the glorification of band music, as this 
 Fourth of July goes by. What loyalty, for ex- 
 ample, is tingUng in womanly hands plying 
 knitting needles in odd minutes snatched amid 
 household cares or through quiet hours on sum- 
 mer verandas! What love of country and its 
 manhood glows in zealous groups gathering in all 
 sorts of places for making Red Cross supplies! 
 Many a pastor smiled with appreciation this 
 week, all over Boston and doubtless throughout 
 the country, as he heard at his telephone: " This 
 is the manager of your exchange. I am acting 
 for Mr. Hoover, to remind you of the letter you 
 received from him. We hope you will help the 
 cause of food conservation by speaking of it to 
 your congregation next Sunday." And many a 
 man, whose hands have hardly grasped a hoe 
 since he was a boy, is now in his garden in morn- 
 ing or evening hours, careless of blisters, serving 
 the same prosaic but none the less patriotic? 
 cause that enlisted the telephone official. 
 
 These are but examples of the many unsig- 
 
 nalized acts of patriotism nowadays. They give 
 
 proof that the spirit of 1776 is glowing still in 
 
 1917. It is timely and for the public good that 
 
 49 
 
WAR-TIME "OVER HERE" 
 
 one of a different kind be referred to now, when 
 subscribers for the Liberty Bonds have recently 
 made their second payment under the govern- 
 ment's plan. 
 
 In the matter of paying for these bonds, many 
 in the host of people who subscribed for them 
 will be able to meet their obligations because 
 they can pay a little at a time — a dollar or two 
 a week, or so much a month. What does this 
 mean? How is it that this can be done? The 
 answer is that the bank stands in the place of 
 the subscriber, and the government gets its 
 imperatively needed money on schedule time — 
 that is, by the end of August the government 
 gets the full amount of these bonds. Many will 
 simply think: " Well, the bank gets the interest 
 on my bond until I get the whole thing paid for. 
 That's no particular service to me or the govern- 
 ment." Let us see. The government gets the 
 money in full as planned. It does not and could 
 not wait until you get it paid in. The bank pays 
 it for you. It does so with money on which it 
 would readily get 5 per cent, interest. It does so 
 taking the 33^ per cent, interest the government 
 pays. To forfeit l3^ per cent, interest is not a 
 thing that business men with large responsibil- 
 ities do without a reason. What is that reason? 
 Surely this is a public service, patriotic in spirit, 
 and the finer because done willingly and with- 
 out display. 
 
 50 
 
XVII 
 THE RAMBLER ROSE 
 
 Who can put into words what the rambler 
 roses are signalhng these July days? They are in 
 full bloom now in New England. Everywhere 
 they are crowding trellises and porch rails; their 
 jocund forms are massed about windows and 
 doorways, and even against house walls where a 
 bird could scarcely cling. They are called 
 ramblers, though they in no way justify the name 
 save by this fondness for adorning every reach- 
 able part of the homes they share with humans. 
 Indeed, they are essentially of the home-keep- 
 ing sort. Yet, to tell the truth outright, they are 
 not staid — not confined as it were to the space 
 of an old-fashioned hoop-skirt, like many a 
 quietly sweet and delightful rose-bush. No, they 
 have a bit of fling in their natures, a dash of joy 
 in the freedom of " going somewhere." But 
 they are home-lovers none the less — all the 
 more, in fact, since they touch with their life's 
 gladness and beauty much more of the home to 
 which they belong than proper rose-bushes ever 
 dream of reaching. 
 
 We are inclined to believe that this is at least 
 
 a part of what the rambler roses are silently 
 
 wigwagging to all watching eyes these vacation 
 
 days. If this be true, they who are still at home, 
 
 51 
 
WAR-TIME "OVER HERE" 
 
 still drudging on in their everyday routine, may 
 well heed the message of their rambler roses. 
 " Go somewhere," get out of the fixed and con- 
 fined existence in which you are good and faith- 
 ful day after day. You can be a home-lover quite 
 as truly if you do so, and you will thereby reach 
 many more sides and points of your home with 
 your life's refreshing and beautifying power. 
 And those who are already out of the routine, 
 ramblers for summer days and nights in the coun- 
 try or by the sea or amid the mountains, may 
 catch the message their rambler roses at home 
 are sending and lay it to heart for their reas- 
 surance and fuller gladness. Sea and shore, field 
 and hill are really parts of our homes. It is good 
 for us to reach out and touch them with life's 
 joy, to let the vivacious summer move us to 
 break away betimes from confined duty-doing 
 for the joy of " going somewhere." We shall all 
 gain something of the charm of the rambler rose 
 thereby — the charm of covering a little more 
 of our dwelling-places with cheerful life each 
 year that we live. 
 
 §2 
 
XVIII 
 THE DRAFT DAY 
 
 The sun came up over the Atlantic, bright and 
 glowing, on the eventful day. It had just left 
 war-writhing Europe behind, in night and deeper 
 darkness. Yet how its beams flashed as it caught 
 the dim, long hne of America's coast on the 
 morning of the 20th of July! There was no sign 
 of dismay. 
 
 By the hour when the awesome scene of the 
 draft began around the great glass bowl in the 
 nation's Capitol, the sun was flooding the whole 
 land with summer splendor, and at the same 
 time it was drawing the myriad life therein into 
 the service of a new day — a day which, like all 
 days, if one has eyes to see, was a vast blend of 
 peace and battle. It was, in fact, holding the 
 great globe of the earth in place for its huge 
 draft, as it had done on unnumbered days past. 
 
 But while reaching its mystical might into 
 space and setting the round earth in its place for 
 high service, the sun on the nation's draft day 
 picked out, one by one, every root and blade, 
 every creeping or winging creature, every beast 
 or soul-bearing being — summoning each to 
 serve as it could for the welfare of all. 
 
 They were all responding to the sun's call, too, 
 when the blindfolded men reached into the great 
 53 
 
WAR-TIME ''OVER HERE" 
 
 glass bowl filled with little black capsules, and 
 so began the nation's draft day. Ten million 
 names in a bowl, ten million young men await- 
 ing the result of that scene at Washington, are 
 really not so extraordinary a spectacle after all, 
 in this sun-drafted world of ours. 
 
 All the day long, while the draft went on, 
 every flowering plant and stalk holding grain or 
 berry was drawing moisture or mineral from the 
 soil; every creature with a mouth was drafting 
 something that could serve to maintain its life; 
 every being with a mind was appropriating to 
 his or her needs countless existences subject to 
 that call. When one stops to think about it, 
 there is something very awing in the vast range 
 of the human draft on every day we live. 
 
 Hearts were at work, too, on the day of the 
 draft. Lovers were drawing each to the other. 
 Husbands and wives were relying on one another 
 in times of need. Mothers were cuddling little 
 ones to preserve their own joy; on this particular 
 day some ten millions of them were cherishing 
 sons from twenty to thirty years of age 
 with added tenderness. Fathers, in their world- 
 worn hves, were strangely conscious of paternal 
 thoughts, like the power of gravitation, concern- 
 ing their sons. And young wives were realizing 
 the mystery of wedded life with youths whose 
 names were in the nation's draft bowl. 
 
 Over all, the Father of the whole realm of 
 being was drawing each and all, drafting for His 
 54 
 
THE DRAFT DAY 
 
 own ends earth's myriads. Compared with His 
 might of love and law, even the sun's midsum- 
 mer glow^ was feeble, and the nation's call was of 
 passing importance, however imperative now. 
 It was a wonderful day, indeed, yesterday — 
 the day of the draft in America. 
 
 55 
 
XIX 
 
 AFTER THE DRAFT DAY 
 
 Scene. Outside a municipal court in a suburb 
 of Boston. 
 
 Time. The day after the great draft. 
 
 The evening before, long lines of young men 
 extended from the court room, down the steps, 
 along the walk under the elm trees. Each man 
 was awaiting his turn to get his draft number. 
 These hnes disappeared some time during the 
 night. But many were coming throughout the 
 morning that followed, all looking at little cards 
 as they left. 
 
 It was noon now. Beside a great elm, some 
 distance from the entrance to the court room, a 
 young woman was seen. The midsummer sun- 
 shine was dazzlingly bright outside the tree's 
 shade in which she stood. She was dressed in 
 white from head to feet. Her arms were bare to 
 their elbows — and they were comely. Her face 
 and form were almost girlish, so young was she. 
 Yet on the grass near the base of the tree — 
 near the white-clad feet of the waiting woman, 
 also — a babe was playing. It, too, was clothed 
 in white. Its mother seemed oblivious to all 
 about her. Now and then her Httle one cooed 
 aloud in its play. 
 
 At length a young man came down the stone 
 56 
 
AFTER THE DRAFT DAY 
 
 steps. He was gazing at a small card. His 
 steps were brisk, however. They soon brought 
 him to the side of the figure in white by the elm 
 tree. Before he reached her she had a copy of a 
 newspaper open. At once and for long their heads 
 were close together, searching the long columns 
 of draft numbers in the paper. Was he drafted 
 — was the young husband's number drawn in 
 the great draft? 
 
 While the two stood thus, absorbed in their 
 search, the baby, still playing on the grass, in 
 its glee hoisted its wee white hat on the tip of 
 the young wife's parasol! 
 
 A police captain, looking on at a respectful 
 distance, softly exclaimed: "How's that for a 
 war-time picture! " 
 
 57 
 
XX 
 
 THE DRAFT SEEN IN LARGER LIGHT 
 
 The results of the draft now in process, on the 
 common life of us all as well as on the nation's 
 destiny, are countless and life-changing beyond 
 computation. Thinking people may well seek to 
 see such a momentous matter in the fullest light 
 and from every viewpoint. 
 
 There is a well-known passage in the Epistle 
 to the Romans which strikingly lends itself to 
 this purpose. It parallels in religion, point by 
 point, the progressive phases of this great na- 
 tional procedure. It reads: " Whom God fore- 
 knew, he also foreordained to be conformed to 
 the image of his Son; and whom he foreordained, 
 them he also called; and whom he called, them he 
 also justified; and whom he justified, them he also 
 glorified." This sentence exactly marks out the 
 august steps by which the nation is now ad- 
 vancing to meet world issues involving the fate 
 of mankind. 
 
 When the human crisis became unescapable, 
 the nation foreknew the vast hosts of its young 
 men — foreknew them as absorbed in every- 
 day life, pleasure lovers and seekers after their 
 own welfare in the endless ranges of personal 
 interests, yet back of all this having a latent 
 patriotism which would overwhelm personal 
 58 
 
THE DRAFT SEEN IN LARGER LIGHT 
 
 matters if awakened by an adequate appeal. 
 And these whom it foreknew, the nation fore- 
 ordained. This was substantially the meaning 
 of the legislation which brought some 10,000,000 
 young men to the registration of June 5. And 
 these whom it thus foreordained to be con- 
 formed to the ideal of national saviors, the 
 nation also called. This was what began to be 
 done in the solemn drawing around the great 
 glass bowl in the Capitol on July 20. This call- 
 ing is the phase of the stupendous procedure 
 now passing. This is the real significance of 
 all that is to take place before the exemption 
 boards in days now at hand. 
 
 After this — what? Those whom it calls, the 
 nation will justify. Taking young men who are 
 unsoldierly enough now, accustomed to comfort 
 and pleasure, easy-going in body, self-willed in 
 mind, and strangers to unifying obedience to 
 authority, unskilled in war's awful arts, it puts 
 its uniform upon them, it gathers them into 
 training camps, it undertakes to harden their 
 bodies, teach their minds, discipline their whole 
 beings — in a word, to make them soldiers. This 
 is what will go on for weeks and months after the 
 calling now in process. Then the nation will 
 justify these young men — will send them forth 
 as soldiers, bearing its approval, honored with 
 its trust. 
 
 Then what? Those whom it thus justifies, the 
 nation will glorify. That phase in our progres- 
 59 
 
WAR-TIME "OVER HERE" 
 
 sive advance is yet in the future for the most 
 part, but not entirely. Signs of it are already 
 seen in the minds of our people. It will come in 
 its fulness ere long. This nation has never failed 
 to glorify the men who have borne the shock of 
 battle in its behalf. It will not fail now. What 
 an outpouring of honor and love will come by 
 and by, when our soldiers and sailors come 
 home from hard-won victories and bravely 
 borne defeats, or — and this shall come to pass 
 — when their names only are sent home to be 
 enshrined in glory undying! 
 
 60 
 
XXI 
 HOLLYHOCKS 
 
 In the year-long ritual that hallows our earth, 
 we are now midway in the processional of the 
 flowers. July is ending. The pure little chil- 
 dren of springtime have gone by; the deeper- 
 colored and therefore more human forms of 
 flowerland, which mark early summer, have 
 nearly faded from sight; even the jocund ram- 
 bler roses have lost their glow and become dim 
 as they go from us. Hollyhocks have now come 
 in the sacred pageant. 
 
 What strains are they sounding in the long 
 procession? We may well seek to hear them 
 distinctly — even to catch the poetry of words 
 borne on the swell of music which their coming 
 causes. For the hollyhocks will be in our view 
 until frost comes. And see! Their guise is bell- 
 fashioned, or of trumpet form, if you prefer. 
 Clearly they are proclaimers! They have news 
 to make known, and a call to sound — these tall 
 figures in lines or groups beside many a dwelUng, 
 to be seen along nearly all home streets. 
 
 Amid all alarms, and the tramping of myriad 
 feet war-bound, and the roar of the daily news, 
 and the thumping of hearts, anxious or charged 
 with the resolute spirit of victors, the hollyhocks 
 are quietly sounding their proclamation for all 
 61 
 
WAR-TIME "OVER HERE" 
 
 who will hear it. There is healing in it for weari- 
 ness and soreness of soul; very heartening is it 
 amid all disturbance of peace-time reliances; 
 and, withal, it calls to dutiful fidelity buttressed 
 by mindfulness of a good-doing that will not fail 
 nor be discouraged, no matter how the world of 
 men goes wrong. 
 
 For the hollyhocks are proclaiming the con- 
 summation once more of nature's wonder-work. 
 They are sounding out the triumph of the Cre- 
 ator's ageless goodness and each man's brief 
 power to profit thereby. Such harvests, such 
 yields of grain and vegetable and fruit, are now 
 coming to their fulness that winter and even 
 world war will not be able to grip us and our 
 neighbors overseas in hunger. That is news 
 worthy of bells and trumpets, surely! 
 
 And the hollyhocks are calling us to high- 
 hearted living. There is no doubt of this. Can 
 there be any other meaning in the many colors 
 in which their bells are swung, their trumpets 
 raised? They are all bright. Red is for deep 
 joy, no doubt — and there are ever so many reds — 
 pink must be for patient cheer, purple for royal 
 courage, golden for good hope, white for Tight- 
 ness of heart and straightforward life. To be 
 sure, the hollyhocks can only symbolize all this 
 for us, as they now come thronging in this pro- 
 cessional of the year's ritual. But, even so, they 
 bring to mind the surest verities we know — 
 verities which become clouded and very dim 
 62 
 
HOLLYHOCKS 
 
 often in days like these. We may well take time, 
 therefore, to have a look at the hollyhocks and 
 listen to their bells, or trumpets if you so fancy 
 them; for by these things men and women 
 live. 
 
 63 
 
XXII 
 
 THE FIRST HOME-COMING 
 
 The first officers' training camps have ended. 
 Mid-August has come. A new host of young 
 men will throng the places vacated by the sol- 
 dierly fellows now being welcomed home for a 
 few days before they go on to the service for 
 which they have been prepared. Scenes of 
 home-coming are now being enacted over the 
 entire country, as these men come gayly back to 
 the surroundings of their youth — from Platts- 
 burg, from Fort Snelling in Minnesota, from 
 Fort McPherson in Georgia, and many another 
 training camp. There will be other scenes to 
 record by and by — doubtless very different; 
 but now it is well to chronicle those of the pres- 
 ent, and mark their meaning. Let a scene ob- 
 served in Boston yesterday be taken as typical. 
 
 " There he is," cries a lad in his mid-teens, 
 who, to pass the time of waiting, has been bound- 
 ing a ball at the foot of a homelike street running 
 down a hillside to the suburb's main thorough- 
 fare. He races after the big street car until it 
 comes to the stopping place. Among those who 
 alight — yes, there he is! 
 
 He went away, a little while ago, a youth near- 
 ing twenty-one, handsome as ever a boy was. 
 But see him now as he steps from the car. How 
 64 
 
THE FIRST HOME-COMING 
 
 square his shoulders are in his khaki uniform, 
 how full his chest is, how lithe his legs! And 
 look at the straight, bronzed neck of the boy! 
 How that bell-crowned cap becomes his erect 
 head, with the visor close over his eyes! He is 
 a lieutenant now, if you will believe it. 
 
 Briskly but modestly he grips the hands of 
 those fortunate enough to be near to greet him. 
 The neighborhood marketman comes running 
 down the street in his big white apron; the 
 Italian fruit-store man comes close after him; 
 a youth who has just been certified by the local 
 exemption board outruns them, and a pretty 
 young woman in dainty summer garb leaves the 
 sidewalk to join the gathering in the street. All, 
 even the Italian, call him lieutenant — this boy 
 of the yesteryears — and their faces shine with 
 pride. The ball-bounding younger brother has 
 manfully swung the heavy suitcase from the sol- 
 dier's grip. " Let him go on," cries one of the 
 welcomers, " there's some one waiting for him 
 up home." Quietly smiHng, the young man 
 strides up the side street. Instinctively all but 
 the brother refrain from following him. 
 
 Soon, under the trees, a little woman in white 
 springs into view at the top of the street's ascent. 
 At first her feet skip like a girl's. But soon how 
 quiet she is! Has she not stilled her heart for 
 him all these weeks? She will not fail to keep 
 dignity for his sake now. Wise mothers under- 
 stand how man-grown sons hate palaver. But 
 65 
 
WAR-TIME " OVER HERE " 
 
 presently the little figure in M'hite and the stal- 
 wart form in khaki come together — the moth- 
 er's hand can be seen patting the broad back. 
 The rest of her is hidden by khaki! 
 
 " Dat make me cry! " murmured the ItaUan 
 as he wiped his glasses in the group at the foot 
 of the street. Just then a snowy-haired old man 
 came into view up the walk under the trees, and 
 stood awaiting the mother and son as they 
 slowly climbed the hill arm in arm. 
 
 66 
 
XXIII 
 
 A SENTENCE THAT WILL LIVE 
 
 There is a single sentence in the President's 
 note in reply to the Pope's peace proposals, as 
 August ends, which deserves especial reading. 
 It should be studied word by word by all who 
 are trying to comprehend what is going on in 
 this war. It should be underscored in all war- 
 time scrapbooks. It should even be committed 
 to memory by all who would stay their souls in 
 strength for facing hard duties due to the war. 
 Singularly free from bluster, it is yet charged 
 with thunderous truths and terrific flashes of 
 passion. We give it vspecial setting to help fix 
 attention upon it. 
 
 The object of this war is to deliver the free 
 peoples of the world from the menace and the 
 actual power of a vast military establishment 
 controlled by an irresponsible government, which, 
 having secretly planned to dominate the world, 
 proceeded to carry the plan out without regard 
 either to the sacred obligations of treaty or the 
 long-established practices and long-cherished prin- 
 ciples of international action and honor; which 
 chose its own time for the war; delivered its blow 
 fiercely and suddenly; stopped at no barrier, 
 either of law or of mercy; swept a whole continenl 
 67 
 
WAR-TIME "OVER HERE" 
 
 within the tide of blood — not the blood of soldiers 
 only, but the blood of innocent women and children 
 also, and of the helpless poor — and now stands 
 balked but not defeated, the enemy of four-fifths 
 of the world. 
 
 This is probably the most majestic indictment 
 yet penned concerning the world war. Try 
 underscoring its massed words and phrases to 
 discover how freighted with solid facts and fused 
 with fire they are — from the opening array of 
 " the free peoples of the world " as the victims 
 to be dehvered, on through the grim vivisection 
 of the victimizer and Germany's procedure as 
 such, up to that impahng of her as now standing 
 " balked but not defeated, the enemy of four- 
 fifths of the world." This sentence, we venture 
 to think, will be conned and quoted by genera- 
 tions to come; for the days through which we 
 are living will draw the enlightened eyes of the 
 future to the end of humanity's struggles. 
 
 68 
 
XXIV 
 
 " CARRY ON " 
 
 In many branches of military service a rather 
 quaint form of expression has come into use 
 which may well be passed on to civilians in these 
 September days when so many young men are 
 leaving home to serve the nation. When an 
 officer appears, wherever it may be, on land or 
 sea, every man stands at attention. Thereupon, 
 the officer wishing to release the men from pro- 
 longing this token of respect unduly, often sim- 
 ply says, " Carry on." Most of the uniformed 
 men on Boston streets with whom we recently 
 made the test of inquiry recognized the expres- 
 sion and explained it rather genially to the same 
 effect. " It means," said they, " Go on with 
 what you were doing " — writing a letter home, 
 perhaps, or to " the girl I left behind me," play- 
 ing a friendly game, enjoying a book or maga- 
 zine, eating a meal, doing some commonplace bit 
 of work. " Carry on " is the " as you were " of 
 ordinary life among military men. 
 
 This seems to us precisely the word that should 
 be spoken to everybody here at home just now. 
 As cherished young men are going to training 
 camps and war service, the hearts of many are 
 moved to stand at attention, as it were. This is 
 fitting. It is natural and for the good of the 
 69 
 
WAR-TIME ''OVER HERE" 
 
 men going forth as the nation's defenders as well 
 as for the good of our people generally that mani- 
 festations of honor and affection be made in 
 homes and communities. But when that has 
 been done — what then? 
 
 The men who have donned the nation's vari- 
 ous uniforms and gone to their places of hard- 
 ship and danger would surely make a common 
 answer to that question. They would say to 
 their friends at home, " Carry on." They want 
 the life at home to go on as it was when they 
 were with us. It will cheer and nerve them with 
 strength to know that daily duties are being per- 
 formed unfalteringly, home comforts main- 
 tained in full without depression, pleasures con- 
 tinued much the same as before they left us. As 
 autumn and winter bring the time when the life 
 of home and school, church and community 
 usually takes on fuller activity and interest, our 
 soldiers and sailors will wish to know that it is 
 so now, though they are far away. 
 
 Of course they would not have us forget them. 
 Most certainly we must and shall do many 
 things all these days to provide for their welfare 
 and mightily support their huge undertaking. 
 We at home are at war as truly as our men who 
 have gone to the fighting. But amidst all our 
 war- time activities, we must not fail to maintain 
 the endeared life at home which is such an em- 
 powering memory and upholding in the hearts 
 of our fighting men. Away with down-hearted- 
 70 
 
" CARRY ON " 
 
 ness. Have done with weakened interest and 
 activity. Keep the home bright and cheerful, 
 the school full of spirit, the church alive with 
 hearty workers, social pleasures engaging and 
 plentiful; and push business man-fashion, spurn- 
 ing the folly of gloom. Let letters to the men 
 gone to war bear abundant proof of all this. 
 
 " Carry on " — not in the sense of giving way 
 to loneliness and sorrow and anxious depression. 
 Put the military meaning into that phrase. 
 " Carry on," here at home, even as the men in 
 war service have learned to lift those words to 
 fuller meaning. For one of them, Robert W. 
 Service, has written — 
 
 Carry on! Carry on! 
 Fight the good fight and true; 
 BeUeve in your mission, greet dawn with a cheer; 
 There's big work to do and that's why you are here. 
 Carry on! Carry on! 
 Let the world be the better for you ; 
 And at last, when you die, let this be your cry : 
 " Carry on, my soul! Carry on! " 
 
 71 
 
XXV 
 THE MEN BEHIND THE MARCHERS 
 
 " A victory is twice itself when the achiever brings 
 home full numbers." — Shakespeare. 
 
 The outworking of the vast process under the 
 selective draft grows in impressiveness. A few 
 days ago, small percentages out of the ten mil- 
 lion registrants started for the training camps of 
 " the national army "; now a 40 per cent, quota 
 goes to join them, as September's ruddy 
 splendors glorify the land. Soon the great 
 camps will be thoroughly established in all de- 
 tails and filled with young men fit from head to 
 foot — the flower of the nation's masculine life. 
 
 This is a good time to speak of the men behind 
 the host thus moving forward throughout the 
 land — the citizens whose long and exacting 
 labors have brought such an achievement to 
 orderly consummation. The national govern- 
 ment laid a heavy load of work and responsi- 
 bility on the men called to serve on the local ex- 
 emption boards and the district appeal boards; 
 it also committed to them a trying and solemn 
 trust. They were called upon, in the heat of 
 midsummer, to turn from their private affairs 
 and immure themselves for weeks in rooms 
 wherein they were to handle voluminous papers 
 and long lines of young men. After examina- 
 72 
 
THE MEN BEHIND THE MARCHERS 
 
 tion, man by man, they were to pass judgment 
 on each — a judgment involving the breaking 
 up of home Hfe, fraught with hardship for all, 
 and the issue of life or death for many. The 
 homes and hearts of neighbors and friends were 
 often drawn upon for the young men chosen. 
 Who would wish to sit in judgment in such a 
 proceeding? Weeks ago we heard one of these 
 men say privately: " I would rather enlist and 
 go to the front myself than go through what we 
 have to do." 
 
 But from coast to coast these men have given 
 themselves to their task. They have let their 
 own business and professional affairs and even 
 domestic life take second place, have studied 
 their instructions and followed them, have 
 steeled their hearts against many an appealing 
 consideration, have sought for principles of ac- 
 tion fair to all, and they have not swerved from 
 meeting the obvious necessity of providing a host 
 of men fit to be the nation's saviors and the 
 world's. And now? Now their long devotion to 
 duty is bringing forth its vast yield in the 
 masses of young men moving in due order and 
 at the appointed hour to the training camps. 
 
 It is an impressive sight, these thronging 
 youth going forth at the nation's call to train 
 their bodies and minds in the grim arts of war 
 because their homeland and the world now need 
 their virile help. Theirs, of course, is the most 
 moving self-giving. But as they go, thoughtful 
 73 
 
WAR-TIME ''OVER HERE" 
 
 minds will reflect that such a spectacle has not 
 come to pass offhand. The silent older citizens 
 who have fulfilled their trust by giving them- 
 selves to the huge task of choosing this splendid 
 array are to be thought of now with gratitude 
 and praise. The men behind the marchers are 
 the national army's first victors. 
 
 74 
 
XXVI 
 THE BLESSING OF BOOKS 
 
 Among the various great phases of provision 
 for war-time needs which are receiving special 
 attention, a nation-wide movement is under way 
 as September ends to provide a hbrarj'^ of good 
 books for every training camp in the country. 
 This is far from being of secondary importance 
 among the other projects. When one considers 
 the American type of manhood, its effectiveness 
 is seen to be great. 
 
 Through the weeks and months of camp Hfe 
 to come, many a man will be saved from the 
 disabling clutch of weariness, illness, loneliness 
 or hope deferred, because well-chosen books are 
 to be at hand in the autumn and winter hours 
 of leisure. Monotony will be charmed away, 
 drudgery forgot, irritations soothed, temptations 
 dwarfed, anxieties touched with cheer, priva- 
 tions transformed to patriotic sacraments of fel- 
 lowship. For to many a man of parts books 
 will prove messengers from the world of good- 
 ness and beauty and full-hearted living — the 
 world which at times becomes dim and seemingly 
 far away to young men herded in barracks. The 
 reading of a vital book is much the same in the 
 human realm as food is in the physical or prayer 
 in the spiritual. Books make real the life of 
 75 
 
WAR-TIME "OVER HERE" 
 
 humanity's joys and sorrows, treasures and 
 sanctities; they bring nourishment and fresh 
 vigor. Their worth is not simply to aid in 
 whiling away ill-conditioned leisure entertain- 
 ingly, valuable as that is. They restore aware- 
 ness of the things by which men live. They 
 re-open fellowship with the wise and witty, 
 the good and lovely, the happy and gladden- 
 ing, the brave and strong in this glowing 
 world. 
 
 Many authoritative voices might be allowed 
 to speak here in confirmation of the life-giving 
 power of books. But we choose to let a single 
 voice, and that a lowly one, speak for them all 
 to quicken the public sense of the blessing of 
 books to our men in the training camps. It was 
 Emily Dickinson, a true daughter of the old- 
 time American democracy, who wrote the words 
 which seem to us perhaps the choicest we know 
 to be sounded just now. Here they are: 
 
 " He ate and drank the precious words, 
 
 His spirit grew robust ; 
 He knew no more that he was poor, 
 
 Nor that his frame was dust. 
 He danced along the dingy days, 
 
 And this bequest of wings 
 Was but a book. — What liberty 
 
 A loosened spirit brings! " 
 
 76 
 
XXVII 
 
 " THEY ALSO SERVE WHO ONLY STAND 
 AND WAIT " 
 
 A certain well-known hotel has hit upon a way 
 of meeting a situation characteristic of these 
 times which is too good to escape pubUcity. 
 Many of its employes have gone to war. Its 
 service is impaired, as October brings fuller 
 business. The guests are unavoidably incon- 
 venienced, the care of their wants being delayed 
 or rendered inefficient by " green " workers. 
 But there is evidently a man of parts in the 
 management. For by every guest room bureau, 
 and elsewhere throughout the large establish- 
 ment, choicely printed cards have promptly 
 appeared, whereon are the words, 
 
 "They also serve who only stand and wait." 
 
 — Milton. 
 
 That is all. But this simple appeal has not 
 failed. It reaches the common sense and good 
 will of people. It touches the fellow-feeling of 
 sojourners, weary and hurried, apt to be im- 
 patient and exacting though they often are. It 
 seems to say to them, " Won't you help us in 
 our emergency? When things go amiss, by just 
 waiting a bit you yourself will serve — will lend 
 us a hand." Little did the stately poet dream, 
 77 
 
WAR-TIME "OVER HERE" 
 
 we fancy, that the hne with which he crowned 
 the noble sonnet on his bHndness would ever let 
 him serve ordinary men in this commonplace 
 fashion! What a light w^ould have shone in 
 Milton's sightless eyes if he could have known 
 that this would come to pass, centuries after 
 his blindness has ended, and in a mighty nation 
 overseas now leagued with his beloved England 
 in a war for the cause of liberty which he so 
 grandly served! 
 
 This is a " word spoken in due season," in- 
 deed. Nowadays all of us would do well to fix 
 that jewelled hne in mind and make it a watch- 
 word. The demands of everyday life are exact- 
 ing enough at best to warrant doing so. But 
 now, amid the disordering of customary arrange- 
 ments everywhere which the war has brought, 
 the call for such considerateness is of extraordi- 
 nary importance. In every store, in offices, in 
 industrial plants, as well as in homes and schools 
 and churches, the service is likely to be more or 
 less handicapped somehow because of the war. 
 Often it will be because somebody has gone from 
 his usual work to serve the country — your 
 country, the land whose welfare is the safe- 
 guard of all that you hold dear. Almost every- 
 body in business and the whole social order is 
 working under such disadvantages now. 
 
 To recognize this fact, to take yourself in 
 hand and gain the grace of patience and the 
 poise of cheerful forbearance is a patriotic thing 
 78 
 
'' THEY ALSO SERVE WHO ONLY WAIT " 
 
 to do. It will prevent many a vexation un- 
 worthy of one willing to do his bit in war-time. 
 It will do much toward easing the burden im- 
 posed in this particular way on most of us. It 
 will avoid much undeserved and unfair criticism, 
 ungenerous words and actions, hurtful treatment 
 of some fellow mortal who may be doing his or 
 her best. While others have gone to fight for 
 your country, imperilling life and limb, you also 
 can serve the great common cause by just show- 
 ing enough patience to keep good-natured — 
 and wait a little when things go wrong or don't 
 go as promptly as they might. Indeed, in per- 
 sonal as well as great public matters, we Ameri- 
 cans must " learn to labor and to wait." 
 
 79 
 
XXVIII 
 TIRE PUNCTURES AHEAD 
 
 A business man just returned from Germany 
 says the Kaiser's automobile is about the only 
 one over there still running on inflated tires. 
 Even the Crown Prince has to bump along on 
 tires stuffed with rags or wrapped with rope. 
 The war, it seems, has stripped Germany of tires 
 and what tires stand for. 
 
 Many here in America are still riding on quite 
 at their ease in regard to the war, even in late 
 October, as it were on well-inflated tires. They 
 won't realize that their tires, though they still 
 " hold up," are worn threadbare. They won't 
 heed the roughness of the road to which we have 
 all now come after a long stretch of fairly smooth 
 riding. No; they just "give her more gas," 
 push on in their own private concerns, and re- 
 fuse to bother about taking care to keep their 
 tires in good condition. They are due for punc- 
 tures before long which will bring them to their 
 senses. Flat tires make exceedingly hard going. 
 
 The first puncture to guard against is in 
 thinking " the war is going to end soon, Ger- 
 many is cracking, and I needn't bother with 
 helping to pile up a huge war fund like this sec- 
 ond Liberty Loan." The only thing on earth 
 that can make the present crack in Germany's 
 80 
 
TIRE PUNCTURES AHEAD 
 
 strength become a break, and so end the war 
 soon, is that America should go in with all her 
 might — and do it now. If Germany hears in a 
 few days that we have added three billions to 
 our fighting funds and then some — that 
 " crack " will open a bit. It will close up and 
 she will fight on the more doggedly if she hears 
 that we Americans have failed to do this. There 
 will be a bad puncture for your comfortable 
 tires in that! 
 
 A second puncture will likely follow this one 
 any time. Failure in this October Liberty Loan 
 campaign would not only hearten Germany, 
 but it would also dishearten our war-wasted 
 allies. This would probably open the way to 
 ending the war without shackling Germany. 
 What then? Everybody would be apprehensive, 
 business of all kinds would take to cover, and for 
 an indefinite period you would — let us put all 
 in one word — you would have to run with one 
 more flat tire. 
 
 Another slashing puncture would be certain to 
 follow. With Germany left unconquered, we 
 should have to defend our homeland against 
 her. The ablest judges of affairs say so. We 
 should have to do it on this side of the sea, too, 
 and do it alone. "If we don't ' come across ' 
 now, the Germans will come across later," That 
 sentence puts a whole mine of iron into a tonic 
 capsule. To go on saying, " This isn't our 
 fight " is sheer self-delusion. It will be our fight, 
 81 
 
WAR-TIME "OVER HERE" 
 
 here at home and alone, if we don't make it our 
 fight yonder overseas and now. 
 
 A fourth puncture to your easy-going tires is 
 hidden in questioning: "Why should such an 
 immense additional sum of money be called 
 for? " Hundreds of thousands of our young men 
 are now entering the rigors of training camps — 
 silently moving through perils to the other side 
 of the Atlantic — bravely undergoing the grim 
 final preparation at the booming battle fronts. 
 Soon we shall begin to receive the reports of 
 casualties, woundings and sufferings, heroisms — 
 deaths. What a ripping gash of a puncture your 
 ease and comfortable unconcern will get if you 
 then realize that by your neglect of duty now 
 you have failed to provide in time everything 
 that money can secure for their welfare and up- 
 holding — these valiant young Americans and 
 their comrades-in-arms, who are standing "be- 
 tween our loved homes and the war's desolation," 
 yonder in the smoke and thunder! 
 
 Four punctures, four flat tires, and a long, 
 rough road ! Why take the risk of such a plight? 
 You can provide against it by doing your duty 
 now. Buy a bond. Look out for your tires. 
 
 82 
 
XXIX 
 
 ROOSEVELT'S SINGLE EYE 
 
 Colonel Roosevelt has so often proved rep- 
 resentative of things American that any new dis- 
 closure concerning him may fairly be taken as 
 prophetic. It has recently been made public 
 that he now sees with but one e\'e. It is a 
 striking fact, when one stops to think of it, that 
 such a thing should become known at such a 
 time as this concerning such a man. It lends 
 itself to use as an omen as November darkens 
 on our war-making land. 
 
 The Greeks, it will be remembered, had a con- 
 ception of certain giants whom they designated 
 by the name Cyclops. Their single eye seemed 
 to sj'^mbolize concentration of strength. Jesus, 
 with his far different conception of masterful 
 being, expressed his thought in much the same 
 manner. He made the single eye the condition 
 of victory as he conceived it. He meant, of 
 course, that whether there were two eyes or one 
 the seeing must be as though there were but one. 
 There must be no double vision. The eye that 
 offended against this high imperative must be 
 plucked out. " It is good for thee to enter into 
 life with one eye," he declared, rather than to 
 go to destruction with two eyes. 
 
 That Colonel Roosevelt now sees with one 
 83 
 
WAR-TIME "OVER HERE" 
 
 eye only is, in fact, an outward misfortune which 
 may serve him well by betokening his inward 
 singleness of vision in these days of war. It will 
 do his countrymen great good to reflect how he 
 has subordinated political hostilities and per- 
 sonal considerations. He has stood by the gov- 
 ernment, has pleaded mightily for its belated 
 undertakings for war, has sent his sons to the 
 fighting though he was balked in his herculean 
 zeal to go himself as the crowning of his career. 
 He has seen nothing with double vision. It 
 might well come to pass that his highest dis- 
 tinction should be the appellation, " The man 
 with the single eye." This would go well with 
 " Old Hickory " and " Stonewall " and " The 
 Rail-Splitter." 
 
 The time has come for proclaiming the gospel 
 of the single eye. All personal matters, all cur- 
 rent questions on which we might reasonably 
 divide in other times, must now be looked at by 
 everybody with no blurring because of double 
 vision. To win victory in this war, and to do it 
 as thoroughly and as quickly as we and our al- 
 lies can do it — to see all vexations, hardships, 
 toils, anxieties, losses, sorrows, with the glow of 
 this hallowing purpose shining through them — 
 this is the call sounded in the gospel of the 
 single eye. 
 
 84 
 
XXX 
 
 " WHERE THERE IS NO VISION " 
 
 Once more, as often before, war's terrors are 
 calling out utterances which will live to greaten 
 the life of the people. To make only a single 
 comparison, what utterance looms highest out 
 of the time of the Civil War? Doubtless it is the 
 words closing Lincoln's Gettysburg speech — 
 " That government of the people, by the people, 
 for the people, shall not perish from the earth." 
 Out of the present war-time we venture to name 
 for highest place the President's declaration that 
 we must " make the world safe for democracy." 
 It is striking indeed that this is actually the 
 same in its three elements as Lincoln's great 
 utterance. Democracy — what is that but 
 government of the people, by the people, for the 
 people? Make safe — that is the same as " shall 
 not perish." Lincoln's " the earth " is the same 
 as Wilson's " the world." 
 
 But let us not deceive ourselves. War has 
 its imperative place in making the world safe, 
 no doubt. But it can only do a part of the work 
 of making the world safe — for democracy above 
 all. Bunker Hill and the war that followed only 
 opened the way for a long process here to that 
 end. Look at Russia now to see that conditions 
 can be made safe for democracy only when 
 85 
 
WAR-TIME "OVER HERE" 
 
 democracy itself is made sound, and therefore 
 safe. 
 
 One profound issue is now looming awesomely. 
 Autocracy has itself and its resources in hand. 
 Therefore until now it has so marshalled the 
 central powers as to defy the rest of the world, 
 and after three and a half years it stands " balked 
 but not defeated." What of democracj''? Even 
 in the face of such diabolism, beholding such 
 iron-heeled trampling of human treasures and 
 sanctities, aroused to awareness of the utter 
 imperilling of all it holds precious, democracy 
 is hydra-headed, obstreperous, clamorous about 
 divisive views and interests — bartering its 
 birthright for some mess of pottage or other. 
 
 Witness Russia's socialistic lurch, face to 
 face with the vulture-like Teutonic talons ready 
 to clutch out her vitals. Witness the muddled 
 mouthings in England now when her prime 
 minister ventures to establish a unifying head- 
 ship for the far-reaching western front, including 
 Italy, sorely smitten because aloof. Witness 
 the disabling strikes which American labor 
 perpetrates or tolerates, the manipulation of 
 supplies and prices which American business 
 interests devise, the higgledy-piggledy of con- 
 flicting folk at Washington in the midst of which 
 able and outright men are obliged to work out 
 our herculean war measures. Nero fiddling 
 while Rome burned is outclassed by such stu- 
 pendous folly. 
 
 86 
 
"WHERE THERE IS NO VISION" 
 
 A supreme sentence indeed was that with 
 which Senator Lodge ended his noble address 
 at Princeton the other day — "As a poet of 
 another race has said, ' Where there is no vision 
 the people perish.' " No message could be more 
 timely and vital to our welfare just now than 
 these words in their full meaning. The senator 
 used them, rightly enough, to crown his plea 
 for the humanities, for the studies interpreta- 
 tive of the higher experiences of the human 
 spirit, as against the prevailing over-emphasis 
 on the practical sciences. But this quotation is 
 from the Hebrew Bible, and in old Israel vision 
 meant seeing the moral, the spiritual, the divine 
 — the highest experiences humanitj' knows — 
 "the things by which men live." We now 
 greatly need such a message. 
 
 " Where there is no vision the people perish," 
 the people whose welfare is the very essence of 
 democracy. The old words of " a poet of 
 another race " are everlastingly true; and vision 
 must mean for us now what it meant when an 
 ancient Hebrew uttered that mighty line. The 
 people will not perish if only there is such vision 
 that the people see the necessity of things moral, 
 spiritual, divine. Now and henceforth all 
 forces that make for the development of such 
 vision must array themselves for unyielding 
 advance, if we are to make the world safe for 
 democracy. 
 
 87 
 
XXXI 
 
 "SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE" 
 
 The dim range of that phrase is narrowing 
 comfortingly now for many a home and heart, 
 as November passes. " Where do you suppose 
 he is? " was the question above all others a 
 little time ago; and the map of France as a 
 whole was wistfully scanned. But letters have 
 been coming since then. These letters, to be 
 sure, have borne not a few signs of the censor's 
 watchfulness besides his official scrawl, and they 
 have been headed " Somewhere in France " 
 or perhaps just " France." None the less a 
 story worth telhng has been spun and woven 
 about those letters, and the story is of the nar- 
 rowing of this dim range, the close scanning of 
 a particular portion of the map of France. 
 
 For in " his " letters, amid a lot of details 
 quite ordinary and such as any censor would 
 pass, have been certain casually interposed 
 remarks — remarks that somehow struck the 
 keen-hearted readers at home. And such is 
 love's magic, these remarks were discovered to 
 be cumulative. 
 
 Thereupon how eagerly they were watched 
 
 and studied as one letter followed anotherl 
 
 And, lo, it came to pass that an account of the 
 
 favor our boys have won with " the shop- 
 
 88 
 
"SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE" 
 
 keepers in our village because they are better 
 paid and spend more freely than other soldiers 
 of the allies," ends with the remark that " it 
 is chow time now, for there goes the express to 
 
 N "; next a description of "the peasant 
 
 women in our village with their wooden shoes 
 and black shawls," naturally enough leads to 
 mention of the " unending rain and mud," 
 manfully disposed of by the added words, 
 " But we are used to this now, and everything 
 
 is 0. K. with us, though the mud of the M 
 
 valley is sure some mud." What censor can 
 remember all the letters he reads and put two 
 and two together? But the hearts at home can 
 do it; and " Somewhere in France " is now 
 narrowed to a region having a railroad to some 
 town whose name begins with N and running 
 through a river's valley whose name begins with 
 M! It is a pretty puzzle, this seaching of the 
 map of France for all the names beginning with 
 N and M, there are so many of them! 
 
 By and by a letter comes which closes talk 
 about unforbidden things " over there " with 
 this home-turning digression: "I got a bit 
 hungry for the old pantry last night. Say, 
 mother, what was the name, anyhow, of that 
 jelly we used to mix with cream cheese and 
 spread on crackers at bedtime? " What censor 
 could know how a mother's heart would leap at 
 sight of that! What censor would really care 
 how closely her eyes would now scan the sections 
 89 
 
WAR-TIME "OVER HERE" 
 
 of the map of France circumscribed by N's 
 and M's — or how, through tear-bright eyes 
 there soon shines a joy sweeter than that of any 
 shepherd calUng, " I have found my sheep 
 which was lost! " 
 
 At any rate, there in the narrowed section of 
 the map of France, plainly printed in tiny letters, 
 is the name of that jelly of the dear old days. 
 And the word goes quickly to " his " sweet- 
 heart — perchance his brave bride — that the 
 
 " express for N " was on the road to Nancy, 
 
 and the " mud of the M valley " was along 
 
 the Meuse river, and " our village " is — but 
 why print its name here, after all? If you know 
 the name of that jelly folks mix with cream 
 cheese and spread on crackers in American 
 homes you can find it for yourself on the map of 
 France — hard by Verdun, the terrible but 
 glorious. That is where " he " is. That is the 
 spot into which the dimly vague range of " Some- 
 where in France " has been gathered up. That 
 is now the prayer-shrine of the hearts at home. 
 
 90 
 
XXXII 
 THANKFULNESS AS A FINE ART 
 
 The rough stone must be chiselled away that 
 the sculptor's vision of statue or urn may stand 
 forth. The devitalizing must be excluded that 
 the author may make the printed page alive. 
 The incongruous must be at least subordinated 
 if not eliminated that the picture may impart 
 the landscape's charm. To see, select and bring 
 out that which shall dominate is the essence of 
 all the fine arts. This is the secret of all high 
 things in common life — courage, purity, cheer- 
 fulness, tranquillity, success in business or home- 
 making, and the like. And in times like these 
 thankfulness can be achieved only by this 
 method of the fine arts. Are there details in 
 the present outlook of us all which can be 
 assembled into a masterpiece of thanksgiving 
 on this grim Thanksgiving Day? 
 
 Gertrude Atherton has well said that there 
 is only one thing more abominable than war, 
 and that is the doctrine of non-resistance when 
 duty and honor call. War has been best de- 
 scribed by a word of four letters. But, as Dean 
 Fenn of Harvard once said, men may be thankful 
 for " that comforting doctrine of hell," because 
 it is good to know that there is a point in the 
 moral order beyond which iniquity cannot go. 
 91 
 
WAR-TIME "OVER HERE" 
 
 So of war. What if the powers of the world 
 were now supine before the present outbreak of 
 autocratic villainy? When we reflect on what 
 Germany has done to accomplish Vv^hat she set 
 herself to do, we may be thankful and, as the 
 Outlook has declared, rejoice that we are at war 
 against her. Horrible as war is, it would be 
 more horrible if there were no " full measure of 
 devotion " arrayed against such f rightfulness. 
 
 And the disclosures of this arrayed devotion 
 are such as to brighten the awful picture — 
 deepening its lights, enriching its shadows, 
 moving the seeing mind to profound gratitude 
 in spite of all distress. The heroic response 
 young men are making to the call to the colors; 
 the tender bravery of mothers, wives, sweet- 
 hearts; the devotement of their time and powers 
 which so many business men are making to 
 man the points of national need ; the measureless 
 outpouring of money; the countless bands of 
 women, forgetting their own comfort to provide 
 for the comfort of our fighting men; the huge 
 beneficent agencies organized, equipped and 
 gloriously at work; the transforming spiritual 
 awakening which has laid its spell on all sorts 
 of people ; the large place our country has taken 
 in the hope and the grateful honor of " four- 
 fifths of the world " — these are the high lights 
 in the thanksgiving masterpiece which they 
 may produce who have learned the secret of 
 making thankfulness a fine art. 
 92 
 
XXXIII 
 JERUSALEM IN WAR LIGHT 
 
 " Look upon Zion, the city of our solemnities." — 
 Isaiah. 
 
 The glare of war is now bringing Jerusalem 
 and its environs into view out of the dimness of 
 vanished centuries. It is a far-off and minor 
 tumult that British guns are making amid those 
 slumbrous hills, with the war's central roar in 
 our ears. But we may well watch for the phan- 
 tomlike yet real spectacle soon to emerge there. 
 For that region, beyond any other on earth, is 
 charged with certain sanctities conjured into 
 unwonted vividness by this war's magic terrors. 
 
 It is Advent now in all Christendom. Soon 
 Christmas will come — the most terrific Yuletide 
 the world has ever attempted to charm with the 
 song and story of the Christ child. Does heart 
 fail you in making ready for Christmas cheer and 
 the gladness of gift-making and all the sweeten- 
 ing of common life? The spell of the shepherds 
 keeping watch over their flocks by night, of the 
 sudden Gloria sounding in the brightened dark, 
 of the manger and the mother and the Babe, of 
 the Wise Men with rich gifts from far — does 
 it all seem an empty dream? There, only six 
 miles southward over the hills round about 
 Jerusalem, is Bethlehem. It will show out in 
 93 
 
WAR-TIME "OVER HERE" 
 
 the war's flare presently, no doubt, as a reality. 
 Its outstanding limestone hillcrest fixes the 
 spot where Jesus was born. By all that Chris- 
 tianity has done for our ever-troubled world, by 
 all it is doing now and all it could do if men would 
 only let it, Christian folk have reason to rejoice. 
 And not less, but all the more, now when the 
 world's plight is so pitiful, its need of leadership 
 in a better way of life so obvious and overwhelm- 
 ing! Advent and Christmas should be hope's 
 undespairing sacrament this year. 
 
 There, beside Jerusalem, companioning its 
 hoary east wall across a little valley, is Mount 
 Olivet. It has appeared in the dispatches 
 already. The Bethany home was on its slope — 
 the home the Christ Child loved in manhood, 
 the home where he often found gladness and rest 
 in the love it gave him. How the Bethany home 
 has been manifolded in our land and time! 
 Shall not love's brightness be maintained in your 
 home this year? Would not your boj'^ now in 
 camp or ship or at the battlefront have it so — 
 and smile at his grim task when he thinks of it? 
 Keep the home lights burning this season, of 
 all years. Advent and Christmas should be 
 love's brave sacrament this year. 
 
 From the Bethany home the young man Jesus 
 went to his suffering for a great cause. There, 
 close by Jerusalem's north wall, is Calvary. As 
 even Renan wrote of it: " There cannot be a 
 difference of more than a few feet, when all is 
 94 
 
JERUSALEM IN WAR LIGHT 
 
 considered." Calvary is there — hard by the 
 city wall. And surely Calvary, above any other 
 historic site we know, stands for what has been 
 carried over out of the past and reproduced in 
 our time. Dutiful men are now climbing Cal- 
 vary by throngs! What hallowing charm can 
 be thrown around young men, grown from 
 childhood to manhood and now gone from our 
 homes to war's high sacrifice, that will yield 
 anything like the solace and heartening uphold- 
 ing to be found in thinking of them as comrades 
 of Jesus on Calvary — as saviors who " follow 
 in his train"? Advent and Christmas should 
 be faith's hallowing sacrament this year. 
 
 And as war's glare brings Jerusalem with 
 these and other sanctities of memory into view, 
 the British base is at Joppa by the sea, some 
 thirty miles off. Charles Dudley Warner there 
 wrote that of all places on earth save one, Joppa 
 is the most worthy of pilgrimage by all lovers of 
 liberty. For there a follower of him whose birth 
 and loving life and heroic death centered about 
 Jerusalem, uttered the words: " I perceive that 
 God is no respecter of persons." Joppa, indeed, 
 is the base of the democracy for which this 
 world war is calling forth our " full measure of 
 devotion." 
 
 95 
 
XXXIV 
 THE WOMEN AT HOME 
 
 Thoroughly womanly is the Christmas mes- 
 sage to be sent to the American soldiers in 
 France from the women of America, with the 
 President's approval. It reads: "The women 
 of America are with you in spirit and in service. 
 You are our standard-bearers and our hope. 
 We love you, we believe in you and pray for 
 you this Christmas season." The wording could 
 not be bettered. It is laden with the character- 
 istic contributions to masculine heroism which 
 womanhood has made since our human world 
 began. 
 
 The beneficent effectiveness of women prob- 
 ably never showed to greater advantage than 
 in their present war work. A story has come 
 across the ocean which bears telling testimony 
 to the effect of their almost boundless practical 
 achievements. A body of American soldiers 
 were watching French troops start for the 
 trenches. It was cold, and the Frenchmen were 
 without sweaters. A quick transfer of the 
 sweaters worn by the Americans was soon under 
 v/ay, our men merrily helping their French 
 comrades in getting into the warm garments. 
 " But what will you yourselves do without 
 them? " asked the grateful Frenchmen. "Oh, 
 96 
 
THE WOMEN AT HOME 
 
 our women at home will soon take care of that! " 
 was the hearty answer. 
 
 But it has ever been woman's way to add 
 to her material ministries benefits that reach 
 men's hearts and souls. The Christmas message 
 to which we have referred is in keeping with 
 this life-compassing grace of womankind. There 
 is another unique instance just now of this 
 womanly instinct which deserves public recog- 
 nition. Red Cross women workers in and about 
 Boston are now placing thousands of small cards 
 in sweater pockets, folding them in other 
 knitted articles and in the little khaki kits 
 filled with useful supplies. These cards have 
 been going to training camps. By authoriza- 
 tion of government officials, they will now be 
 sent to France. On each card are these words: 
 
 A CREED 
 
 " I will be true, for there are those who trust me; 
 I will be pure, for there are those who care ; 
 I will be strong, for there is much to suffer; 
 I will be brave, for there is much to dare; 
 I will be friend to all the poor and friendless; 
 I will be giving and forget the gift ; 
 I will be humble, for I know my weakness; 
 I will look up, and laugh, and love, and lift." 
 
 97 
 
XXXV 
 THE PAIR ON THE MALL 
 
 Tremont Street along the Common has been 
 for years one of Boston's places of parade for 
 youths and maids of divers sorts of sightliness. 
 Hitherto the sidewalk adjoining this thorough- 
 fare's stores and theatres has maintained a 
 clear triumph in this respect over its neighbor, 
 the mall along the Common. But at last the 
 mall has scored victory. No pair ever drew the 
 gaze of all on the other side of the street like 
 the one to be seen on the mall any day or night 
 this Christmas week. 
 
 They first appeared, this young man and his 
 attractive companion, at the Boylston Street 
 end of the broad footway. Hand in hand the,y 
 were; and they moved very slowly for such 
 wintry weather. But they seemed to find com- 
 fort and content in each other, no matter how 
 the icy wind swirled about them or the snow 
 mantled their forms. Thej'- were of great stature, 
 the young woman's head reaching above the 
 shoulder of her giant lover — for a lover the 
 man obviously was. Opposite the Herald build- 
 ing thej'^ passed — on toward Park Street 
 Church. Their faces were ahght with mutual 
 confidence touched with satisfaction, though all 
 who looked upon them must have seen the 
 98 
 
THE PAIR ON THE MALL 
 
 shadow of something that was putting their 
 souls to a mighty test. In their handclasp each 
 seemed to find a joy totally unabashed as they 
 faced the passing crowds. 
 
 " What! " we hear readers who may not 
 have seen them ask, " Are they a betrothed 
 couple on their way to marriage in Park Street 
 Church? " We venture only to reply that there 
 is doubtless a union of heart between this pair 
 as sacred and deep as any marriage ever was. 
 
 The man is clad in khaki. His left arm — 
 its hand is missing — is freshly bound and 
 swung in white bandages. His head is com- 
 pletely swathed, the bandaging being skilfully 
 done to leave mouth and nose and eyes un- 
 obstructed save by the shadow of pain; and 
 gratitude penetrates, almost dispels that be- 
 clouding. 
 
 She is woman-grown, though young. Her 
 form is full of womanly comeliness. Her face, 
 too, is overcast as by shadow. But this is evi- 
 dently the result of sympathy rather than her 
 own bodily suffering — sympathy resolute, rescu- 
 ing, heroic. The way she holds the hand of 
 the wounded man leaves no doubt as to that. 
 
 Along their way up the mall banners are set. 
 On these banners are inscribed ascending num- 
 bers up to 370,000 by Park Street Church. 
 Over the numbers are the words: " Come 
 Help Us — Join Now." The soldier and his 
 companion evidently mean to traverse the full 
 99 
 
WAR-TIME "OVER HERE" 
 
 length of that Hne of wind-tossed banners, let 
 the winter weather howl as it will. And the 
 woman's free hand is extended, as if appeahng 
 for help in her care of the soldier. Her face is 
 wistful — yearning, as she gazes up the long 
 mall! On her arm and headpiece, often sifted 
 over with snow — just as it must often be 
 " over there " — glows the sacred symbol of 
 a Red Cross nurse. 
 
 Only dumb figures? But they visualize the 
 most appeahng reahties! Join the Red Cross — 
 help the pair on the mall along their way to 
 Park Street Church. 
 
 100 
 
XXXVI 
 
 LONDON BRIDGE 
 
 She was a social settlement worker, leading a 
 group of children in a squalid quarter of a city 
 as the war-time Christmastide came on. The 
 children were of various races and religions. 
 They were playing " London Bridge." 
 
 An archway of arms was made, just as we 
 all used to make the like in our childhood; and 
 to the accompaniment of voices singing 
 
 " London Bridge is falling down — 
 Falling down — falling down," 
 
 one after another was moving forward to be 
 caught by two pairs of arms brought down 
 around this child and that. The whispered 
 choice given to each willing captive — who does 
 not remember it? 
 
 But something was going wrong. The young 
 social worker, keen for the happiness of all her 
 charge, noticed a strange miscarriage in the 
 game. The alignment on one side was growing 
 much faster than the other. Nearly all the 
 children were making the same choice. 
 
 This was ominous, as every worker with 
 
 children knows. " What can the choice that is 
 
 winning so many be? " she queried. For each 
 
 of the two small leaders in the game, of course, 
 
 101 
 
WAR-TIME "OVER HERE" 
 
 had made up her own lure of words to win to her 
 side the " choosers." It would never do for the 
 trusted friend of all to risk the chance of seeming 
 to do better by one side than the other — not 
 in working with children. It doesn't do with 
 their elders either, so far as we have observed 
 the matter. 
 
 By and by the young woman herself, eager to 
 fathom this very practical mystery, moved 
 forward — passed under the archway of arms. 
 
 Down came London Bridge around her. 
 She stood with the two pairs of child-arms 
 shutting her in. There was the thrill and flurry 
 of rapture in the whole company which is usual 
 at such times in children's games. Then came 
 the whispering of the choices. This is what she 
 heard first: 
 
 " Will you choose the world with all the fine 
 stores and houses in it? " 
 
 This seemed alluring indeed. " That must be 
 the winning one! " she said to herself; "no 
 wonder nearly all the children are lining up on 
 one side with such an offer, poor little things! " 
 
 " That's what is winning a lot of grown-ups 
 nowadays!" we interposed, as the story was 
 being told. 
 
 " But wait — listen! " came the answer. 
 There was a hush in the voice and a look of 
 wonder in the eyes, betokening a sense of some- 
 thing for the soul — more beautiful than even 
 the winsome cunning of childhood ways. 
 102 
 
LONDON BRIDGE 
 
 Holding her peace, she turned between the 
 enclosing arms, as it was only fair that she 
 should do, to hear the other overture. This is 
 what was now whispered: 
 
 " Will you choose the Catholic Church with 
 the whole of heaven and our Father God? " 
 
 The quaint wording, its simplicity and scope, 
 impressed the listener quite as much as the 
 unexpected ground of appeal. To make sure of 
 what was said she asked that it be repeated. 
 
 " Will you choose the Catholic Church with 
 the whole of heaven and our Father God? " 
 was whispered once more. And the child whose 
 earnest face was at the teacher's ear was only 
 about nine years old! 
 
 Thinking that she would set a good example 
 for the many children who had most likely 
 chosen " the world with all the fine stores and 
 houses in it," and withal wishing to even up the 
 game for the sake of the losing girl, she made 
 this second proffer her choice, though she herself 
 was a Protestant minister's daughter. 
 
 Imagine her surprise when she was gleefully 
 bidden to join the long line where most of the 
 " choosers " stood. 
 
 " Hurrah for that little Irish girl!" we cried. 
 
 " Irish? " The rising inflection arched the 
 story-teller's brows. 
 
 " Oh! " we stammered. " Wasn't she Irish? " 
 
 " I wondered about that myself — her eyes 
 were so softly dark." 
 
 103 
 
WAR-TIME "OVER HERE" 
 
 " Irish or what not, honor to her for bethink- 
 ing herself of an appeal so great and hitting upon 
 a wording of it so simple yet complete, direct yet 
 captivating." 
 
 " Perhaps she was recalling something that 
 had been taught her." 
 
 " All the more, in that case, honor to her for 
 standing forth among her mates and bravely 
 trusting it to win — whispering it to all while 
 she heard her rival presenting * the world with 
 all the fine stores and houses in it.' " 
 
 "Yes; and what the others did, so — un- 
 flinchingly? — so unanimously any way, struck 
 me as fine." 
 
 " Catholics, of course? " 
 
 " Most of them, I think." 
 
 " All right, hurrah for them, too, for being 
 proof against the world's beguilements, at least 
 enough to respond to such a call by choosing 
 their church on earth with what it offers above 
 the earth, against the world and all that is 
 thereini Come to think of it, as those little 
 urchins saw things the choice they faced was 
 ever so much like what was set before One who 
 was long ago led up into * an exceeding high 
 mountain.' And according to their lights they 
 sided with Him." 
 
 " They make a pretty picture for all of us 
 who usually let the world win us — don't they? 
 Life for us all is ever so much like their game of 
 London Bridge, isn't it? " 
 104 
 
LONDON BRIDGE 
 
 " Let's see — through an archway of arms, of 
 human relationships and associations, we pass 
 to a choice — and the choices offered us are 
 actually the same as those in their game. But 
 nearly all of us nowadays are lined up on the 
 world's side by the choice we make ours — the 
 likeness breaks down, you see." 
 
 " Are you sure of that? " Thus the young- 
 hearted social worker gently challenged our 
 pessimism. 
 
 " Why — yes — everybody says so. But 
 what makes you ask? " 
 
 " Those children! " 
 
 " Tell me all your thoughts." 
 
 " I'm wondering whether the picture they 
 made isn't more than pretty, more than beauti- 
 ful — whether it isn't true to life, really a little 
 glimpse of things as they actually are in the 
 world." 
 
 " Go on," said we, smiling encouragement. 
 
 " Well, for instance, Christmas is almost here. 
 It certainly seems as if its ' peace on earth, good 
 will among men ' can hardly mean much to 
 anybody in the roar war is making these days. 
 But those children have set me thinking how 
 many the world over will listen even now for 
 the sweet old song of peace and good will, and 
 hear it, and respond to it deep in their hearts, 
 more earnestly now than ever — choosing better 
 than we think, just as those children were doing 
 when I thought they weren't. It makes me 
 105 
 
WAR-TIME "OVER HERE" 
 
 keep saying over those words about * a great 
 multitude no man can number/ how they * came 
 up out of the great tribulation/ and the rest of 
 it. So they must be here somewhere now, you 
 see! I like to think of the thousands of kind 
 things these people will do in response to the 
 call that is heard most clearly at Christmas 
 time. And ever so many of them, faulty as 
 they are, will go on all the days of the year try- 
 ing to choose — well, to choose ' the church with 
 the whole of heaven and our Father God.' " 
 
 " Bless you, my dear," said one who was 
 listening with us, " you make me think of the 
 old prophet's prayer for the opening of two 
 young eyes that they might see — and how they 
 soon saw the hosts of the Lord all round about! " 
 
 Does any one need to be told that a picture of 
 children playing London Bridge shines in our 
 thoughts this clouded Christmastide? And one 
 figure stands out, charming us most of all. It 
 is that little girl — she who dared to make the 
 Christian appeal in a scene of common life, 
 bravely trusting it to win, even as the hopeful 
 Christmas angels did long ago in the midst of 
 poor shepherds. 
 
 106 
 
XXXVII 
 LIGHT YOUR CHRISTMAS CANDLES 
 
 Just a year ago all Boston and its environs 
 were singing " Brighten the Corner Where 
 You Are." Have you forgotten that simple yet 
 altogether irresistible song? Try whistling it; 
 then, as the words come back to mind, sing it 
 again. There is greater need of its spell this 
 year than last, surely; and there is no better 
 call to sound this Christmas Eve. For the 
 essential spirit of Christmastide is to brighten 
 each nook of common life — lighting up the 
 shadows we cannot wholly dispel, kindling the 
 gleam of cheer and good-will in the little corner 
 of the struggling world where we ourselves are. 
 We can do this if we will; for the old words are 
 as true as they are beautiful, " The spirit of 
 man is the candle of the Lord." 
 
 Why is it that candles have been lighted at 
 Christmas-time for so many centuries? Be- 
 cause there has always been occasion for signaliz- 
 ing the fact that Christmas cheer is and must 
 ever be an overcoming of gloom by enkindled 
 light. The story of the very first Christmas has 
 its dark side. There was no room in the inn for 
 the weary young mother, great with child, amid 
 the noisy jostle of farmers, merchants, soldiers; 
 and Herod's massacre of Bethlehem children 
 sent black terror to all loving hearts. There has 
 107 
 
WAR-TIME "OVER HERE" 
 
 been many a Christmas darkened by war and 
 calamity since then. The ancient Yuletide of 
 nature-worshipping races in Europe, which has, 
 in fact, fixed the season for the celebration of 
 that first Christmas, actually marked the time 
 of winter's completest darkening. At Yuletide 
 they rejoiced because the sun was at its solstice — 
 was stopping in its wintry descent and would 
 turn to bring light and warmth and summer 
 again. Therefore, they lighted candles, as the 
 visible symbol of their brave inward cheer. 
 Christians keeping Christmas saw the fine 
 significance of the candle shining in the dark, 
 and adopted it as a token of their own over- 
 coming cheer and good hope. 
 
 Christendom never faced a darker Christmas 
 than the one we now keep. But it is certain 
 that the world never saw such vast agencies 
 of mercy and help as are at work everywhere 
 in the present war-welter. Ours is a world in 
 which love refuses to cower and yield! See to 
 it that you help maintain this triumph of the 
 human spirit. ** Brighten the corner where 
 you are." Light your Christmas candles — 
 literally if you enjoy the charm of a quaint old 
 custom, or else in some other way let your 
 dwelling's brightness bespeak your cheer even 
 now. And make sure that the light in your 
 window shines on a Red Cross. For that is the 
 token that you are helping to throw a gleam 
 of love's Hght " over there," as well as at home. 
 108 
 
XXXVIII 
 A CHRISTMAS SONG 
 
 Come, my heart, canst thou not hear it, 
 
 Mid the tumult of thy days? 
 Catch the old sweet song of angels. 
 
 Join thy voice to swell their praise! 
 Hast thou never shared the blessing, 
 
 Never known kind Heaven's gift? 
 Bethlehem thy Saviour cradled! 
 
 Heart of mine, a song uplift. 
 
 First to hear where drowsing shepherds. 
 
 Sore afraid that winter's night; 
 Soon to Bethlehem they hurried — 
 
 Lo, the song they heard was right! 
 Ever since, all they who hear it 
 
 Find a Saviour where they dwell; 
 Sing it, heart! Who knows what toilers 
 
 Thou the Christward way shalt tell? 
 
 Long ago the angels vanished. 
 
 Oh, their song is sounding still! 
 Millions now with hope are singing, 
 
 " Peace on earth, to men good will." 
 Sing, my heart! Though peace may tarry. 
 
 Sing good will amid the strife! 
 Join the old sweet song whose music 
 
 Will attune to Heav'n thy life. 
 109 
 
XXXIX 
 
 AS YEARS PASS 
 
 "If it were feasible," says Senator Lodge in 
 the Senate chamber, " and if I were a despot, 
 and could do it by a single stroke, I would wipe 
 drink off the face of the earth." 
 
 " Oh," shouts Billy Sunday in his tabernacle, 
 " Oh, if I were only God for four minutes! " — 
 then he thunders what he would do with the 
 same and certain other evils. 
 
 Many are saying as this distraught j^ear ends: 
 " If God has the power to stop all these horrors 
 of war, why doesn't He do it — how can He be 
 good if He allows such things to go on?" 
 
 Meanwhile the Father of all, having the 
 sovereign power and being God not for a Httle 
 but forever, does not wipe the earth of evils, or 
 smash all workers of iniquity, or stop the 
 world's man-made troubles outright. No; he 
 lets his sons and daughters keep their dower of 
 freedom, while they muddle on. Nothing that 
 goodness and mercy, law and love can devise to 
 help them is left undone. He warns them by 
 countless danger signals, prohibits, enjoins, 
 restrains by ways and means now sharp, now 
 tender, throws the guard of the good round 
 about their wayward lives unfailingly. And He 
 waits with yearning patience, never despairing 
 110 
 
AS YEARS PASS 
 
 — waits for His children to learn to live as He 
 longs to have them live. 
 
 So man has come to what he is, and will come 
 to what he is to be. For this is the way of the 
 Everlasting Father. 
 
 Ill 
 
XL 
 
 JACOB'S LADDER IN TO-DAY'S NEWS 
 
 " We rise by the things that are under our feet, 
 By what we have mastered of good and gain, 
 By the pride deposed and the passion slain, 
 And the vanquished ills that we hourly meet. 
 
 " Only in dreams is a ladder thrown 
 From the weary earth to the sapphire walls; 
 But the dreams depart, and the vision fades, 
 And the sleeper wakes on his pillow of stone." 
 
 — J. G. Holland. 
 
 The British advance through Palestine is 
 renewing acquaintance with Bible lore for many. 
 Our allies have now traversed about a third of 
 the distance marked off in the ancient phrase, 
 " From Dan to Beersheba," which has carried 
 over into modern speech. First, coming up from 
 the south, they brought Beersheba and Hebron, 
 Abraham's home region, into the newspapers. 
 Then they caused Jerusalem and Bethlehem to 
 emerge in the day's news as actualities, lending 
 unique enhancement to a shadowed Christmas- 
 tide; and with them Joppa, the seaport where a 
 Hebrew Christian voiced the principle of de- 
 mocracy, over which this world-war is waging. 
 Now the British have pushed a dozen miles 
 northward from Jerusalem and are battling at 
 Bethel. A fine Bible story is laid at Bethel, one 
 112 
 
JACOB'S LADDER IN TO-DAY'S NEWS 
 
 which yields a message greatly needed as 
 January brings us into the fateful year, 1918. 
 
 It was at Bethel that Jacob, journeying up 
 from Beersheba and in trouble over the robbing 
 of his brother in the matter of his natural rights, 
 had his dream of the ladder reaching from earth 
 to heaven. The British troops will see there, 
 even now, the surroundings which made the 
 setting for that dream. Round about the little 
 plain's chaos of rocks and loose stones, amid 
 which the weary and distraught man " took 
 one of the stones of that place, and put it under 
 his head, and lay down in that place to sleep " 
 as the sun was setting, are still seen the limestone 
 terraces which make flights of steps up the 
 encompassing hillsides. We all know how the 
 things of real life enter into the texture of 
 dreams. At any rate, the dream came; and 
 Jacob's ladder was added to the treasury of the 
 human spirit. 
 
 No imagery could more vividly portray what 
 he needed to be assured of then, and what many 
 need now. In times of trouble, usually brought 
 on by some sort of human wrong-doing, as was 
 the case then and is surely so on a vast scale 
 now, men and women feel that God must be 
 turned against them. Depression then deepens 
 to the gloom of despair. Hope flickers out, 
 cheer fades away, courage expires. In that 
 plight, Jacob saw in his dream, rising from the 
 very place of his depression and reaching to 
 113 
 
WAR-TIME "OVER HERE" 
 
 heaven, a ladder. Upon it angels were going up 
 and coming back; and from its top a voice 
 sounded: " I will be with thee, and will keep 
 thee, and will bless thee, and will make thee a 
 blessing." Only a dream? But that dream 
 gathered up in clear visualization the inbred 
 but overwhelmed convictions of his soul — of 
 all devout souls. It cheered Jacob beyond tell- 
 ing. When he was wide awake, he stood in 
 morning light brighter than sunshine, and said, 
 " Surely God is in this place, and I knew it not." 
 That realization heartened him, mastering his 
 life through all gruelling experiences. 
 
 This Bethel story, now that the British ad- 
 vance has brought it to modern notice, is timely 
 reading for days like these. 
 
 " For the love of God is broader 
 
 Than the measure of man's mind, 
 And the heart of the Eternal 
 Is most wonderfully kind." 
 
 114 
 
XLI 
 
 THE MYSTERY OF THE SMOKING 
 LEDGE 
 
 Have you read the story? A trapper amid the 
 snow-hushed hills of western Massachusetts, a 
 few days ago, spied smoke issuing from a ledge 
 of rocks in the depths of a dense forest. He did 
 not know what to make of it. All sorts of 
 fearsome notions beset him as he ventured on 
 attempts to solve the mystery. But when he 
 had summoned help and they went in at the 
 opening detected, bearing lanterns, and all 
 hands armed to meet whatever might be en- 
 countered, they discovered a lone man bending 
 over a small fire in the act of roasting a bit of 
 meat. And they learned from him that he was 
 living there, in January weather, to escape the 
 service men are summoned to render in war- 
 time! 
 
 The mystery of the smoking ledge would 
 serve somebody well to point a moral or adorn a 
 tale. For most of life's experiences that puzzle 
 and trouble us mortals are much like this of 
 the smoking ledge. We conjure up no end of 
 dire thoughts about them — about diseases, 
 disasters, and especiall.y such distresses as are 
 now come on the world, when the whole of 
 civilized life is like a smoking ledge. We think 
 115 
 
MYSTERY OF THE SMOKING LEDGE 
 
 of nature as malign, of fateful evil powers as 
 lying in ambush against us, even of God himself 
 as causing things which confound us as we go 
 the rounds of common life. But by and by we 
 discover, in one instance after another, precisely 
 what this trapper did — that the things which 
 alarm and puzzle and trouble us are really due 
 to some human aberration from right doing. 
 We are wrong in thinking that fate or nature or 
 God are responsible for the mysteries of suffer- 
 ing and sorrow. The truth is that some human 
 being who has gone wrong is down under most 
 of the smoking ledges that mystify us. To get 
 this clear in one's mind is of the greatest im- 
 portance, especially in times like these. 
 
 This young man hid under the smoking ledge 
 told a story vividly significant. He was there to 
 escape the duty of all when all that we cherish 
 is imperilled. He confessed that he had crept 
 out at night to buy food in a town miles away — 
 he couldn't subsist without drawing on the com- 
 mon provisions for welfare which are now in 
 jeopardy. He acknowledged having been obhged 
 by illness in his cave to go and secretly spend a 
 week in a hotel's comfort — he would have 
 died like a wild animal but for such shelter in 
 the established order he was refusing to help 
 maintain. He had even tramped far through the 
 snow on a winter night to peer through a window 
 at his sister's family, happy around their home's 
 bright fireplace — his man's heart, craven as it 
 116 
 
WAR-TIME "OVER HERE" 
 
 was, longed for a glimpse of those sanctities 
 which sound-hearted men are now going forth 
 to safeguard. Food, shelter, the realm of love! 
 These are the primary human imperatives, as 
 even the man under the smoking ledge bears 
 witness. And these, with many other blessings, 
 are now put in peril by ruthless foes, overseas 
 and here at home as truly. Could anything 
 show the folly and wrong of failing to defend 
 them more strikingly than the story of this man 
 under the smoldng ledge? 
 
 117 
 
XLII 
 
 ENTER NEW ACTORS ON AN 
 ANCIENT STAGE 
 
 " British air service," says the latest dispatch 
 from Palestine, " has executed bombing raids 
 on the enemy at Jenin." To the general reader 
 this means little. But to those who understand 
 its import this bit of news is like the signal when 
 the curtain is about to rise on a stage scene of 
 classic awesomeness. The British troops, with 
 captured Jerusalem behind them and the rocky 
 hills of Samaria ahead, are still pushing north- 
 ward — they have " executed bombing air raids 
 on the enemy at Jenin." Now, Jenin is an 
 ancient Moslem village, where the northern- 
 most hills of Samaria slope down to the strangely- 
 contrasted plain of Esdraelon — there where 
 the traveler used to see, beside an old well, 
 those dusky girls with water jars, whose wonder- 
 ful black eyes and white teeth charmed their 
 furtive smiles! And this plain of Esdraelon is 
 history-charmed, indeed. 
 
 It has been well said that this plain is, in its 
 natural setting, Hke a vast theatre with a clearly- 
 defined stage having its proper entrances and 
 exits. For it is walled in from the Mediterranean 
 by the ridge of Carmel, the hills of Gahlee hold- 
 ing Nazareth on the north, shapely Mt. Tabor 
 118 
 
NEW ACTORS ON AN ANCIENT STAGE 
 
 and Little Hermon and Gilboa on the east, and 
 Samaria's hills southward; and it has bays of 
 its own levels running out between these en- 
 compassing heights like the wings of a theatre's 
 stage. In keeping with this strilcing natural 
 setting, on this plain how many of time's star 
 actors have appeared in historj^'s changing hghts! 
 Here Israel's men were led to victor}^ by two 
 women in the battle celebrated by that exultant 
 song preserved in the fifth chapter of Judges; 
 here Gideon, with his picked men, routed their 
 foes by the ruse of setting up a great clamor as 
 they broke the pitchers that concealed their 
 flaring torches in a night attack; here King 
 Saul fell and his son Jonathan, for whom David 
 composed that incomparable battle dirge, which 
 ends: 
 
 " I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan; 
 Very pleasant hast thou been unto me; 
 Thy love to me was wonderful, 
 Passing the love of women. 
 How are the mighty fallen. 
 And the weapons of war perished! " 
 
 Here, too, Alexander the Great swept all 
 before him. Here Antiochus moved to defeat 
 with his lumbering elephants and war engines. 
 Here Mark Antony and Titus led victorious 
 Roman legions, early Christian warriors flocked 
 and built churches, Moslem hordes put them to 
 flight. Here the Crusaders floated their proud 
 ensigns, and here, in the twelfth century, the 
 119 
 
WAR-TIME "OVER HERE" 
 
 Moslems under Saladin crushed their vain- 
 glorious hopes forever. Here in the early nine- 
 teenth century Napoleon made his first great 
 retreat. 
 
 Now, after another century, the British are 
 making air raids on Jenin and slowly pushing 
 their way to this beautiful but fateful plain. 
 What will happen there soon, in the great duel 
 between Germany and England for control of 
 the route to India and the East? For that is 
 what the struggle in Palestine really is. Accord- 
 ing to Biblical forecast, Armageddon, the final 
 great encounter between the forces of good and 
 of evil, will be fought at this unmatched battle- 
 field. It is too soon, no doubt, to expect that 
 decisive conflict anywhere yet. But we may 
 watch, with a keen sense of dramatic possibili- 
 ties, when a scene of the present world-war is 
 staged on the reputedly blood-reddened plain of 
 Esdraelon. 
 
 120 
 
XLIII 
 
 A TEXT FOR THE TIMES 
 
 "We are not of them that shrink hack unto per- 
 dition; hut of them that have faith unto the gaining 
 of the soul." — Hebrews 10 : 39. 
 
 The public mind, as we face the stupendous 
 issues of 1918, is in a state much hke that of 
 riders on the whirhng hobby-horses at a circus. 
 The people are considerably " razzle-dazzled." 
 They feel the need of something to get hold of 
 to steady their heads. We propose, as a first- 
 rate mental and spiritual steadier, this stanch 
 text from a certain splendid piece of literature. 
 
 We have been pouring out money to make 
 all sorts of huge funds; we have been sending 
 our young men to training camps and across the 
 sea; hosts of women have been achieving im- 
 mense outputs of handwork for use in camp and 
 field and hospital; business men have been 
 doing their level best to handle their affairs in 
 loyal conformity to fuel and food, shipping and 
 closure mandates. Suddenly a big jolt cam?. 
 Senator Chamberlain's speech, arraigning the 
 government for not getting things done, voiced 
 a widespread uneasiness, not to say disgust, and 
 precipitated a general vociferation at Washing- 
 ton and throughout the press. 
 121 
 
WAR-TIME ''OVER HERE" 
 
 But hardly has the country uttered its de- 
 mand that matters be set right for going ahead 
 with all speed, when we hear, as shown through 
 a Washington correspondent in a letter of 
 yesterday, that there have been bewildering 
 shifts in what our allies have called on us to do. 
 First, he points out, we were to center our efforts 
 chiefly on preparing and forwarding war supplies 
 with foodstuffs and money. When Marshal 
 Joffre became our guest he pleaded that we send 
 men to join the fighting — that we do so as 
 soon as possible. A relatively small force of 
 American troops, it was urged, would have a 
 telling effect on the morale of the French and 
 British hosts. We started in on this altogether 
 different process. Then a call began to sound 
 across the sea for us to send a host of men — 
 to come and make an overwhelming man- 
 power, such as alone could win the war. 
 
 Obviously all this required enormous gear- 
 shifting. However much we may insist on the 
 defects of certain men in power and their 
 methods, it is only fair to recognize that such 
 throwing of the clutch in the midst of huge 
 proceedings must have inevitably worked great 
 confusion. The American mind has an instinct 
 to be fair. The present storm of criticism will 
 doubtless speed preparations for victorious war. 
 But it will work for good if our people remember 
 these circumstances and thereby ard themselves 
 to regain good courage and confidence. It is 
 122 
 
A TEXT FOR THE TIMES 
 
 a time when we all need to " get hold of some- 
 thing to steady our heads." 
 
 Try the text we have suggested. Commit it 
 to memory. Say it over when you are low- 
 spirited. Repeat it to the down-hearted. Phrase 
 by phrase, it gathers up the truths that will 
 empower us for these times. We are not of them 
 that shrink back — our history is proof. Shrink- 
 ing back is unto perdition — the German ruth- 
 lessness leaves no doubt. We are of them that 
 have faith — faith in ourselves, our ideals, our 
 powers and resources, our cause, our heroic 
 allies, and our righteous God. And this faith is 
 " unto the gaining of the soul " of this nation — 
 now, as it was when Lincoln struggled through 
 the last great conflict. 
 
 123 
 
XLIV 
 " BE NOT WEARY IN BAD DOING " 
 
 No, reader, the above heading is not, as you 
 probably think, " one more thing gone wrong, 
 Kke almost everything else nowadays." It looks 
 Uke a blunder, but it really isn't. The words you 
 suppose to be correct, " Be not weary in well- 
 doing," are the excellent advice of an ancient 
 philosopher; but we are now commending the 
 counsel of a modern philosopher — one who 
 still walks Boston streets. He has seen the need 
 of turning the other side of the ancient advice by 
 saying, " Be not weary in bad doing." It occurs 
 to us that this is a good time to bring Professor 
 Palmer's sage bon mot to general notice — so 
 many things seem to be badly done just now. 
 
 Our philosopher, speaking of winning success 
 as a writer, names as the crowning prerequisite 
 " Refusal to lose heart." No matter what mis- 
 takes and failures are made, " so long as one is 
 getting oneself hammered into shape " there 
 must be no " growing weary in bad doing." 
 That advice rings true in all sorts of Hfe matters. 
 The way men and women bear themselves when 
 things are badly done, by themselves or others, 
 shows their metal and determines the outcome. 
 All Americans greatly need to be reminded of 
 this just now, 
 
 124 
 
"BE NOT WEARY IN BAD DOING" 
 
 We are in the midst of surging dissatisfaction. 
 Many matters touching us personally and many 
 others involving our fate as a nation seem to be 
 badly handled. The deeper sacrifices of war 
 have not yet brought the heroic mood which 
 welds a whole people into glowing oneness. We 
 are threshing out ways and means. We are call- 
 ing the responsible heads of government to an 
 accounting. There is unquestionably much to 
 warrant this, allowing for all possible misappre- 
 hension of facts. There will result a definite 
 girding up of officials and methods and the whole 
 war-maldng process. All this had to be under- 
 gone in our Civil War, as any biography of Lin- 
 coln abundantly shows. It has been passed 
 through by our great allies in the present war. 
 " You will come through it all right, as we did," 
 said an eminent Englishman in Boston a few 
 days ago. We must see all in this larger light 
 and " refuse to lose heart." 
 
 Near the end of the war for the Union, refer- 
 ring to precisely such experiences, Lincoln said: 
 " What has occurred in this case must ever recur 
 in similar cases. Human nature will not change. 
 In any future great national trial, compared 
 with the men of this we shall have as weak and 
 as strong, as silly and as wise, as bad and as 
 good." Therefore, there must now be no relax- 
 ing of devotion to duty, no slackening of zeal in 
 doing all that private citizens can do to win this 
 war. Disappointments and blunders, delays and 
 125 
 
WAR-TIME "OVER HERE" 
 
 failures must be faced with the reassuring re- 
 membrance that we are " getting ourselves ham- 
 mered into shape." And through all there must 
 be no " growing weary in bad doing." 
 
 126 
 
XLV 
 
 OUR BENEFACTOR — THE SUN 
 
 " Ah, passing few are they who speak, 
 
 Wild, stormy March, in praise of thee, 
 Yet though thy winds are loud and bleak, 
 Thou art a welcome month to me. 
 
 " For thou, to northern lands, again 
 
 The glad and glorious sun doth bring, 
 And thou hast joined the gentle train 
 And wear'st the gentle name of Spring." 
 
 — Bryant. 
 
 " A pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold 
 the sun," and this ancient verdict will be ren- 
 dered from these March days onward as never 
 before in our generation. For the winter now 
 nearly over and gone has been an uncommonly 
 hard one; both nature and human affairs have 
 gone to extremes in the conditions developed. 
 Even dear old nature, too, has seemed to be pos- 
 sessed by demons warring on life and all its 
 blessings. Therefore will mortals now hail the 
 sun's triumphing with more than ordinary glad- 
 ness. The first signs thereof are like glimpses of 
 distant banners to long-beleaguered men; when 
 the sun shall have brought about us the throng- 
 ing life of springtime it will be as w^hen into a 
 grimly defended city an army of deliverance 
 surges. 
 
 127 
 
WAR-TIME ''OVER HERE" 
 
 While we await this transformation of our lot 
 — soon, very soon, to be consummated — it is 
 heartening to recall that " the glad and glorious 
 sun " has really been our faithful benefactor all 
 winter long. Though millions of miles away, 
 this supreme reality in nature has held our 
 troubled earth from plunging headlong through 
 space — has kept it secure in its ponderous 
 flight, as it swept on a milhon and a half miles 
 each day, eighteen miles a second, whirling on its 
 axis at the dizzy rate of nearly 25,000 miles a day. 
 We have not in the least realized all this, the ap- 
 peal of our planet through the prayer of gravita- 
 tion has been so availing and the response of the 
 sun's power so unfailing. But, in truth, through- 
 out the winter of our discontent, through its 
 bleakest days and bitterest nights, the sun was 
 all the while swinging our earth onward to a 
 position relative to itself which would cause 
 spring's ecstasies to break forth as we shall soon 
 witness them. 
 
 More than that, the coal we burned, when we 
 could get it in spite of man's muddling, to over- 
 come the winter's cold, was made to grow in its 
 original vegetation ages ago by the same sun ; the 
 wood that enclosed our homes thus warmed, and 
 shut out the storms, the sun grew in more recent 
 years; and day by day it sent its rays to sterilize 
 disease germs, purify the air we breathed, and 
 cheer us while snows lay deep and winds were 
 wild. We could not have survived the winter 
 128 
 
OUR BENEFACTOR — THE SUN 
 
 without these ministries, and but for the sun 
 our earth itself would now be a shattered mass 
 of wreckage somewhere in the abysses of space — 
 we only lifeless little flecks in its rubbish. 
 
 These ceaseless and vast benefactions should 
 not be allowed to go without sterling joy therein. 
 In consequence of them, the gladness of shining 
 grass, the charm of peeping leaves and buds and 
 sweet-faced flowers, the songs of birds accom- 
 panying our heart-beats, will soon match the 
 tingling newness of hfe in ourselves, and we 
 shall make ready with confidence for the yield 
 of field and orchard where all has been most 
 bleak and bare so long. 
 
 No wonder primitive men worshipped the 
 sun. Nor is it without warrant that in this 
 demonstrable wonder-work for us we moderns 
 see a likeness of the care divine that " moves in 
 a mysterious way his wonders to perform." 
 
 129 
 
XL VI 
 "BUT PETER FOLLOWED" 
 
 It is time for somebody to say a word for 
 Peter. A magazine of repute is exploiting an 
 article entitled " Peter Sat by the Fire Warming 
 Himself." This article charges that our clergy- 
 men are doing much like Peter in the present 
 world tragedy. Eminent religious journals have 
 retorted with much force that religious leaders, 
 as well as the rank and file of pastors, are doing 
 quite the opposite of sitting by the fire warming 
 themselves. Be that as it may, there is another 
 word of far greater importance to be spoken — 
 proclaimed, in fact, until it rings in people's 
 ears. Incidentally, it will throw a different 
 light on Peter and his present - day suc- 
 cessors. 
 
 Recall the story. Poor Peter, everlastingly 
 silhouetted in the firelight as he warmed himself, 
 should be seen as the whole story shows him. He 
 it was who had drawn his sword and begun using 
 it man-fashion in the glare of the torches, that 
 midnight when the great tragedy started. When 
 his Master was led away bj'' his enemies and 
 " they all forsook him and fled," all the four 
 accounts say, " but Peter followed " — afar at 
 first, but soon to the very door where the 
 tragedy was deepening. His breakdown at 
 130 
 
"BUT PETER FOLLOWED" 
 
 last, under the terrific strain inside that door, 
 must be viewed in remembrance of all this. 
 Furthermore, be it remembered, Peter was not 
 the only one who, as he sat by the fire warming 
 himself, was taking the situation as quiescently 
 as possible under the circumstances. Where 
 was Matthew, the tax collector? Where was 
 James, the hard-headed and practical man? 
 Where were those women of substance — the 
 wife of King Herod's steward, and the rest? 
 Judas was stealthily holding his gains until 
 shame undid him, as everybody knows. But 
 where were these others? When they emerge 
 into view again in the story, they were " stand- 
 ing afar off " — just looking on! " But Peter 
 followed." 
 
 We have said enough. The ministers of 
 religion must not be made " the goat " now. 
 Allowing for all that can justly be maintained as 
 to their shortcomings, they are at least not 
 worse than the rest of us as regards this matter 
 of sitting by the fire warming ourselves. We 
 are all doing that, more or less, to date. All 
 classes of Americans are entirely too quiescent, 
 too self-indulgent, too willing to let matters 
 take their course while they themselves take 
 care of their own comfort and welfare. We all 
 need to quit such folly. We are at war. We are, 
 hour by hour, entering a stupendous struggle — 
 the most humanly fateful conflict in history. 
 And we as a people are, on the whole, still taking 
 131 
 
WAR-TIME "OVER HERE" 
 
 our ease, still looking out for our own comfort — 
 sitting by the fire warming ourselves. Wake 
 up, and square yourself to help win the war, 
 everybody! 
 
 132 
 
XL VI I 
 " DEEP CALLETH UNTO DEEP " 
 
 A New York magazine gives editorial ap- 
 proval to a declaration of five Berlin clergymen 
 which it prints in full. It calls on its readers to 
 join in getting this declaration published in 
 American newspapers throughout the country. 
 
 The tone of this declaration is apparently 
 noble and meant to be magnanimous. The five 
 Berlin pastors avow that it is made in conjunc- 
 tion with many Protestant men and women in 
 German}'. This is important, as a matter of 
 fact. " Conscious," they declare, " of the Chris- 
 tian heritage and Christian aims which we hold 
 in common with them, we extend to all fellow 
 believers, to those in enemy countries also, our 
 heartfelt and brotherly greeting." To stop there 
 would be nothing short of Judas-like, betraying 
 with a kiss. 
 
 But the declaration immediately adds: " We 
 recognize the deepest causes of the present war 
 to lie in the anti-Christian powers which 
 control the lives of the people of the 
 earth, their mutual suspicion, their wor- 
 ship of force, and their covetousness." This, 
 coming from Berlin and from men of recog- 
 nized standing, may be one of the most signifi- 
 cant news items which has made its way to the 
 133 
 
WAR-TIME "OVER HERE" 
 
 world outside the German wall of fire. Are the 
 German church folk really recognizing all this at 
 last? Note how each phrase of the sentence just 
 quoted goes to the core of the indictment which 
 mankind is now pressing against Germany. 
 Specially note that these German pastors say 
 these dire charges are true of " the powers that 
 control the lives of the people of the earth." To 
 be sure, other governments are included in this 
 arraignment; but so is their own. The words 
 used clearly disclose that they are distinguishing 
 between the German people and their govern- 
 ment. 
 
 The point of great moment is .that German 
 pastors have dared to do this — have dared to 
 lay such charges against their government. Who 
 can put into words the vast connotation of what 
 that fact may signal to the world? It may be 
 that therein once more " deep calleth unto 
 deep " — that the depths of the German con- 
 science and godly fear are therein calling unto 
 the depths of righteous judgment and sacrificial 
 suffering to which the rest of the world has 
 resorted. It may be that this German declara- 
 tion opens the way to those words which follow 
 the psalmist's " deep calleth unto deep " — those 
 trouble-conquering words, " Hope thou in God." 
 
 Yet we must not for a moment let our war- 
 making zeal be slackened by this declaration's 
 possible import. The plea of these German 
 pastors for " a peace by mutual agreement and 
 134 
 
"DEEP CALLETH UNTO DEEP" 
 
 reconciKation " can be sanely complied with 
 only when we have broken and bound the dia- 
 bolical power which controls the lives of the 
 German people and with ruthless fury is seeking 
 to crush and so control our lives also. These 
 German " fellow believers " have only con- 
 firmed our reasons for thus proceeding. We 
 know they are right about their controlling 
 power, even though they misunderstand the 
 spirit of our own government. There can be no 
 peace, for them or for us, while such a power is 
 unmanacled, and, if it must be, destroyed. 
 Therefore, fight we must, until that power 
 which controls their lives is stripped of strength 
 to trample ours. Then we shall be ready for a 
 peace by mutual agreement and reconciliation. 
 
 135 
 
XLVIII 
 RISING TO THE HEROIC MOOD 
 
 " The hero is not fed on sweets; 
 Daily his own heart he eats." 
 
 — Emerson. 
 
 Not a few born and bred Americans are just 
 now more dangerous than even the German 
 spies whose schemings demand unsparing mea- 
 sures. The need of looking out for them is 
 greater than that of rectifying our bungling and 
 speeding our belated tasks in material prepara- 
 tions for war, huge as the latter need is. For 
 they assail the minds and souls of our people — 
 the spirit of the nation — apart from which our 
 man-power, money, munitions and ships to con- 
 vey all overseas, will prove of little avail. As 
 Judge Hughes recently declared, we greatly 
 need to give immediate and vigorous attention 
 to psychological preparedness for winning the 
 war. The Americans to whom we refer menace 
 this more perilously than any agents Germany 
 can muster among us. 
 
 There are two classes of these dangerous 
 Americans. Neither of them is intentionally or 
 even knowingly hostile to our country's cause. 
 Both, rather, are in a distinctly pathological 
 state of mind — by which a physician means, 
 showing symptoms resulting from unhealthy 
 136 
 
RISING TO THE HEROIC MOOD 
 
 conditions. One class is abnormally optimistic. 
 They are hectic in their unconcern and cheerful- 
 ness. They simply will not see the dire facts, 
 will not cease indulging in the idea that there is 
 no need of their taking any radical action. 
 They thus lull the aroused anxieties of those 
 about them and delude them into a neghgence 
 sure to prove fatal. The other class is com- 
 posed of victims of minds detoned, ungirt by 
 lowered vitahty, morbid. They are fatally pes- 
 simistic. They are stripped of that triumph 
 over distressing facts in which Tennyson re- 
 joiced — the triumph of not being " left with 
 the palsied heart, and with the jaundiced eye." 
 Such persons see that vast and priceless trea- 
 sures are at stake in the present struggle; they 
 realize the ominous situation now overseas; they 
 are awed bj^ reports of German achievements 
 and of our own muddhng in getting ready. And 
 then — then they themselves slump, weakly 
 completing the situation they deplore! They 
 talk their despondency. They thus sap the na- 
 tion's strength of spirit which alone can em- 
 power it to safeguard the imperilled treasures 
 by going victoriously into the critical situation 
 abroad — cravenly betray the nation which 
 they, by all the sanctities of American life, and 
 they onl}'', can empower to meet the crisis which 
 America must now master or else lose her God- 
 given Hght and lower her flag in wretched 
 gloom. 
 
 137 
 
WAR-TIME "OVER HERE" 
 
 Everj'^ American ought to rouse himself against 
 yielding to either of these deadly maladies, in 
 others or in himself. The issues in this war are 
 great indeed, the situation just now most critical. 
 Therefore, throw off ease; go to it to help win. 
 On the other hand, because the issues are so 
 great and the situation so black, your personal 
 reaction as a citizen of the foremost free nation 
 should be the more bounding and courageously 
 resolute. Every man of us, every woman, every 
 boy and girl in America, should rise to the heroic 
 mood from this day forward. Spurn self-delud- 
 ing ease. Spurn, too, the utter treachery of de- 
 pressed and depressing talk or action. " We 
 can, if we will — and we will," is a famous say- 
 ing which every American must make his watch- 
 word, his slogan, through good or ill, until this 
 war is won. Colonel Roosevelt has put the 
 truth for the times into words of glowing clear- 
 ness: "It is by no means necessary that a 
 great nation should always stand at the heroic 
 level. But no nation has the root of greatness 
 in it unless in time of need it can rise to the 
 heroic mood." 
 
 138 
 
XLIX 
 
 THE SERVICE FLAG 
 
 "A child's pure eyes can mirror more 
 
 Than world- worn hearts are apt to see! " 
 So thought I, when a passing friend 
 This story left with me. 
 
 A neighbor's little one looked out, 
 As evening shadows filled the room, 
 
 Beneath a one-star service flag 
 Against the window's gloom. 
 
 The prattler spied the evening star 
 Where red still bordered paling blue. 
 "Oh, mother, look! " he called, "God's hung 
 His service flag up, too! " 
 
 One mother hand caressed their flag; 
 
 The other toyed with flaxen hair; 
 Her lips then gave her child a kiss — 
 
 They gave her God a prayer. 
 
 And then, " Yes, dear," the mother sighed. 
 Ere long she cheered her voice to say : 
 "God let His Son leave home for us — 
 For Him our John's away." 
 
 A child's pure eyes can mirror more 
 Than world-worn hearts are apt to see; 
 
 But sorrow-deepened souls alone 
 Discern life's sanctity. 
 139 
 
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