to acquire new spiritual strength, and to do some of the things he
has left undone--if only he had his time over again!--before the
enemy comes to grips with him in a final bout.

That, with less simplicity and self-consciousness, was the spirit of
England in those few swift days which followed the Austrian ultimatum
to Serbia, and Germany's challenge to France and Russia. At least in
some such way one might express the mentality of the governing,
official, political, and so-called intellectual classes of the nation who
could read between the lines of diplomatic dispatches, and saw,
clearly enough, the shadow of Death creeping across the fields of
Europe and heard the muffled beating of his drum.

Some of our public men and politicians must have spent tortured
days and nights in those last days of July. They, too, like the sinner at
the mission service, must have seen the judgment of God
approaching them. Of what, avail now were their worldly ambitions
and their jealousies? They too had been smug in their self-
complacency, hypocrites, shirkers of truth and stirrers up of strife,
careless of consequences. If only they could have their time over
again! Great God! was this war with Germany an unavoidable horror,
or, if the worst came, was there still time to cleanse the nation of its
rottenness, to close up its divisions and to be ready for the frightful
conflict?


2


All things were changed in England in a day or two. The things that