caused by every great battle. Immediate death on the field might
reasonably be welcomed as an escape from the suffering arising
from wounds, the terrible mutilations, the injuries that rankle
throughout life, the conversion of hosts of able-bodied men into
feeble invalids, to be kept by the direct aid of their fellows or
the indirect aid of the people at large through a system of
pensions.

The physical sufferings of the soldiers from wounds and
privations are perhaps not the greatest. Side by side with them
are the mental anxieties of their families at home, their
terrible suspense, the effect upon them of tidings of the maiming
or death of those dear to them or on whose labor they immediately
depend. The harvest of misery arising from this cause it is
impossible to estimate. It is not to be seen in the open. It
dwells unseen in humble homes, in city, village, or field, borne
often uncomplainingly, but not less poignant from this cause. The
tears and terrors thus produced are beyond calculation. But while
the glories of war are celebrated with blast of trumpet and roll
of drum, the terrible accompaniment of groans of misery is too
apt to pass unheard and die away forgotten.

To turn from this roll of horrors, there are costs of war in
other directions to be considered. Those include the ravage of
cities by flame or pillage, the loss of splendid works of
architecture, the irretrievable destruction of great productions
of art, the vanishing of much on which the world had long set
store.

THE TIDE OF DESTRUCTION