"Don't imagine that I am framing an indictment against Christianity,"
went on Forbes passionately. "The Sermon on the Mount inspires all
that is great and noble in our everyday existence, all that is
eternally beautiful in our dreams of the future. But why this din of
war, this smoke of arsenals, this marching and drilling of the world's
youth? Nature's law appears to have two simple clauses. It enforces a
principle in the struggle for existence, a test in the survival of the
fittest. Great heavens, are not these enough, without having our ears
deafened by powder and drumming? That is why I am devoting a good deal
of time and no small amount of money to an international crusade
against the warlike idea, and I see no reason why a beginning should
not be made with the airship and the airplane. We are too late with
the submarine, but, before the golden hour passes, let us stop the
navigation of the air from forming part of the equipment of murder.
Surely it can be done. England and the United States, Italy, France
and the rest of Europe-- the founts of civilization-- can write the
edict, with all the blazonry of their glorious histories to illuminate
the page-- There shall be no war in the air!'"

Theydon was carried away in spite of himself.

"You believe that the airship might develop along the unemotional
lines of the parcel post?" he inquired.

Forbes laughed.

"Exactly," he said. "I like your simile. No one suggests that we
Britons should endeavor to destroy our hated rivals by sending bombs
through the mails. Why, then, in the name of common sense, should the
first-- I might almost say the only use of which the airship is