women who are not professional soldiers are fighting in it and will aid
in victory. The pomp and circumstance of other wars are lacking in this,
the greatest of all. We had the thrills, even in America, three years
ago, when Britain and France and Canada went in. We tingled when we read
of the mobilizing of the huge armies, of the leave-takings of the
soldiers. We bought every extra for news of those first battles on
Belgian soil. And I remember my sensations when in the province of
Quebec in the autumn of 1914, looking out of the car-window at the troops
gathering on the platforms who were to go across the seas to fight for
the empire and liberty. They were singing "Tipperary!" "Tipperary!" One
seldoms hears it now, and the way has proved long--longer than we
reckoned. And we are singing "Over There!"

In those first months of the war there was, we were told, in England and
France a revival of "religion," and indeed many of the books then written
gave evidence of having been composed in exalted, mystic moods. I
remember one in particular, called "En Campagne," by a young French
officer. And then, somehow, the note of mystic exaltation died away,
to be succeeded by a period of realism. Read "Le Feu," which is most
typical, which has sold in numberless editions. Here is a picture of
that other aspect--the grimness, the monotony, and the frequent
bestiality of trench life, the horror of slaughtering millions of men
by highly specialized machinery. And yet, as an American, I strike
inevitably the note of optimism once more. Even now the truer spiritual
goal is glimpsed through the battle clouds, and has been hailed in
world-reverberating phrases by our American President. Day by day the
real issue is clearer, while the "religion" it implies embraces not one
nation, wills not one patriotism, but humanity itself. I heard a
Frenchwoman who had been deeply "religious" in the old sense exclaim:
"I no longer have any faith in God; he is on the side of the Germans."