When the war began there were many evidences of a survival of that faith
that God fights for nations, interferes in behalf of the "righteous"
cause. When General Joffre was in America he was asked by one of our
countrywomen how the battle of the Marne was won. "Madame," he is
reported to have said, "it was won by me, by my generals and soldiers."
The tendency to regard this victory, which we hope saved France and the
Western humanitarian civilization we cherish, as a special interposition
of Providence, as a miracle, has given place to the realization that the
battle was won by the resourcefulness, science, and coolness of the
French commander-in-chief. Science preserves armies, since killing, if
it has to be done, is now wholly within that realm; science heals the
wounded, transports them rapidly to the hospitals, gives the shattered
something still to live for; and, if we are able to abandon the
sentimental view and look facts in the face--as many anointed chaplains
in Europe are doing--science not only eliminates typhoid but is able to
prevent those terrible diseases that devastate armies and nations. And
science is no longer confined to the physical but has invaded the social
kingdom, is able to weave a juster fabric into the government of peoples.
On all sides we are beginning to embrace the religion of self-reliance,
a faith that God is on the side of intelligence--intelligence with a
broader meaning than the Germans have given it, for it includes charity.



II

It seems to me that I remember, somewhere in the realistic novel I have
mentioned "Le Feu"--reading of singing soldiers, and an assumption
on the part of their hearers that such songs are prompted only by a
devil-may-care lightness of heart which the soldier achieves. A shallow