unassailable peace--an explanation given to his disciples at the Last
Supper, immediately before the walk to Gethsemane: "Be of good cheer,
I have overcome the world." Overcoming the world, as I understand it,
is overcoming self. Fear, in its final analysis, is nothing but
selfishness. A man who is afraid in an attack, isn't thinking of his
pals and how quickly terror spreads; he isn't thinking of the glory
which will accrue to his regiment or division if the attack is a
success; he isn't thinking of what he can do to contribute to that
success; he isn't thinking of the splendour of forcing his spirit to
triumph over weariness and nerves and the abominations that the Huns
are chucking at him. He's thinking merely of how he can save his
worthless skin and conduct his entirely unimportant body to a place
where there aren't any shells.

In London as I saw the work-a-day, unconscious nobility of the maimed
and wounded, the words, "I have overcome the world," took an added
depth. All these men have an "I-have-overcome-the-world" look in their
faces. It's comparatively easy for a soldier with traditions and
ideals at his back to face death calmly; to be calm in the face of
life, as these chaps are, takes a graver courage.

What has happened to change them? These disabilities, had they
happened before the war, would have crushed and embittered them. They
would have been woes utterly and inconsolably unbearable.
Intrinsically their physical disablements spell the same loss to-day
that they would have in 1912. The attitude of mind in which they are
accepted alone makes them seem less. This attitude of mind or
greatness of soul--whatever you like to call it--was learnt in the
trenches where everything outward is polluted and damnable. Their
experience at the Front has given them what in the Army language is