en before our nation had entered the war--have hurried
across a wide ocean to take their part? No matter what religion we
profess, whether it be Calvinism, or Catholicism, we are individualists,
pragmatists, empiricists for ever. Our faces are set toward strange
worlds presently to rise out of the sea and take on form and colour and
substance--worlds of new aspirations, of new ideas and new values. And
on this voyage I was reminded of Josiah Royce's splendid summary of the
American philosophy--of the American religion as set forth by William
James:

"The spirit of the frontiers-man, of the gold-seeker or the
home-builder transferred to the metaphysical or to the religious
realm. There is a far-off home, our long lost spiritual fortune.
Experience alone can guide us to the place where these things are,
hence indeed you need experience. You can only win your way on the
frontier unless you are willing to live there."

Through the pall of horror and tragedy the American sees a vision; for
him it is not merely a material and bloody contest of arms and men,
a military victory to be gained over an aggressive and wrong-minded
people. It is a world calamity, indeed, but a calamity, since it has
come, to be spiritualized and utilized for the benefit of the future
society of mankind. It must be made to serve a purpose in helping to
liberate the world from sentimentalism, ignorance, close-mindedness, and
cant.

II

One night we entered the danger zone. There had been an entertainment in
the little salon which, packed with passengers, had gradually achieved
the temperature and humidity of a Turkish bath. For the ports had been
closed as tight as gaskets could make them, the electric fans, as usual,
obstinately "refused to march." After the amateur speechmaking and
concert pieces an Italian violinist, who had thrown over a lucrative
contract to become a soldier, played exquisitely; and one of the French
sisters we had seen walking the deck with the mincing steps of the
cloister sang; somewhat precariously and pathetically, the Ave Maria.
Its pathos was of the past, and after she had finished, as we fled into
the open air, we were conscious of having turned our backs irrevocably
yet determinedly upon an era whose life and convictions the music of the
composer so beautifully expressed. And the sister's sweet withered face
was reminiscent of a missal, one bright with colour, and still shining
fain