ce of a
hungry child finds a quick response to its mute appeal; but when we
know that hundreds are rendered homeless every day, and countless
thousands are killed and wounded, men and boys mowed down like a field
of grain, and with as little compunction, we grow a little bit numb to
human misery. What does it matter if there is a family north of the
track living on soda biscuits and turnips? War hardens us to human
grief and misery.

War takes the fit and leaves the unfit. The epileptic, the
consumptive, the inebriate, are left behind. They are not good enough
to go out to fight. So they stay at home, and perpetuate the race!
Statistics prove that the war is costing fifty millions a day, which is
a prodigious sum, but we would be getting off easy if that were all it
costs. The bitterest cost of war is not paid by us at all. It will be
paid by the unborn generations, in a lowered vitality, the loss of a
strong fatherhood, which they have never known. Napoleon lowered the
stature of the French by two inches, it is said. That is one way to
set your mark on your generation.

But the greatest evil wrought by war is not the wanton destruction of
life and property, sinful though it is; it is not even the lowered
vitality of succeeding generations, though that is attended by
appalling injury to the moral nature--the real iniquity of war is that
it sets aside the arbitrament of right and justice, and looks to brute
force for its verdict!

In the first days of panic, pessimism broke out among us, and we cried
in our despair that our civilization had failed, that Christianity had
broken down, and that God had forgotten the world. It seemed like it
at first. But now a wiser and better vision has come to us, and we
know that Christianity has not failed, for it is not fair to impute
failure to something which has never been tried. Civilization has
failed. Art, music, and culture have failed, and we know now that
underneath the thin veneer of civilization, unregenerate man is still a
savage; and we see now, what some have never seen before, that unless a
civilization is built upon love, and mutual trust, it must always end
in disaster, such as this. Up to August fourth, we often said that war
was impossible between Christian nations. We still say so, but we know
more now than we did then. We know now that there are no Christian
nations.

Oh, yes. I know the story. It was a beautiful story and a beautiful
pictur