eat distances. We send out
fumes of poison which envelop groups of human beings, killing them
gently, and emphasizing the triumph of art by leaving them in attitudes
simulating life. We project shells so powerful that men disappear in
the explosion, melted, disintegrated by its destructive force.

And when long-distance scientific methods of man-killing fall short of
the passions of the fray or the exigencies of the fight, we return to
the primitive ways of savages, and kill by dagger and knife, by bayonet
and fist. Thus millions of men are slain in this war, which has achieved
superiority over all other wars in history by the number of its dead and
its gigantic destructiveness. And other millions of men and women are
plunged into sorrow and mourning for the dead, and to them the meaning
of life is hidden behind a veil of tears and blood.

There is an incongruity about death on the battlefield which assails the
mind. The incongruity is there notwithstanding the probability that the
soldier who faces the fire of the enemy will be killed. It defies the
mathematical calculation of chances. It rises naturally as a protest
against the sudden termination of life at its fullest. Death after a
long illness, at the eventide of life, partakes of the order of falling
leaves and autumnal oblivion. It may come softly as sleep when the day's
work is done; it may come mercifully to end bodily pain and
wretchedness. There are moments in every life when the ebb of physical
force is so low that death seems but a step across the border--a change
by which we desire to cure the weariness of thought. The soldier goes
into battle charged with youth and life, buoyant with energy of muscle
and nerve. Death seizes him at the noontide of life and leaves us
blindly groping for other-worldly compensation.

The present war is being fought against a background of questions which
cannot be suppressed by discipline or the mere fulfilment of patriotic
duty. The old acceptance of the social order is passing away. The old
acceptance of religious nescience is passing away; there is a new
impatience to reach the foundation of things, a popular clamour for
explanation of the riddles of life. Out of the decivilizing forces of
war, its tumult and wreckage, there emerges a new quest for truth.
Simple souls are troubled with a warlike desire for evidence of
immortality. The parson's exhortations to live by faith and unreasoning
acceptance of ecclesiastical doc