rue prophet. None of us can ever forget
the spontaneous response in August 1914 to the cry, "Your King and
country need you." To such as, like myself, are on the shadowed side of
the hill of life, and therefore too old for service, it was a profoundly
moving thing to see how swiftly our immense voluntary army sprang (as by
a miracle) out of the earth, to look at the long lines of young soldiers
passing with their regular step through the streets of London, to think
of the situations given up, of the young wives and little children
living at home on shortened means, and of the risk taken of life being
lost just when it is most precious and most sweet.

What was the motive power that impelled the young manhood of Great
Britain to this tremendous sacrifice? The thought of our country's
danger? The danger to France? The danger to Belgium? The fact that a man
named Palmerston had pledged his solemn word for them long years before
they were born, or even the mothers who bore them were born, that they
would go to their deaths rather than allow a great crime to be committed
or England's oath be broken? I don't know. I do not believe anybody
knows. But I am not ashamed of my tears when I remember it all, and sure
I am that in those first critical days of the war the invisible powers
of justice must have been fighting on our side.

THE PART PLAYED BY THE BRITISH NAVY

Perhaps the first of the flashes as of lightning by which we have seen
the drama of the past 365 days is that which shows us the part played by
the British Navy. What a part it has been! Do we even yet recognize
its importance? Have our faithful and loyal Allies a full sense of its
tremendous effect on the fortunes of the campaign? On Sunday, August 2,
two days before the dispatch of Great Britain's ultimatum to Germany,
we saw thousands of our naval reserve flying off by special boats and
trains to their ships on our east and south coasts. On Monday, August 8,
the British Navy had taken possession of the North Sea.

It was a legitimate act of peace, yet never in this world was there a
more complete, if bloodless, victory. The great German North Sea fleet,
which (according to a calculation) had been constructed at a cost of
L300,000,000 sterling, to keep open the seas of the world to German
trade; the fleet which had, in our British view, been built with the
sole purpose of menacing British shores, was shut up in one day within
the narrow limits of its own