gs change. China has been the land of flowery peace, and she may
yet give peace to all the world. She has put aside that puppet Emperor
at Peking, she turns her face to the new learning of the West as a man
lays aside his heavy robes, in order that her task may be achieved."

The older man spoke, his manner was more than a little incredulous, and
yet not altogether contemptuous. "You believe that someday there will be
no more war in the world, that a time will come when men will no longer
plot and plan against the welfare of men?"

"Even that last," said the younger man. "Did any of us dream twenty-five
years ago that here in China we should live to see a republic? The age
of the republics draws near, when men in every country of the world will
look straight up to the rule of Right and the empire of Heaven."

("And God will be King of the World," said the Angel. "Is not that
faith exactly the faith that is coming to you?")

The two other Chinamen questioned their companion, but without
hostility.

"This war," said the Chinaman, "will end in a great harvesting of
kings."

"But Japan--" the older man began.

The bishop would have liked to hear more of that conversation, but
the dark hand of the Angel motioned him to another part of the world.
"Listen to this," said the Angel.

He pointed the bishop to where the armies of Britain and Turkey lay in
the heat of Mesopotamia. Along the sandy bank of a wide, slow-flowing
river rode two horsemen, an Englishman and a Turk. They were returning
from the Turkish lines, whither the Englishman had been with a flag of
truce. When Englishmen and Turks are thrown together they soon
become friends, and in this case matters had been facilitated by
the Englishman's command of the Turkish language. He was quite an
exceptional Englishman. The Turk had just been remarking cheerfully that
it wouldn't please the Germans if they were to discover how amiably he
and his charge had got on. "It's a pity we ever ceased to be friends,"
he said.

"You Englishmen aren't like our Christians," he went on.

The Englishmen wanted to know why.

"You haven't priests in robes. You don't chant and worship crosses and
pictures, and quarrel among yourselves."

"We worship the same God as you do," said the Englishman.

"Then why do we fight?"

"That's what we want to know."

"Why do you call yourselves Christians? And take part against us? All
who worship the One God are brothers."

"They ought