ssions. Its master is dead. His wife, looking on with her
helpless children, saw a soldier give an apple to a child.

"Thank you," she said; "you, at least, have a heart."

"No, madam," said the German; "it is broken."

Goethe said: "He who wishes to exert a useful influence must be careful
to insult nothing.... We are become too humane to enjoy the triumphs of
Caesar." Ninety years after he said this Germany took the Belgian women
from their ruined villages--some of these women being so infirm that for
months they had not been out-of-doors--and loaded them on trains like
cattle, and during several weeks exposed them publicly to the jeers and
scoffs and insults of German crowds through city after city.

Perhaps the German soldier whose heart was broken by Louvain will be
one of a legion, and thus, perhaps, through thousands of broken
German hearts, Germany may become herself again. She has hurled
calamity on a continent. She has struck to pieces a Europe whose very
unpreparedness answers her ridiculous falsehood that she was attacked
first. Never shall Europe be again as it was. Our brains, could they
take in the whole of this war, would burst.

But Calamity has its Pentecost. When its mighty wind rushed over
Belgium and France, and its tongues of fire sat on each of them, they,
too, like the apostles in the New Testament, began to speak as the
Spirit gave them utterance. Their words and deeds have filled the
world with a splendor the world had lost. The flesh, that has
dominated our day and generation, fell away in the presence of the
Spirit. I have heard Belgians bless the martyrdom and awakening of
their nation. They have said:

"Do not talk of our suffering; talk of our glory. We have found
ourselves."

Frenchmen have said to me: "For forty-four years we have been unhappy,
in darkness, without health, without faith, believing the true France
dead. Resurrection has come to us." I heard the French Ambassador,
Jules Jusserand, say in a noble speech: "George Eliot profoundly
observes that to every man comes a crisis when in a moment, without
chance for reflection, he must decide and act instantly. What
determines his decision? His whole past, the daily choices between
good and evil that he has made throughout his previous years--these
determine his decision. Such a crisis fell in a moment on France; she
acted instantly, true to her historic honor and courage."

Every day deeds of faith, love and renunciation ar