ation of faith that the early Christians had to help
them.

For these were mostly quiet souls, loving their wives and children
and the little comforts of home life most of all, little stirred by
great emotions or passions. Yet they had some love for liberty, some
faith in God,--not a high and flaming passion, but a quiet insistent
conviction. It was enough to send them out to face martyrdom, though
their lack of imagination left them mercifully ignorant of the
extremity of its terrors. It was enough, when they saw their danger in
its true perspective, to keep them steadfast and tenacious.

For them "it is finished." _R.I.P._

V

ROMANCE

I suppose that there are very few officers or men who have been at the
front for any length of time who would not be secretly, if not openly,
relieved and delighted if they "got a cushy one" and found themselves
_en route_ for "Blighty"; yet in many ways soldiering at the front
is infinitely preferable to soldiering at home. One of the factors
which count most heavily in favour of the front, is the extraordinary
affection of officers for their men.

In England, officers hardly know their men. They live apart, only meet
on parade, and their intercourse is carried on through the prescribed
channels. Even if you do get keen on a particular squad of recruits,
or a particular class of would-be bombers, you lose them so soon that
your enthusiasm never ripens into anything like intimacy. But at the
front you have your own platoon; and week after week, month after
month, you are living in the closest proximity; you see them all day,
you get to know the character of each individual man and boy, and the
result in nearly every case is this extraordinary affection of which I
have spoken.

You will find it in the most unlikely subjects. I have heard a Major,
a Regular with, as I thought, a good deal of regimental stiffness,
talk about his men with a voice almost choked with emotion. "When
you see what they have to put up with, and how amazingly cheery they
are through it all, you feel that you can't do enough for them. They
make you feel that you're not fit to black their boots." And then he
went on to tell how it was often the fellows whom in England you had
despaired of, fellows who were always "up at orders," who out at the
front became your right-hand men, the men on whom you found yourself
relying.

I had a letter not long ago from a gunner Captain, also a Regular, who
has b