I pray that
the last vision vouchsafed me on earth may be just that--the Saviour of
men. I can then close my eyes in the knowledge that He will lead me
through the dark valley that leadeth to the eternal home."

It has been like that with the whole nation. Around our shores the
darkness gathered, until all the horizon was black with threatening
clouds. Then we lifted up our eyes and saw.... He will bring
deliverance and peace. As we moved along the crowded aisles towards
the door the white figure of Christ glowed in the great east window,
and we felt that He will bless His people at last with peace--the peace
not of death, but of life.

"Down the dark future, through long generations,
The echoing sounds grow fainter and then cease,
And, like a bell, with solemn sweet vibrations,
I hear once more the voice of Christ say Peace.
Peace! and no longer from its brazen portals
The clash of war's great organ shakes the skies;
But beautiful as songs of the immortals,
The holy melodies of love arise."

V

The Victory

V

The blinds were all drawn in the red-roofed house that stands at the
cross-roads. It was not empty, for the smoke arose from its chimneys
in the clear morning air. In other days the music of song and laughter
often floated from its open windows, but now it was stricken dumb.
From it two sons had gone to take their place in the line of soul and
fire that girdles these islands, warding them from destruction.

In a moment the veiled windows flashed their meaning. In the long
lists of the dead I found the name I looked for. I had schooled myself
to look at these lists, thinking of them in the mass as force or power;
but that one name insisted on its individuality. They were all
individual lives, each throbbing with intensest self-realisation, each
with his love and hope and fear. There was none among them so poor but
some heart clung to them. They may die, no longer in units, but in
broad swathes, mown down by machine guns, but they are individual
hearts still. In masses the sea swallows them up, trenches are filled
with them, but however much we try we cannot narcotise our hearts by
sophistries. Some day a name stands out alone--and we realise.

All over the land, in every parish, blinds are being drawn in houses
where music and laughter are silenced. There comes the surge of a wild
revolt. It is not these individual hearts alone that lie stricken, it