re, and we shall go through it again unless we start out immediately
to be unpleasant.

I hope nobody will get the impression that I think we are a nation of
angels under a Government of earthy and primeval creatures. I do not. We
are not in a Christian mood, and we don't want to be in a Christian
mood. When last week a foolish schoolmaster took advantage of his august
position to advocate Christianity at the end of the war, we frightened
the life out of him, and he had to say that he had been "woefully
misunderstood." In spite of this, the nation, being cut off from direct
communication with foreign autocracy and reaction, is in my view very
likely to be less unwise than the Government at the supreme crisis. And
even if it isn't, even at the worst, it is and should be the master and
not the slave of the Government.

German Women Not Yet For Peace

By Gertrude Baumer, President of the Bund Deutscher Frauen.

_An emphatic refusal of German women to take part in the recent Women's
Peace Conference at The Hague was issued by the Bund Deutscher Frauen
(League of German Women) signed by Gertrude Baumer as President, and
published by the Frankfurter Zeitung in its issue of April 29, 1915. The
manifesto reads:_

On April 28 begins the Peace Congress to which women of Holland have
invited the women of neutral and belligerent nations. The German woman's
movement has declined to attend the congress, by unanimous resolution of
its Executive Committee. If individual German women visit the congress
it can be only such as have no responsible position in the organization
of the German woman's movement and for whom the organization is,
therefore, not responsible.

This decimation must not be understood to mean that the German women do
not feel as keenly as the women of other countries the enormous
sacrifices and sorrows which this war has caused, or that they refuse to
recognize the good intentions that figure in the institution of this
congress. None can yearn more eagerly than we for an end of these
sacrifices and sorrows. But we realize that in our consciousness of the
weight of these sacrifices we are one with our whole people and
Government; we know that the blood of those who fall out there on the
field cannot be dearer to us women than to the men who are responsible
for the decisions of Germany. Because we know that, we must decline to
represent special desires in an international congress. We have no other
desire