y are told when
and where they are told without questioning; no matter what the conditions
or dangers, they come up smiling and cheery through it all--full of
'grouse,' perhaps, but that is the soldier's privilege!... It is, I think,
what we all are feeling and are so proud of--this unbreakable spirit of
self-sacrifice in the daily routine of trench warfare. We are proud of it
because it is the highest of all forms of self-sacrifice, for it is not
the act of a moment when the blood is up or the excitement of battle is at
fever heat; but it is demanded of the soldier, day in and day out, and
shown by him coolly and deliberately, day in and day out, with death
always at hand. We are proud of it, too, because it is so surely a sign of
the magnificent _'moral'_ of our troops--and _moral_ is going to play a
very leading part as the war proceeds.... What is inspiring this splendid
disregard of self is partly the certainty that the Cause is Right; partly,
it is a hidden joy of conscience which makes them know that they would be
unhappy if they were not doing their bit--and partly (I am convinced of
this, too,) it is a deepening faith in the Founder of their Faith Whom so
many appreciate and value as never before, because they realise that even
He has not shirked that very mill of suffering through which they are now
passing themselves."

A few days ago, I accompanied a woman official distributing some leaflets
on behalf of a Government department, in some visits to families living in
a block of model dwellings somewhere in South London. We called on nine
families. In every single case the man of the family had gone, or was
expecting to go, to the war; except in one case, where a man who, out of
pure patriotism and at great personal difficulty had joined the Volunteer
Reserve at the outbreak of war, had strained his heart in trench-digging
and was now medically unfit, to his own bitter disappointment. There was
some grumbling in the case of one young wife that her husband should be
forced to go before the single men whom she knew; but in the main the
temper that showed itself bore witness both to the feeling and the
intelligence that our people are bringing to bear on the war. One woman
said her husband was a sergeant in a well-known regiment. He thought the
world of his men, and whenever one was killed, he must be at the burying.
"He can't bear, you know"--she added shyly--"they should feel alone." She
had three brothers-in-law