ut dreaming how soon one would have
cause to remember the thought, under tragically altered circumstances.

We cannot possibly attach too much importance to the fact, admitted on
all sides and in the most unexpected quarters, that this great race,
coming so very closely into our lives, uniting their destiny in some
measure with our own, is above all others a distinctly religious people.
Russia, as must be ever becoming more and more evident, is to be our
ally in a way hitherto entirely unknown to our race and nation.
Thoughtful observers have seen it coming for some time, and are not
taken at all by surprise, but the idea is still new and not altogether
welcome to many. There is no doubt at all about it in my own mind, and I
shall return to it more fully in a later chapter, that while we shall
still remain the friends of France and act the part of true "friends in
need" should occasion again arise, and look with a friendly eye upon
other nationalities, and even--how much I hope it--make up our quarrel
with Prussia and the German peoples she has influenced against us, yet
with Russia our relations are already altogether different, and our two
empires are rapidly beginning to realize that they are coming together
in an entirely different relationship, to knit up true and enduring ties
of brotherly unity with each other, not for selfish purposes at all, but
for a great work together for civilization and for GOD. We Anglo-Saxons
are a deeply religious people at heart, though with our temperamental
reticence and reserve we speak least about the things of which we feel
the most. The Russians are also a sincerely religious people, and they,
on the other hand, bring out most readily, spontaneously, and naturally,
the things which mean most to them. We are unlike each other in
temperament, yet absolutely like each other in our view of the deep
things of GOD. Thus complementary to one another, we have a real
intelligible hope of a lasting friendship. We should have no hope at all
of any such tie between ourselves and them if they did not share our
serious view of human life and responsibility, and base that view upon a
firm belief in GOD. We should feel at heart that we had no real
confidence in their stability, grit, and powers of staying and lasting
out.

Surely the one thing that has come out during the war is the supreme
importance of _morale_. Napoleon went so far, I have seen it stated, as
to say it counted for an army, in