ell,
then we are forgetting our chief Power, we are failing as a nation to
utilize the mightiest forces at our command. There might be no God, if
one were to judge from the way we are conducting this struggle.'

'Nonsense!'

'That is scarcely an answer. Mark you, I am looking at it from the
standpoint of the Government as expressing the thought and will of the
nation. The Government is supposed to be the mouthpiece of the nation,
and judging from the appeals of the men holding important offices under
the Government, and the general trend of the daily press, while appeals
are being made for all the material resources of the Empire, there has
never been one appeal to the nation to pray, and to lay hold of the power
which God is waiting to give.'

'You do not seem to realize, my friend,' said the Cabinet Minister, 'that
war is primarily a contest between material forces.'

'No,' said Edgecumbe, 'I don't, neither do I believe it.'

'Our generals are not sentimentalists,' said the statesman; 'war is a
stern business, and they see that it is a matter of big guns.'

'Not all,' replied Edgecumbe. 'If ever a man knew the meaning of big
guns, and what big guns can do, it is Admiral Beatty. Perhaps you
remember what he said: "England still remains to be taken out of the
stupor of self-satisfaction and complacency into which her great and
flourishing condition has steeped her, and until she can be stirred out
of this condition, and until a religious revival takes place at home,
just so long will the war continue."'

For a moment the statesman seemed nonplussed, and I could see that
Edgecumbe was impressing him in spite of himself. He spoke quietly, but
with evident intense conviction, and there was something in his
personality that commanded respect. On his tunic, too, he wore his
decorations, the decorations which proved him to be a man of courage and
resource. There was no suggestion of weakness or of fanaticism in his
manner. Every word, every movement, spoke of a strong, brave, determined
man.

'Then what would you do?' he asked almost helplessly.

'It is scarcely a matter of what I would do,' replied Edgecumbe. 'I am
here as an inquirer, and I came to the House of Commons to-night in order
to understand the standpoint from which the Government looks at this
tremendous question.'

'And your conclusion is----?'

'That God's forgotten. It is not looked upon as a religious war at
all,--everything is reduce