lled, and 40,000 sick and wounded
sent to Russian hospitals? This speaks to 55,000 Russian homes
plunged into mourning,--to say nothing of similar losses, if not
greater, by the Turks,--a heavy price to pay for improving the
condition of Bulgaria,--isn't it?

"There is a strong feeling in my mind that this is a war of
extermination. `No quarter' is too frequently the cry on either side.
I do not say that the Russians mean it to be so, but when
Bashi-Bazouks torture their prisoners in cold blood, and show fiendish
delight in the most diabolical acts of cruelty, even going the length
of roasting people alive, is it strange that a brutalising effect is
produced on the Russians, and that they retaliate in a somewhat
similar spirit at times? The truth is, mother, that one of the direct
and most powerful effects of war is to dehumanise, and check the
influence of, the good men engaged, while it affords a splendid
opportunity to the vicious and brutal to give the rein to their
passions, and work their will with impunity.

"But, while this is so with the combatants, many of those outside the
ring are stirred to pity and to noble deeds. Witness the
self-sacrificing labours of the volunteer heroes and heroines who do
their work in an hospital such as this, and the generous deeds evoked
from the peoples of other lands, such as the sending of two splendid
and completely equipped ambulance trains of twenty-five carriages
each, by the Berlin Central Committee of the International Association
for the Relief of Sick and Wounded Soldiers in the field, the
thousands of pounds that have been contributed by the Russians for the
comfort of their sick and wounded, and the thousands contributed by
England for that fund which embraces in its sympathies both Russian
and Turk. It seems to me that a great moral war is going on just
now--a war between philanthropy and selfishness; but I grieve to say
that while the former saves its thousands, the latter slays its tens
of thousands. Glorious though the result of our labours is, it is as
nothing compared with the torrent of evil which has called us out, and
the conclusion which has been forced upon me is, that we should--every
one of us, man, woman, and child--hold and pertinaciously enforce the
precept that war among civilised nations is outrageous and
intolerable. Of course we cannot avoid it sometimes. If a man _will