en now the truer spiritual
goal is glimpsed through the battle clouds, and has been hailed in
world-reverberating phrases by our American President. Day by day the
real issue is clearer, while the "religion" it implies embraces not one
nation, wills not one patriotism, but humanity itself. I heard a
Frenchwoman who had been deeply "religious" in the old sense exclaim:
"I no longer have any faith in God; he is on the side of the Germans."
When the war began there were many evidences of a survival of that faith
that God fights for nations, interferes in behalf of the "righteous"
cause. When General Joffre was in America he was asked by one of our
countrywomen how the battle of the Marne was won. "Madame," he is
reported to have said, "it was won by me, by my generals and soldiers."
The tendency to regard this victory, which we hope saved France and the
Western humanitarian civilization we cherish, as a special interposition
of Providence, as a miracle, has given place to the realization that the
battle was won by the resourcefulness, science, and coolness of the
French commander-in-chief. Science preserves armies, since killing, if
it has to be done, is now wholly within that realm; science heals the
wounded, transports them rapidly to the hospitals, gives the shattered
something still to live for; and, if we are able to abandon the
sentimental view and look facts in the face--as many anointed chaplains
in Europe are doing--science not only eliminates typhoid but is able to
prevent those terrible diseases that devastate armies and nations. And
science is no longer confined to the physical but has invaded the social
kingdom, is able to weave a juster fabric into the government of peoples.
On all sides we are beginning to embrace the religion of self-reliance,
a faith that God is on the side of intelligence--intelligence with a
broader meaning than the Germans have given it, for it includes charity.

II

It seems to me that I remember, somewhere in the realistic novel I have
mentioned "Le Feu"--reading of singing soldiers, and an assumption
on the part of their hearers that such songs are prompted only by a
devil-may-care lightness of heart which the soldier achieves. A shallow
psychology (as the author points out), especially in these days of trench
warfare! The soldier sings to hide his real feelings, perhaps to give
vent to them. I am reminded of all this in connection with my trip to
the British front. I l