with effete superstitions.

***

And yet there he sat in front of me with a hymn-book which he picked up
from the shelf at the door, where such books are piled for the use of
camp-followers. The tune of the opening Psalm was Kilmarnock, and my
friend sang it in a way which showed that his mother had trained him
well. Then I forgot him, but after a while something like a stifled
sob in front of me brought him again to my consciousness.

The minister began to pray for the King's forces "on the sea, on the
land, and in the air." My mind was playing round the words "in the
air," for they were an intrusion into the familiar order--an
innovation! Every invention of man seemed doomed to become a weapon in
the hand of the devil. But the prayer went on--for the sailors keeping
their watches in the darkness of the night that God might watch over
them, that through their unfaltering courage our shores might be
inviolate; for the soldiers now facing the enemy, grappling with death,
that God might succour them, covering their heads in the day of battle.
"Break Thou down the fierce power of our enemies," cried the minister
suddenly, "that with full hearts we may praise Thee, the God of our
fathers."

A great hush fell on the crowded church. The shut eyes saw the red
battlefields, with the lines swaying to and fro, while the shrapnel
burst and the aeroplanes whirred in the smoke of the cannon. The cries
of men suddenly smitten smote on the inner ear. It was then that the
great thing happened.

All of a sudden the voice broke, recovered, and broke again, and the
minister was swept away from the well-ordered, beautiful words he had
prepared. He began to speak of the stricken hearts at home, of fathers
and mothers to whom their sons would never return, of women in empty
houses with their husbands laid in nameless graves, of little children
who would never learn to say "Father" ... It was then that my friend
stifled a sob. There was Something after all, Someone greater than
cosmic forces, greater than law--with an eye to pity and an arm to
save. There was God.

And my friend's son was with the famous regiment that was swaying to
and fro, grappling with destiny. He was helpless--and there was only
God to appeal to. There comes an hour in life when the heart realises
that instinct is mightier far than that logic which is, after all is
said, only the last refuge of the feeble-minded. There came like the
sudden lifting