RELIGION AND THE WAR.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."' wrote the enclosed in answer to a circular letter of a friend who occupies a public position, and lately showing a copy to others who like myself are readers of your paper, they suggested that I should send it to you.—I am, Sir, &c., 14 Croydon Grove, West Croydon. Taos. S. WICKSTEED.
" The Lord my God has been a man of War for many years. Hence the war brought no shock to my religion. We are better than wo were before the war. We arc united in a good purpose and we have plenty to do, more than we ever had before. Wo know what we have to accomplish. Every one of these things is good, and every one is new since the war. Some of us are permitted to give our lives, and all who have health and strength are permitted to give something towards a cause which is the greatest that has
been known for hundreds of years. Thin is the least difficult time to live in there has been in my life or for generations. back. We know what to try for, we are neither distracted by- doubt. nor palsied by lack of will. I have spent my days amongst soldiers for the last six months. I have gazed on the face of a soldier, and seen a look such as I'd never seen before, a look which might be on the arch- angel Michael. I have talked as a friend with one of his followers, a time-expired soldier who, with a thousand more, was called back
to the profession he had left. Our honour called us,' he said. There were then some dozen left alive and unhurt of the thousand. On one occasion they went into action some six hunched- strong. When, at the end of the fight, the roll was called- in the trenches one hundred and fifty answered. These men by all accounts were indeed common clay, but this war turned them into heroes. It has repeatedly made our Quarter Sessions here an empty form. A judge of assize going through North Wales had no prisoners to try in the first four counties and only one in the fifth. The attention of nations has been called to the drink curse with results that threaten to be well worth even such a war as this, if it is to be a balancing of health, wealth, and lives. Well-to-do men and women, sometimes highly educated, sometimes quite old and given previously to little but self-indulgence, are pulling, themselves together and devoting their strength to the humblest of tasks, such as a child in the second- standard could dd, glad of the- opportunity of doing even that, if it. help the fighters. Whether you look at the times from the point of view of wealth, then, or life of body or mind, the outlook is good, more favourable to all we desire than it has over been in our lives. As a Derby recruiter go last November among- the young slackers, see them shrink from the thought of fighting. Yet when a few days have given them strength they go quietly,.as quietly: as if it were an everyday occurrence, and enlist, knowing they will be the first to be called up. And_the older slacker, his face turning suddenly white—his little business,' his bad health,' and his children.' See him given courage by the significant_ "silence of his wife, till ho no longer wants to hold back, but will take his place if allowed when his turn comes."
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