The Greater War no doubt so much overshadows the Great
War that the advent of the first week in August leaves most people in- different. Yet down to September 3, 1939, August 4, 1914, stood out as perhaps the most fateful day in our history, and most of us have our individual memories of it. My own first knowledge of the declaration of war, which came at it o'clock at night, was when the Channel boat on which I was returning from Le Havre was stopped by a destroyer to be told of what had happened, and reminded that the approaches to Southampton were mined. France, of course, was already at war, and the picture of French marines looking out from the barracks by the harbour, and singing the Marseillaise, will last as long as the sound of Mr. Chamberlain's voice on the wireless in my village church on the first Sunday in September, 1939, followed immediately, as it happened, by the Lesson beginning, —" Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned." * * * *
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