Nicky-Nan, Reservist

pent Bank Holiday in writing letters and addressing them (from a list drawn up in long consultation with her husband) to "women-workers" of all denominations in the parish, inviting them to me

hadn't realised till now, dear, how lonely we are-after five years, too-in this parish. Three out of every four are Nonconformists. It seems absurd, my ta

d if they ask-but they won't, being west-countr

ask. That would be running no risks. A few words fr

ver the few well-chosen remarks expected of the chairwoman. . . . My dear, I know you will be horribly nervous, and it would

ear R

contrive to break down. That would conciliate them at once

't qui

, it is disciplinary, and this country will have great use for it in the next few months. To do everything you dislike, and to do it thoroughly, will carry you quite a long way in war-time. The point at which Protestantism becomes disreputable is when y

pproving face! . . . I wonder sh

that probably she had no time for repugnance, being preoccupied i

A ser

to be humble and let another man step before him. The jealousies and the broken pieces of Etiquette can be left to be picked up after the smoke has cleared away; and by that time, belike, they will have cleared away with the smoke. Do you remember that old story of Hans Andersen's, about the gale

ver at Troy they have an inn called the King of Prussia,

illing to make some alteration, is divided between the Blue Boar and the Boot. . . . But that reminds me. If I am to attend your meeting, le

e to be satirical or sarcastic. To begin with, I never understan

ng gloomily out on the bright flower-beds that, next to the comeliness and order of her ministering to the Church-garnis

e flowers,

colours stan

ment in o

tulip, pin

t dear and

of the worl

ise of the

n planted u

ude the worl

, if not fl

shall we

t militia

s only had

rrisons were f

a shake of the shoulders coming out of his brow

(as you say) to catch and render it helpless." He groaned. "Yes, yes-I am a brute! Even now I am using that same tone which you detest. You do right to detest it. But will it comfort you a little to know

riting-chair and to

!" she

?' . . . Nothing-or, in other words,

, or the little we can do to help? If that's your trouble, why, of course it was silly of me to w

, and looked her in the eyes. "Don't I know that, if the call came, you would f

orced on us-Why, you yourself used to warn me, when I little heeded, that the Germans w

true e

othing else! . . . And now that it has come, what is the matter with us? Have we provoked it?

with the Germans than I have with you at this moment. Why, we saw how the first draft-the Naval Reservists-we

ch as I detest them fo

ernment worked for p

. . up to the last, as you say. The question is, We

ber

up for a quarrel which we have hoped to decline. On a hundred points of preparation they are ready and we are not; they have probably sown this idle nation with their spies as they sowed France

their soup. . . . Do you remember that G

d the older, lazier, civilised nations have-as the saying is-caught the barbarian stiff. It is-as you choose to look at it-a tragedy of tactlessnes

er husband earnestly.

lieve it," h

doubting, even despairing over a hundred things. . . . But

E

ething in

t is," said he, on the instant correcting himself to tenderness,

, on his way down the

delivered

wisely as we can the relief funds that are already being started. Also the ladies will desire, no doubt, to form working-parties, make hospital shirts, knit socks, tear and roll lint for bandages. My wife even suggests an ambulance class; and I have written to Mant, at St Martin's, who may be willing to come over (say) once a week

as on my way to visit you with a very similar proposal? . . . Now, as you are a good thirty years younger than I, and

finished yet. The idea is (I should add) that, as in politics, so with our religious differences, we all de

or the trouble, after all, seemed to b

for a certain obstinacy in resisting those who would have confined the effort to our Society. . . . Most happily I managed to prevail-and it was none

t, in a breakdown of Christianity like the present, we might leave talk of the public-hous

e never been able to trace him-or her. But it is the truth-and it may well have leaked out in my discourse-that I feel our services to have l

been feeling with you- that all our business

. I see now that even that hint of it in my sermon was a momentary lapse of loyalty. Meanwhile I

k a pace and eyed him

you something I have kept secret even from my wife. . . . I have w

ely back, my friend! I

y will want

ffering myself

, th

n become a War against War. . . . Well, if all this be true, why should I as a priest be denied my share in the crusade? Why should I be forbidden to lay down my life in what is, to these people, so evidently my Master's service? Why should it be admirable-nay, a fundamental of manhood-in Tom and Dick and Harry to play the Happy Warrior life-size, but reprehensible in me? Or again, look at it in this way.-You and I, as ministers of the Gospel, have gone about preaching it (pretty ineffec

with an argument which I dislike but see no present way to controvert, I fall back for moral support on the tone of the disputant.

bleness. If this War be a Holy War, why may I not share actively in it? Or on what principle, if the mi

e Apostles-a certain particular virtue. You know me well enough by this time to be sure that, while doubting your claim, I respect its sincerity. . . . It is a claim, at least, which has silently endured through some hundreds of generations of men, to reassert itself quietly, times and again, after many hundreds of accesses of human madnes

I can manage is sarcasm. But I have the grace to hope that in

later by another and louder reverberation. The two men, startled for a momen

aper. A 9.4-inch gun, by the sound of it-and there goes another! A battl