The Pomp of Yesterday Part 18

Oh, I've thought it all out. I believe in prayer. But it's no use praying for good health while you live over foul drains, and it's just as little praying for the destruction of such a system while you do nothing. G.o.d won't do for us what we can do for ourselves. That's why this is a holy war! That's why we must fight until Prussianism is overthrown. We are paying a ghastly price, but it has to be paid. All the same, we are fighting this war in the wrong way.'

'How?' I asked.

'Because we've forgotten G.o.d. Because, to a large extent, we regard Him too much as a negligible quant.i.ty; because we have become too much poisoned with the German virus.'

'I don't follow,' I said.

'I will try to make my meaning plain. In this war we have the greatest, the holiest cause man ever fought for. We are struggling for the liberty, the well-being of the world. We are fighting G.o.d's cause; but we are not fighting it in G.o.d's way. We are fighting as if there were no G.o.d.'

'How?'

'We started wrongly. Were our soldiers made to realize when they joined the Army that they were going to fight for G.o.d? Did the country, the Government ever tell them so? Oh, don't mistake me. I am a private soldier, and I've lived with the Tommies for a long time, and I know what kind of chaps they are. A finer lot of fellows never lived. Braver than lions, and as tender as women many of them; but does G.o.d count with the great bulk of them? Is Tommy filled with a pa.s.sion for G.o.d? Is he made to feel the necessity of G.o.d? Does Tommy depend primarily on G.o.d for victory?'

'Well, do we depend on G.o.d for victory?' I asked.

'If G.o.d is not with us we are lost!' he said solemnly. 'And that's our trouble. I've read a good many of our English papers, our leading daily papers, and one might think from reading them that either there was no G.o.d, or that He didn't count. "How are we to win this war, and crush Germanism?" is the cry, and the answer of the British Government and of the British press is, "Big guns, mountains of munitions, conscription, national service, big battalions, and still more big battalions!"'

'Well, isn't that the only way to win? What can we do without these things?' I asked.

'Big guns by all means. Mountains of munitions certainly, and all the other things; but they are not enough. If we forget G.o.d, we are lost.

And because we do not seek the help of G.o.d, we lose a great part of our driving power.'

He was in deadly earnest. To him Christianity, religion was not some formal thing, it was a great vital reality. He could not understand faith in G.o.d, without seeking Him and depending on Him.

'We have chaplains,' I urged. 'We are supposed to be a Christian people.'

'Yes, but do we depend on G.o.d? Do we seek Him humbly? When Tommy goes into battle, does he go into it like Cromwell's soldiers determined to fight in G.o.d's strength? Oh, yes, Tommy is a grand fellow, take him as a whole, and there are tens of thousands of fine Christians in the Army. But in the main Tommy is a fatalist; he does not pray, he does not depend on G.o.d. I tell you, if this battle of the Somme were fought in the strength of G.o.d, the Germans would have fled like sheep.'

'That's all nonsense,' I laughed. 'We can destroy brute force only by brute force.'

'That's the German creed,' he cried, 'and that creed will be their d.a.m.nation.'

'No,' I said, more for the sake of argument than because I believed it, 'we shall beat them because we are better men, and because we shall be able to "stick it" longer.'

'Have you been to Ypres?' he asked quickly.

'No,' I replied.

'I have. I was there for months. I read the accounts of the Ypres battles while I was there, and I was able to study the _terrain_, the conditions. And Germany ought to have won. Germany _would_ have won too, if force was the deciding power. Why, think, they had four men to our one, and a greater proportion of big guns and munitions. Humanly speaking, the battle was theirs and then Calais was theirs and they could dominate the Channel. But it is "Not by might, nor by power; but by My Spirit, said the Lord of Hosts." I tell you, Sir, no one can read the inwardness of the battles of Ypres without believing in Almighty G.o.d. By the way, did you ever read Victor Hugo's _Les Miserables_?'

'Years ago. What has that to do with it?'

'He describes the battle of Waterloo. He says that Napoleon by every human law ought to have won it. But Hugo says this: "Napoleon lost Waterloo because G.o.d was against him." That's why Germany didn't take Ypres, and rush through to Calais. That's why they'll lose this war.'

'And yet the Germans are always saying that G.o.d is on their side. They go to battle singing--

"A safe stronghold our G.o.d is still."'

'Yes, they are like the men in the time of Christ who said "Lord, Lord," and did not the things he said. I tell you, sir, if we had fought in G.o.d's strength, and obeyed G.o.d's commands, _the war would have been over by now_. German militarism would have been crushed and the world would be at peace.'

'Nonsense,' I replied with a laugh.

'It's not nonsense. This, as it seems to me, is the case: We are fighting G.o.d's cause, but G.o.d counts but very little. We are not laying hold of His Omnipotence; we are trusting entirely in big guns, while G.o.d is forgotten. That is why the war drags on. I tell you,'

and his voice quivered with pa.s.sion, 'what I am afraid of is this.

This ghastly carnage will drag on, with all its horrors; homes will be decimated, lives will be sacrificed all because we believe more in material things than in spiritual things. More in the devil than in G.o.d. I think sometimes that G.o.d will not allow us to win because we are not worthy.'

'Come now,' I said, 'it is very easy to speak in generalities about such a question; but tell me how, in a practical way, faith in G.o.d, and religious enthusiasm would help us to win this war?'

'How?' he cried. 'Don't you see that in addition to what I will call the spiritual power which would come through faith in, and obedience to the will of G.o.d, you add a practical, human force? Let there be this faith, this enthusiasm, and the people, the soldiers, would be ready for anything. Our workpeople would cease going on strike, employers and tradespeople would no longer be profiteers, grumbling and disunity would cease. We should all _unitedly_ throw ourselves, heart and soul into this great struggle, and nothing could withstand us.'

'But tell me why we are not worthy of victory, now,' I urged.

CHAPTER XIV

EDGEc.u.mBE'S LOGIC

He was silent for a few seconds, and then went on quietly: 'You will forgive me, sir, if I seem a.s.sertive, but I look on you as my friend--and--and you know all about me--that I know myself. As I have said before, I naturally look at things differently from others. I have to be always beginning _de novo_. But tell me, sir, what do you think are the greatest curses in the British Army? What ruins most of our soldiers, body and soul?'

I hesitated a second, and then replied, 'Drink and--and impurity.'

'Exactly; and how much is the latter owing to the former?'

'A great deal, I dare say.'

'Just so. Now go a step further. Did not one of England's most prominent statesmen say that he feared drink more than he feared the Germans?'

'That was a rhetorical flourish,' I laughed.

'No, it was a sober considered statement. Now think. Before I--I--that is before G.o.d became real to me, I looked at this question from the standpoint of policy. I considered the whole thing in the light of the fact that it was sapping our strength, wasting our manhood. But I have had to go deeper, and now I see----great G.o.d, man, it's ghastly! positively ghastly!'

'What is ghastly?' I asked.

'Look here, sir,'--and his voice became very intense,--'I suppose you are typical of the educated Britisher. You stand half-way between the extreme Puritan on the one hand, and the mere man of the world on the other. Tell me this: Do you regard the body as of more importance than the soul? Do you think material success more vital than the uplifting of the real man? Do you look upon any gain won at the expense of a man's character as a good thing?'

'No,' I replied, 'I don't. I am afraid that, as a people, we are gripped very strongly by the material side of things, but theoretically, at all events, yes, and in a deeper way, too, we know that character is of more importance than material advancement.'

'Go a step further, sir. Supposing we could win this war at the expense of the highest ideals of the nation; supposing we could crush German militarism, and all the devilry which it has dragged at its heels, by poisoning our own national life, and by binding ourselves by the chains which we are trying to break in Germany; would it be a good thing?'

'Very doubtful, at all events,' I replied; 'but why are you harping on that?'

'Because I am bewildered, staggered. Don't mistake me; I have not the slightest doubt about the righteousness of our cause. If ever there was a call from Almighty G.o.d, there is a call now, and that call is increasing in its intensity as the days go by. If Germany won, the world would not be a fit place to live in; it would be crushed under the iron heel of materialism and brutalism. All that we regard as beautiful and holy, all that the best life of the world has been struggling after, would be strangled, and the race of the nations would be after material gain, material power, brute force. The more I think of it, the more I realize this,--we are fighting for the liberty of the world. But aren't our own men becoming enslaved while they are fighting? Aren't we seeking to win this war of G.o.d at the price of our own manhood?'

He was so earnest, so sincere, that I could not help being impressed.

Besides, there was truth, a tremendous amount of truth, in what he was saying.