And so the tale is written, and the story told in strange halting numbers that can but catch here and there at the great melody of the human symphony.

Just for one moment one may lay one's finger on the pulse of a great nation, feel its heart beat, feel the quivering, throbbing life that flows through its veins, but more than that who dare hope to gain? Not in one phase, nor in one era, not in one great crisis nor even in a myriad does the heart of a people express itself fully. From birth to death, from its first feeble primitive struggles as it emerges from the Womb of Time to its last death-throe as it sinks back again into the Nothingness from which it came, it gathers to itself new forces, new aspirations, new voices, new gods, new altars, new preachers, new goals, new Heavens, new Hells, new readings of the Riddle that only Eternity will solve. It is in perpetual solution, and the composite atoms that compose it are in a state of unending change and transmutation; it dies but to live again in other forms, is silent only to express itself through new and—may we not hope it?—more finely-tuned instruments.

Summarising it to-day you may say of your summary, This is Truth. But to-morrow it is already falsehood, for the Nation, bound upon the Wheel of Evolution, has passed on, leaving you bewildered by the way. And since the war has thrown the nations of the world into the crucible, until they come forth again, and not till then, may we say, with finality, "This is gold, or that alloy."

France is being subjected to a severe test; her burden is almost more than she can bear, but as she shoulders it we see the gold shining, we believe that the dross is falling away. No defeat in the field—if such an end were possible—can rob her of her glory, just as no victory could save Germany from shame. "What shall it profit a Nation if it gain the whole world, and lose its own soul?" The soul of Germany is withered and dead. She has sacrificed it on the Altar of Militarism, and has set up the galvanic battery of a relentless despotism and crude materialism in its place.

But the Soul of France lives on, strengthened and purified, the Soul of a Nation that seeks the Light and surely one day shall find it.

THE END

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