THIS horrible war that has been sprung upon us has taught the Empire many useful lessons. It has been a revelation in character value. In the long piping time of peace, before grim-visaged war broke in upon us, we were much too self-centered. Colonials and others returning from our overseas dominions to the “Old Country” did not hesitate to say how appalled they were by the wealth and how shocked they were by the uses to which it was being put in England.

It seemed to them, coming home from the simple life to the lap of luxury, that men and women in England were living to pile up colossal wealth and to bask in the sunshine of newspaper notoriety. I might continue in this strain for pages more, but that is not my purpose. What I do want to say is that, as soon as the tocsin of war was heard across the silver sea, and the bugle-call of duty was sounded, these same club-loungers and society-loafers rolled up, rallying to the flag as though they had been born for nothing else. In the story of England’s life only will the headline “Five Millions of Volunteers to the Colors” be read, topping the chapter telling of this European war to our children’s children.

Not only have those on the highest rung of the social ladder responded to the King’s call for service, but those on the lowest rung also—never was there such a fellowship in arms by land and on sea.

But if England with her overseas peoples stands out in such fine relief against the dark war background, we must not forget that our Allies have shone out as conspicuously as ourselves as fighting patriots, resolved to do or die.

Chaplains, too, have done fine work for country as well as for religion. Conspicuous among all Churchmen rises the lithe, imposing, ascetic figure of His Eminence Cardinal Mercier. If ever there was a follower of the Good Shepherd, ready to lay down his life for his sheep, it is the Cardinal Archbishop of Malines. “The Good Shepherd giveth his life for his sheep.” Nothing could have pleased the Cardinal better than to have escaped the sights forced upon him by sacrificing his own life for his flock. But it was not to be; his life has been spared that all the world might find in this good shepherd its object lesson in true religion and in true patriotism.

BERNARD VAUGHAN.