He

When he first enlisted he continued the habit of saying his prayers, more because it was inconvenient than for any other reason, perhaps. The other fellows in the barrack-room did not say their prayers, and he was too English not to feel the more resolved to say his. He was not going to be afraid. So he said them, deliberately and very self-consciously, half expecting to be laughed at. It was very difficult. could not concentrate his mind. He whispered the words mechanically, his head full of other thoughts. The other fellows paused in their talk the first night, and then went on as if nothing had happened. After that no notice was taken at all. No one followed his example. No one commented, or interfered with him. A little persecution would have hardened his resolve. Being ignored weakened it. He could not bring his mind to bear on his words, and there seemed no point in going on. He tried saying them in bed, in the privacy of his blanket. Then one day he forgot: and after that he omitted to say them ever.

After all, it made very little difference. And yet at times he felt that there was a difference. It was a little like a man sitting in a room with a frosted window that only opened at the top. He understood that it gave on to a garden but he had never seen the garden. He used to sit with the top of the window pulled open, and then somehow one day he was busy and forgot to open it, and after that he never bothered. It made so little difference. At times he did notice that the air was a little less fresh; but he was too lazy or too busy about other things to bother.

This Englishman's religion had always been a bit like that, like a window opening on to the unknown and unexplored. He had never climbed up and looked out. He liked to think that his window gave on to a garden, and to think that he sometimes caught the

scent of the flowers. But he had never had the energy or faith to test his belief. Suppose he were to find that, after all, his garden was only a paved yard! Anyhow, he had left the window shut now. At times he regretted it; but a kind of inertia possessed him, and he did not do anything about it.

When he first got to the front he prayed, half ashamed. He was not quite sure of himself, and he prayed that he might not be found wanting. But when it came to the point, everything was very prosaic. It was boring, and uncomfortable, and at times terrifying. Yet he felt no inclination to shirk. He just drifted on, doing his bit like the others, and with not too good a grace. He was asked to take the stripe, and refused. It meant more trouble and responsibility. His conscience told him that he was shirking. He grew angry with it. "Well," he demanded of it, "why have I responsibilities more than anyone else? Haven't I failed?" He put the question defiantly, ostensibly to his conscience, but with an eye to the "Christman," in Whom he had almost ceased to believe. To his astonishment, he got an answer. It was a contingency with which he had not reckoned. Like a flash this sentence wrote itself across his mind: "Strengthen My brethren." It staggered him. He felt that he knew what it meant. "Don't whine about failure. If you are willing to serve, here is your job, and the sign of your forgiveness: Strengthen My brethren." He took the stripe after all, and fathered the boys of his section.

The final stage came later. There had been a charge, a hopeless affair from the start, undertaken in broad daylight. He had fallen between the lines, and had seen the battered remnant of his company retire past him to their own trench before a hail of bullets. He lay in the long grass between the lines, unable to move, and

with an unceasing throbbing pain in his left leg and arm. A whizz-bang had caught him in both places. All the afternoon he lay still, his mind obsessed by one thought: Would any one find him when it was dark, or would he be left to die? He kept on wondering the same thing, with maddening persistence. At last he must have lost consciousness, for he woke to find that the sun had set, and that all was still but for an occasional flare or a random shot. He had lost a lot of blood; but the throbbing had ceased, and if he kept still he felt no pain. He just lay there, feeling strangely peaceful. Above him he could see the stars, and the moon, though low in the heavens, gave a clear light.

He found himself vaguely wondering about the meaning of everything. Somehow the stars made it all seem so small and petty. All this bloodshedwhat was the good of it? It was all so ephemeral, so trivial, so meaningless in the presence of eternity and infinity. It was just a strife of pygmies. He suddenly felt terribly small and lonely, and he was so very, very weak. He was cut off from his fellowmen as surely as if he had been on a desert island, and he felt somehow as if he had got out of his element, and was launched, a The Spectator.

tiny pygmy soul, on the sea of immensity, where he could find no bearings. Eternity and infinity were SO pitiless and uncomprehending. The stars gazed at him imperturbably. There was no sympathy there, but only cold, unseeing tolerance. Yet, after all, he had the advantage of them. For all his pygmy ineffectiveness, he was of finer stuff than they. At least, he could feel-suffer. He had only to try to move to verify that. At least, he was aware of his own existence, and could even gauge his own insignificance. There was that in him which was not in them, unless . . . unless it was in everything. "God!" he whispered softly. "God everywhere!" Then into his tired brain came a new phrase: "Underneath are the everlasting arms. He sighed contentedly, as a tired child, and the phrase went on repeating itself in his brain in a kind of chant: "Underneath are the everlasting arms."

The moon went down behind the horizon, and it was dark. They fetched him in at last. He will never again be sound of limb; but there is in his memory and in his heart that which may make him a staunch fighter in other fields. He has learned a new way of prayer, and the courage that is born of faith well founded.

A Student in Arms.

In preparing his handbook of "Practical Stage Directing for Amateurs" (E. P. Dutton & Co.) Emerson Taylor has had in mind the growing interest in amateur stage performances and has striven to furnish a practical guide to the details of stage management, the neglect of which often mars hopelessly the effect of amateur presentations. In explanation of his purpose, he remarks that, if amateur productions are reduced to a mere learning of lines

and "business," under nervous coaching, they are not worth bothering about; but, if they are so conceived as to make a call not only on the histrionic ability but also on the ingenuity, taste and cultivation of the people organizing them, they are of great value. This explanation furnishes the key to Mr. Taylor's helpful handbook; and a careful observance of the directions which he gives will certainly raise amateur acting above the level to which it now too often falls.

The purpose and scope of the little volume, "What Jesus Christ Thought of Himself," by Anson Phelps Stokes, Secretary of Yale University (The Macmillan Company), could hardly be better expressed than in the title. As a preliminary to the question, "What think ye of Christ?" the author essays to ascertain, through a reverent study of His words and life, what Christ thought of Himself. He presents first, in outline, the human side of Christ. His consciousness of limitations, of deriving all from God and of subordination in prayer: and then, his Divine side, and the evidences that he regarded Himself as master of the past, present and future; and in a brief closing chapter, seeks to reconcile the two. The book is free from dogmatism, and the simplicity and directness of its style will commend it to lay readers.

Professor Hamilton J. Eckenrode's history of "The Revolution in Virginia" (Houghton Mifflin Company) follows one of the most interesting by paths of American history, and traces the origin and development of the forces which led to the separation of the colonies from Great Britain. The materials are largely drawn from original sources of information in the archives of the Virginia State Library, to which the author, a Professor of Economics and History in Richmond College, has had access. Influences and issues which have been passed over or ignored by the general historian of the period are here presented clearly and fully; and the growing spirit of revolt, the rise of parties, and the conflicts of authority between the State and the King are described with a minuteness of detail which deepens rather than lessens the vividness of the impression which they make upon the mind. Not every historian has the gift of avoiding the dry-as-dust style in presenting the

fruits of such researches; but Professor Eckenrode is fully endowed with it, and his work commends itself to the general reader as well as to the special historical student. It is an addition of positive and permanent value to the literature of American history.

The unexpected inheritance of a million is a shock to be heroically borne by anyone to whom it comes, but the lovely heroine of Elizabeth Cooper's "Drusilla and a Million" displays a form of endurance peculiar to her. She desires to lighten her load of wealth by almost reckless benevolence, and displays wonderful ingenuity in finding objects for it ranging from a small black baby to entire families, native and immigrant. She founds an unchartered charitable institution, and she becomes sufficiently pugnacious to repel a busybody, and to defy a slanderer, and even to oppose her own lawyer, but she never ceases to be the same sweet gentle-hearted creature who was once general benefactress of her fellows, the inmates of an Old Ladies' Home. She makes a mistake or two, such as believing a rogue's tale of woe, and sending the next applicant for relief, a perfectly innocent clergyman, to the police station, but she can afford the expense, even when the clergyman becomes a chronic beggar. She ascends to the height of discharging her French cook when he becomes slightly unmanageable, and she boldly goes into her own kitchen and makes doughnuts, and sends some to her rich neighbors. It is not written in the story that the heavens fell in consequence, and it is set down that Drusilla came in time to managing love affairs, even her own. Her soft Yankee accent and her Yankee shrewdness are pleasant touches in the description of a beautifully feminine woman. Frederick A. Stokes Company.