At the front, even the most thoughtless desired some sort of a personal religion. In the midst of the constant danger to life and limb, seeing their comrades about them dead and wounded, with life reduced to the minimum of necessities and the few elemental problems, men were forced to think of the realities of life and death. With these eternal questions forced upon them, the great majority must always turn to religion. The men _prayed_ at the front. They wanted safety and they felt the need of God. After a battle they were eager to offer thanks for their own safety and to say the memorial prayers for their friends who had just laid down their lives. Perhaps the most religious congregation I have ever had was the little group of men who gathered together under the trees after the great battle at the Hindenburg Lane. The impressions of the conflict had not yet worn off. The men were, in a way, uplifted by their terrific experiences. And the words they spoke there of their fallen comrades were infinitely touching. The appeal of a memorial prayer was so profound in the army that many of the Protestant chaplains followed the Episcopal and Catholic custom and prayed for the dead although their own churches do not generally follow the custom. But with all this deep yearning for personal religion, the men adopted fatalism as their prevalent philosophy. For one thing, it seemed to answer the immediate facts the best. When five men are together in a shell hole and a bursting shell kills three of them and leaves the two unharmed, all our theories seem worthless. When one man, volunteering for a dangerous duty, comes back only slightly gassed, while another left at headquarters is killed at his dinner by long distance fire, men wonder. And when they must face conditions like this day after day, never knowing their own fate from minute to minute, only sure that they are certain to be killed if they stay at the front long enough, they become fatalists sooner or later. As the soldiers used to say, "If my number isn't on that shell, it won't get me." I argued against fatalism many times with the soldiers, but I found when it came my own turn to live under fire day after day that a fatalistic attitude was the most convenient for doing one's duty under the constantly roaring menace, and I fear that--with proper philosophic qualifications--for the time being, I was as much of a fatalist as the rest.