During the war we were so stunned by its suddenness and vastness that we felt it would shatter all former systems of philosophy, that men would need a new philosophy of life after the war, just as they did after the Renaissance or the epoch-making discoveries of Darwin. This opinion, natural enough at the time, was certainly exaggerated. The war did not shatter all ideals; it did not create any new ones except the wave of spiritualism at present so wide-spread. But it did shift emphases, exposed the hollowness of many easy beliefs, and implanted new ideas in minds which otherwise might not have been ready for them. The soldier really presents the typical reaction to the war, while the civilian shows a milder type of influence and a smaller degree of change. The revaluation of values which is really demanded to-day is nothing so fundamental as we thought at the time. It is chiefly psychological, that we shall understand what is in the mind of the soldier, and by that means reach an understanding of the effect of the war on society as a whole. The world contains in diluted form those same influences which show so distinctly on these young men. The problem of evil is neither greater nor less than it was before the war; the problem of life and death is no different; the problem of conduct has not changed. But certain phases of each of these problems have come very strongly to the attention of the world; some of them have been branded into the consciousness of the soldier. Just as the soldier has a viewpoint toward American ideals, which America would do well to heed in working out her programs for the era after the war, so the Jewish soldier has his own viewpoint toward Judaism, which all who are interested in our people and our religion need to understand and utilize for the best development of our religious programs in the days that are just ahead. It is hard to call the soldier a progressive in religion when he had so few theories about the matter. But he was certainly not a traditionalist. Religious ideas and practices had to satisfy his immediate needs or they had no meaning to him at all. This covered all cant words, all ready-made formulas, whether as ancient as the Talmud or as comparatively recent as reform Judaism. The answer of a twelfth century Jew of Spain or a nineteenth century Jew of Germany were on an equality to him; if either solved the problems of a young American at war it was acceptable. The soldier was willing to accept old answers to new questions if they were cogent; on the other hand, he was quite as willing to consider a new and revolutionary theory. He possessed that rare attribute, the open mind; on the narrow but keen basis of his own mental experience he grasped and estimated soundly the new ideas and the old.