At first it seemed to me that only trees stood on that plain; then, in the ground mist fast clearing, I saw the forms of men and women, children, beasts; and I moved among them, looking at their faces—not broad and prosperous, but grave from suffering, carved and strong. And their eyes were shining. While I stood thus watching, the sun rose, and, above the plain clad in the hues of spring, the heaven brightened to full morning. Amazed, I saw that the stars had not gone in, but shone there in the blue. And clear I heard the same Voice call: “Brothers! Behold! The Stars are lit for ever!” FIRST THOUGHTS ON THIS WAR (From _Scribner’s Magazine_, 1914.) § 1. Three hundred thousand church spires raised to the glory of Christ! Three hundred million human creatures baptized into His service! And—War to the death of them all! “I trust the Almighty to give the victory to my arms!” “Let your hearts beat to God, and your fists in the face of the enemy!” “In prayer we call God’s blessing on our valiant troops!” God on the lips of each potentate, and under a hundred thousand spires prayer that twenty-two million servants of Christ may receive from God the blessed strength to tear and blow each other to pieces, to ravage and burn, to wrench husbands from wives, fathers from their children, to starve the poor, and everywhere destroy the works of the spirit! Prayer under the hundred thousand spires for the blessed strength of God, to use the noblest, most loyal instincts of the human race to the ends of carnage! “God be with us to the death and dishonour of our foes”—whose God He is no less than ours! The God who gave His only begotten Son to bring on earth peace and good-will toward men! No supernatural creed—in these days when two and two are put together—can stand against such reeling subversion. After this monstrous mockery, beneath this grinning skull of irony, how shall there remain faith in this personal outside God, whom we can thus divide, appropriate, and invoke; how remain faith in the articles, the formal structure of a religion preached and practised to such ends? When this war is over and reason resumes its sway, our dogmas will be found to have been scored through for ever. Whatever else be the outcome of this business, let us at least realize the truth: It is the death of dogmatic Christianity! Let us will that it be the birth of a God within us, and an ethic Christianity that men really practise! § 2.