He smiled to himself, recalling how at the beginning of the Great War, as they had named it, the hope had come to him that after all he might not have to drink this cup. God was going to do without man’s help. Out of one stupendous sacrifice of blood and tears the world was to be born anew. Sin was to destroy her own children; man’s greed and hate was to be burned up in the fire man’s evil passions had kindled. It was a strange delusion. Others had shared it. With the bitter awakening a dumb apathy had seized him, paralysing his soul. Of what use was the struggle. The gibe was true: “Mankind would always remain a race of low intelligence and evil instincts.” Let it perish, the sooner the better. And then, gradually, out of his despair, had arisen in him a great pity for God. It startled him at first. It was so grotesque an idea. And yet it grew upon him. The mysterious warfare between Good and Evil. It shaped itself in his brain, a thing concrete, visible. The loneliness of God. He saw Him as a Leader betrayed, deserted; his followers fleeing from him, hastening to make their peace with evil. He must find his way to God’s side. God wanted him. It was no passing mood. The thought took possession of him. All other voices sounded to him faint and trivial. His sorrow was for her. If he could but have spared her. For himself he felt joy that the struggle was over, that he had conquered, that nothing now could turn him from his purpose. He would get rid of all his affairs--of everything, literally. Not for the sake of the poor. If all the riches of the world were gathered together and given to the poor it would be but a stirring of the waters, a moment’s shifting of the social landmarks. Greed and selfishness would shape themselves anew. From time immemorial the rich had flung money to the poor, and the poor had ever increased in numbers, had sunk ever poorer. Money was a dead thing. It carried with it the seeds of destruction. Love, service, were the only living gifts. It was for his own sake--to escape, in the words of Timothy, from many hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdiction, that he must flee from his great possessions. No man could possess money without loving money. Only in common poverty--in common contentment with having food and raiment could there be brotherhood, love.