It is very quiet in there. War seems a thing incredibly far away. The sincerity of these people grips your heart. I feel as I never felt in church before. Something mysteriously big and reverent stirs all around.... Then outside in the street drums rattle, feet thump. A regiment is going to the front! I hurry to see it go by, but back in the church the bowed forms pray on. II "THE BELOVED KING" _Being impressions gained during my talk with His Majesty King Ludwig of Bavaria_ Knowing what was in the wind when the summons came that night, I hurried down Unter den Linden and through Wilhelmstrasse to the Foreign Office. Several days before, Excellence Freiherr von Mumm had discussed the possibilities with me and as the old-fashioned portal of the Foreign Office swung back to admit me, I wondered if the news would be good or bad. Without delay I was ushered into the office of Dr. Roediger. He was just laying the telephone aside. "It has been arranged," he said. "I was just talking with München. You are to leave Berlin to-night on the 10.40 train. Upon your arrival in München in the morning, you will go to the Hotel Vierjahrzeiten. At ten in the morning present yourself to Excellence Baron von Schön at the Prussian Embassy in München. He will inform you as to the details. At twelve o'clock His Majesty, the King of Bayern, will be pleased to receive you.... Adieu and good luck." Thanking Dr. Roediger for the arrangement--with true German thoroughness they had laid out a perfect schedule for me, even to the hotel at which I was to stop in München--I had a race of it to get packed and catch the train. But once in the compartment, with the train whirling away from Berlin, I had a chance to collect my thoughts. So, His Majesty would no doubt talk with me upon some subject of interest to Americans. I ran over half a dozen of these in my mind, but King Ludwig's personality kept obtruding. What sort of a man was he? I had seen an excellent colored photograph of him in a gallery in Unter den Linden. It was one of those pictures which make you wonder at the reality and in this case made me anticipate the meeting with unrestrained keenness. I remembered that he had waited long for the throne, that it had not descended to him until September of 1913, that he had been crowned King of his beloved Bayern at the regal age of sixty-eight. I recalled that his house, the house of Wittelsbacher, was the oldest in Germany, the line going back to the year 907. King Ludwig, ruler of that southern German land where so many Americans like to go, his home in Munich, which every American sooner or later comes to admire for its famous galleries and golden brown Münchener beer; King Ludwig, what would be his message to the United States?