It would be a wretched perversion of conscience to require of any man, condonation of the infamous cruelties and treacheries which have disgraced our foes during the last two years. The best elements in us rise in irrepressible repugnance before such pageants of wickedness as have clothed the famous name of Wittenberg with infamy and made the story of naval warfare a continuing record of wanton crime. No man can think, without shame, of the so-called civilisation and culture which could palliate such perversions of justice as those recalled by the fate of Nurse Cavell and Captain Fryatt. Yet there are two considerations that may help us to feel that the German people, so far from being truly represented by the miscreants who have organised and carried through the atrocities on land and on sea, are wantonly misled and disgraced by them. History includes the record of similar horrors perpetrated by other nations which nevertheless are justly reckoned among the best human material. May we not hope that the crimes of Germany in the twentieth century provide no truer index to the national character than did those of revolutionary France in the eighteenth? Psychology unites its testimony to that of History. Civilised man stands as the latest link of a long chain of advancement from aboriginal beasthood, and he retains within himself the germ of all his earlier traits, though these are increasingly suppressed and held in check by higher habitudes. Civilisation represents an elaborate system of auxiliary disciplines, designed to stifle as far as may be the brute in man and to strengthen the acquired qualities of justice, mercy and refinement. When some sudden catastrophe such as Revolution or War befalls, there is always great danger that that elaborate system of artificial auxiliaries to virtue will be broken down and the beast let loose in unchecked savagery. Unquestionably this gives the key to the atrocities that stained the French Revolution: it probably gives the key to the crimes of German warfare. It certainly leads us to the contemplation of the horrors from which we ourselves would be free—a contemplation which helps to make our Day of Intercession one not merely of prayer for victory and its material benefits, but for the ennoblement of our minds and the purification of our souls. The happenings of the past two weeks have led our thoughts to the possibilities of peace and the consideration of peace terms.