“Thrust in thy sickle and reap!” O Emperor of a brief and bitter day! The harvest of death, not life!--the harvest of curses, not blessings! The thousands of dead men--dead in the very strength of manhood--sacrificed in a holocaust on the flaming altar of the wickedest war the world has ever seen, may have their own story to tell to “Unser Gott”; so may the bereaved and wretched women whose husbands and sons have been torn from their arms for ever. May the true God help them all!--for in the unspeakable hell of iniquity around us man is wellnigh powerless; though, like every evil thing, war has its good side. It shows us with each day heroism of the finest, courage of the strongest, self-sacrifice of the noblest, existing among us all; and it has reawakened the higher spirit of England. For this we have cause to be devoutly thankful! In a certain sense it has saved us from ourselves; and from the enervating love of pleasure and personal avarice which was slowly undermining our better qualities. And even the Kaiser, “looking on” at the legions of his own subjects falling like withered leaves in a whirlwind of fire, may one day shake off his frenzied nightmare of battle, and repent--exclaiming with Judas:-- “I have sinned, in that I have betrayed the innocent blood!” THIS AMAZING WAR A WOMAN’S POINT OF VIEW (_Reprinted by special request from the “Sunday Pictorial” of March 28, 1915_) What can be said or thought of it? This wonderful massing of nations--this appalling slaughter of men--this relentless rolling on of a Divine Elemental Force, too vast and powerful and resolute for humanity to resist! It is a War so terrible, yet withal so grand, and so pregnant with infinite issues that we, who are swept by the dust and carnage of its fighting millions--we, who are stunned by the clash and clamour of the frightful weapons of modern science which it uses on land, under sea, and in air, are more or less incredulous and stupefied, and we have been only with difficulty aroused to try and understand its fateful import. It is Destiny in labour; and the pangs and throes of her child-birth will give us a New World! For the Old World is fast crumbling and crushing down upon us like an ancient ruin struck by lightning-flash and thunderbolt; the old vices, lusts, and littlenesses are being torn away from us as a storm-wind tears away the parasite ivies from mouldering walls--and we shall presently see a break in the clouds and light through the darkness. This thing of terror and confusion Was To Be; it Had To Be! It has been coming upon us slowly, but steadily, for years--and if we are honest with ourselves we shall admit that we have felt its approach instinctively in a general sense of insecurity--in a feverish impulse of haste to live lest we should suddenly die!