Thus does the good Samaritan, the healer of souls, endeavor to bring to the despairing that hope which is the bread of life. Perchance Rolland speaks with a confidence that runs somewhat in advance of his innermost convictions. But he only who realized the intense yearnings of the innumerable persons who at that date were imprisoned in their respective fatherlands, barred in the cages of the censorships, he alone can realize the value to such poor captives of Rolland's manifestoes of faith, words free from hatred, bringing at length a message of brotherhood. CHAPTER XII OPPONENTS From the first, Rolland knew perfectly well that in a time when party feeling runs high, no task can be more ungrateful than that of one who advocates impartiality. "The combatants are to-day united in one thing only, in their hatred for those who refuse to join in any hymn of hate. Whoever does not share the common delirium, is suspect. And nowadays, when justice cannot spare the time for thorough investigation, every suspect is considered tantamount to a traitor. He who undertakes in wartime to defend peace on earth, must realize that he is staking his faith, his name, his tranquillity, his repute, and even his friendships. But of what value would be a conviction on behalf of which a man would take no risks?" Rolland was likewise aware that the most dangerous of all positions is that between the fronts, but this certainty of danger was but a tonic to his conscience. "If it be really needful, as the proverb assures us, to prepare for war in time of peace, it is no less needful to prepare for peace in time of war. In my view, the latter role is assigned to those who stand outside the struggle, and whose mental life has brought them into unusually close contact with the world-all. I speak of the members of that little lay church, of those who have been exceptionally well able to maintain their faith in the unity of human thought, of those for whom all men are sons of the same father. If it should chance that we are reviled for holding this conviction, the reviling is in truth an honor to us, and we may be satisfied to know that we shall earn the approbation of posterity." It is plain that Rolland is forearmed against opposition. Nevertheless, the fierceness of the onslaughts exceeded all expectation. The first rumblings of the storm came from Germany. The passage in the _Letter to Gerhart Hauptmann_, "are you the sons of Goethe or of Attila," and similar utterances, aroused angry echoes. A dozen or so professors and scribblers hastened to "chastise" French arrogance. In the columns of "_Die Deutsche Rundschau_," a narrow-minded pangerman disclosed the great secret that under the mask of neutrality _Jean Christophe_ had been a most dangerous French attack upon the German spirit.