But they were fighting for the ideal on which my country was founded, for humanity against oppression and cruelty, for the right of a man to labor in his own field, for the principle that honor is greater than life. I saw them living and fighting, and I saw them dying. I saw strange nations, men of different tongues and different colors, gathered together and becoming as one, against a common foe. And then I learned this: that the world is now but one great nation, drawn close by the creed that all men are brothers; and that in the midst of that great nation of the world had broken loose something terrible, something that must be killed, or the world dies. Once over there I saw a boy dying in a railway station. He knew two English words, so he said:— “All right. All right.” It was all right with him. He had done his bit, and he knew that there were others to take his place, and that the world-nation would not rest until the war-beast was chained. It was “all right.” And so now, on the brink of war, I know it is all right with us. We have been the melting-pot, but under the pot there has been no fire. Now the fire has come, a white flame, and we will fuse at last. But it will burn and sear. And to that, I wonder, can we say, “All right”? * * * * * War is a great adventure, the greatest adventure in the world. The adventurers go forth to battle, eyes ahead. Mostly they are boys who go, because war is the young man’s game, the young man’s call. All over Europe boys have left their homes, with a shame-faced tear or two, perhaps, but with the great adventure ahead. And they have left at home a great emptiness, a quiet that is not peace. Then,—and very suddenly,—they have ceased to be boys on a great adventure, and are men, fighting men, patriots and soldiers. Something that had always been theirs had become a thing that had to be fought for. Not until it was menaced had they known how dear was their country. The flag had been but a flag. It became a symbol of home. I have lived to see my country’s flag beside the altar of my church. Men fight wars, but it is the mothers of a nation who raise the army. They are the silent patriots. Given her will, every mother in this great land would go to war, if by so doing she could keep her sons in safety. It is easier to go than to send a boy. Yet war is not necessarily death. I try to comfort myself with this. Perhaps it will help other mothers. It is a hazard, but it is a thing of vast rewards and much cheerfulness, of democracy, of big moments and little feasts, of smiles and grumbling, of labor and rest, and of that joy in his own kind that only the boy knows. And underneath it all, buried deep and never articulate, is that feeling of doing his bit for his country, which is the foundation on which a nation rests secure.