By the middle of February, 1917, the Sinn Fein leaders were at work again. _Nationality_ reappeared as a weekly paper. It appealed no longer to a few enthusiasts but to a wide public eager to learn more of the only movement which promised anything definite. Before the Rising Sinn Fein had seemed to aim at the impossible by means beyond the powers of average human nature: it did not seem possible that any large body of Irishmen should try to secure independence by the hard path of Sinn Fein, when there was a prospect of something (to all outward appearance) nearly as good to be gained by recording a vote for the right man at elections. It was now plain to the average Nationalist that the parliamentary prospect held no promise: that the Irish Parliamentary Party were no longer listened to, and that the sworn enemies of Irish nationality were in the seats of power both in Ireland and in England. Mr. Redmond, confronted alternately in England by the iron insolence of the Tories and the smiling sinuosities of the Prime Minister, manned his guns to the last: but he had no longer the support of the country. The country was beginning to rally to the party which alone seemed to be the party of fixed principles: which had another standard by which to measure national rights than the temporary possibilities, varying from month to month, offered by the difficulties confronting English Ministers: the party which did not entreat but demanded. Sinn Fein did not promise now any more than in the days of its obscurity that national freedom could be won by the anaemic struggles of the division lobbies in the House: it warned its followers that the way would be long and steep, that to shun the steep places was to miss the track, and that the path did not cross the water. It had said this before, but it said it now to ears ready to receive it. If men had died for Ireland (men asked) facing the old enemy, what lesser sacrifice could be called too great? A wave of enthusiasm which no appeal to policy or prudence could withstand swept over the country when the new campaign began.