"One man is shot by a shell, both in the arm and leg--both are amputated--there lie the rejected members. Some have their legs blown off--some bullets through the breast--some indescribably horrid wounds in the face or head, all mutilated, sickening, torn, gouged out--some in the abdomen--some mere boys--many rebels, badly hurt--they take their regular turns with the rest, just the same as any--the surgeons use them just the same. Such is the camp of the wounded--such a fragment, a reflection afar off of the bloody scene--while all over the clear, large moon comes out at times softly, quietly shining. "Amid the woods, the scene of flitting souls--amid the crack and crash and yelling sounds--the impalpable perfume of the woods--and yet the pungent, stifling smoke--the radiance of the moon, looking from heaven at intervals so placid--the sky so heavenly--the clear-obscure up there, those buoyant upper oceans--a few large, placid stars beyond, coming silently and languidly out, and then disappearing--the melancholy, draperied night above, around. And never one more desperate in any age or land--both parties now in force--masses--no fancy battle, no semi-play, but fierce and savage demons fighting there--courage and scorn of death is the rule, exceptions almost none."--_From Walt Whitman_. * * * * * CHINESE CHRISTIANS ON THE WAR. "The most remarkable attitude yet taken in regard to the war by any body of people in the world is that of the native Christian Churches in China. I was told a fortnight ago by a missionary just returned from China that the Chinese Christians are holding daily prayer meetings to pray for peace. They are also praying earnestly that the Christians in Europe may be forgiven for killing each other, and, in particular, that the British and German churches and ministers may be forgiven for the blasphemy of praying to the Common Father for victory over one another, _i.e._ for Divine assistance in smashing and maiming and murdering more of their fellow Christians. I am also told that these Chinese Christians appreciate perfectly that for the most part the people to be killed are helpless, innocent workmen, who have had nothing to do with the cause of all the trouble. "That action of the Chinamen is of the essence of real Christianity. It is the real spirit. It has been expressed in Europe only by the Pope, on the one hand, and, on the other, by the Socialists of the neutral countries and by the I.L.P. in England. It is the echo of the angel song of the first Christmas two thousand years ago. It is the true note, the eternal note. It is the note which will bring mankind back to its senses when the hideous passions, the false idealisms, and the sordid greeds behind this world tragedy are shown up for what they are."--_By Dr. Alfred Salter in "The Labour Leader," December_ 31, 1914. * * * * * ESSENTIAL FRIENDLINESS OF PEOPLES.