Thus we see that mankind has not outgrown old superstitions, as so many of us thought, but, on the contrary, is still ready to fly to them for comfort and protection in danger. The truth is that the human mind remains at bottom essentially the same amid all the changes made by time in the superficial crust of things. Man is still the heir of all the ages. Some taint of "the old Popish idolatries" survives in the blood of most of us, no matter how Protestant and rationalistic we may suppose ourselves to be. And now that the foundations of civilisation are disrupted, and humanity is involved in the coils of the most awful calamity that has ever befallen it, is it to be wondered at that hands should be piteously stretched out on all sides, and in all sorts of ways--unorthodox as well as orthodox--groping in the dark for protective touch with the unseen Powers who rule our destinies. It is in these circumstances that non-Catholic soldiers of the new Armies are turning from materialistic charms to holy emblems. It may be thought that this new cult is but a manifestation, in a slightly different form, of the same primal superstitious instinct of mankind as inspired the old, but as it has a religious origin and sanction and is really touched by spiritual emotion, it seems to me to be far removed from the other in spirit and intention. Non-Catholic soldiers appear to have been led into the new practice by the example of Catholic soldiers. These religious objects, commemorative of the Blessed Virgin and other saints, have always been carried about their persons by Irish Catholic soldiers, to some extent, as well as by Catholics generally in civil life. The custom is now almost universal among Catholic officers and men at the Front. It resembles, in a way, the still more popular practice of carrying photographs of mother, wife and child. Will it be denied that the soldier, as he looks upon the likenesses of those who cherish him, and hold him ever in their thoughts, does not derive hope and consolation from his consciousness of their watchful and prayerful love?