What is the attitude of the Irish Catholic soldier towards this religious movement as a means of preservation and grace in the trials and perils of war? I have read many letters from Irish Catholics on service in France, Flanders and the East in which the matter is referred to, and have discussed it with some of those who have been invalided home. All this testimony establishes beyond question that the mystical sense of the Irish nature, which has been developed to a high degree by the two tremendous influences of race and religion, leads the Irish Catholic soldier profoundly to believe that there is a supernatural interference often with the chances and fortunes of the battlefield in answer to prayers. Michael O'Leary, V.C., a splendid type of the Irish soldier in body and mind, gave a brief but pointed statement of his views on the matter. "A shell has grazed my cheek and blown a comrade by my side to pieces," he said, "though there was no reason, so far as I could see, but the act of God, why the shell should not have knocked my head off and grazed my comrade's cheek." The average Irish soldier probably knows nothing of the materialistic theory that Nature is a closed system; that the laws of the universe are fixed and immutable; that no wearing of holy objects, and no amount of praying even, will ever disturb their uniform mechanical working; and that the sole reason why any soldier on the battlefield escapes being hit by a bullet or piece of explosive shell is that he was not directly in its line of flight. Such a doctrine would be regarded, at least by the simple and instinctive natures in the Irish ranks, as the limit of blasphemy. Their belief in the reality and power of God is most profound. God is to them still the lord and master of all the forces of Nature; and the turning aside of a bullet or piece of explosive shell would be but the slightest manifestation of His almighty omnipotence. Mystery surrounds the Irish Catholic soldier at all times. His realisation of the unseen is very vivid. The saints and angels are his companions, not the less real and potent because they are not visible to his eyes. But it is on the field of battle that he is most closely enveloped by these spiritual presences. He is convinced that he has but to call upon them, and that, if he be in a state of grace, they will come to his aid as the ministers of God. So he prays that God may protect and save him, and he wears next his heart the emblems of God's angels and saints. Thus he feels invincible against the powers of darkness in both the spiritual and material worlds. For these devotions have also the effect of putting him in train to receive submissively whatever fate God may will him. He knows that God can safeguard him in the fight if He chooses; and he believes that if God does not choose so to do it is because in His wisdom He does not deem it right. "Blessed be the holy will of God!"