Heroism is contagious. It becomes easier when every one is practicing it. What we need now, more than anything, are big, strong, heroic leaders, men of moral passion, who will show us the hard path of sacrifice, not asking us to do what they are not willing to do themselves; not pointing the way, but traveling in it; men of heroic mould who will say, "If my right eye offend me, I will pluck it out"; men who are willing to go down to political death if the country can be saved by that sacrifice. We need men at home who are as brave as the boys in the trenches, who risk their lives every day in a dozen different ways, without a trace of self-applause, who have laid all their equipment on the altar of sacrifice; who "carry on" when all seems hopeless; who stand up to death unflinchingly, and at the last, ask only, that their faces may be turned to the West!--to Canada! We have always had plenty of amiability, but in this terrible time it will not do. Our country is calling for love. CHAPTER XVI WAITING! Sing a song of the Next of Kin, A weary, wishful, waiting rhyme, That has no tune and has no time, But just a way of wearing in! Sing a song of those who weep While slow the weary night hours go; Wondering if God willed it so, That human life should be so cheap! Sing a song of those who wait, Wondering what the post will bring; Saddened when he slights the gate, Trembling at his ring,-- The day the British mail comes in Is a day of thrills for the Next of Kin. When the Alpine climbers make a dangerous ascent, they fasten a rope from one to the other; so that if one slips, the others will be able to hold him until he finds his feet again; and thus many a catastrophe is averted! We have a ring like that here--we whose boys are gone. Somebody is almost sure to get a letter when the British mail comes in; and even a letter from another boy read over the 'phone is cheering, especially if he mentions your boy--or even if he doesn't; for we tell each other that the writer of the letter would surely know "if anything had happened." Even "Posty" does his best to cheer us when the letters are far apart, and when the British mail has brought us nothing tells us it was a very small, and, he is sure, divided mail, and the other part of it will be along to-morrow. He also tells us the U-boats are probably accounting for the scarcity of French mail, anyway, and we must not be worried. He is a good fellow, this "Posty"!