'Nonsense, my dear chap.' 'Look here,' he cried, 'on what, in your opinion, do we depend for victory?' I was silent for a few seconds before replying. 'On the mobilization of all our Empire's forces,' I replied, 'on steady, persevering courage, and on the righteousness of our cause.' 'But supposing our cause hadn't been righteous, what then?' I saw what was in his mind, but I did not feel like yielding to him. 'It's no use talking this high-falutin stuff, Edgecumbe,' I said. 'We are at war, and war means in these days, at all events, big guns. It means the utilization of all the material forces at our command.' 'Then you believe more in a big army, and in what they call our unconquerable Navy, than in Almighty God? Do you believe in God at all, Luscombe?' 'Of course I do,' I replied; 'I am no atheist. All the same, it is our Navy which has saved us.' 'Admiral Beatty doesn't believe that,' he replied, 'and if any man knows what a navy can do, he does. Your position is identical with that of the Germans. Why, man, if God Almighty hadn't been very patient with us, we should have been beaten long ago. Germany's materialism, Germany's atheism, German devilry has been our salvation as a nation. If the logic of big guns had been conclusive, we should have been annihilated. That chap Rudyard Kipling saw a long way into the truth.' 'When? Where?' I asked. 'When he wrote that _Recessional_: Far-famed, our navies melt away, On dune and headland sinks the fire, Lo, all the pomp of yesterday Is one with Nineveh and Tyre. God of the nations, spare us yet! Lest we forget, lest we forget. 'And mind you, Kipling is a believer in force, and a believer in the utilization of all the Empire's resources; but he sees that these things are not enough. Why, man, humanly speaking, we stand on the brink of a volcano.' 'Nonsense,' I replied. 'Is it nonsense? Suppose, for example, that the Germans do what they threaten, and extend their submarine menace? Suppose they sink all merchant vessels, and thus destroy our food supplies? Where should we be then? Or suppose another thing: suppose Russia were to negotiate a separate peace, and free all the German and Austrian armies in the East, which I think is quite probable--should we be able to hold them up?' 'Do you fear these things?' I asked. 'I fear sometimes lest, as a nation, because we have forgotten God to such an extent, He has an awful lesson to teach us. In spite of more than two years of carnage and misery, we still put our trust in the things which are seen.' 'How do you know?' I replied. 'Aren't you judging on insufficient evidence?' 'Perhaps I am,' he answered. 'As you said some time ago, I know very little about England or English life, but I am going to study it.' 'How?' I asked with a laugh.