It did something to Dick. It made easier his renunciation of Nancy which he still believed was his duty. That was his part, his sacrifice, he told himself. He must give himself now to keeping alive, feeding this new sense that had come to the town; and he threw himself with enthusiasm into the work of explaining to Sabinsport the national aspirations and hopes that began to take form in the unfamiliar countries of Europe. At the camp, at the Boys' Club, in his church, and at the War Board, Dick made himself the advocate of Serbian and Bohemian, Czecho-Slav and Pole. For the first time in all Sabinsport's life, she began really to sense that these strange men who filled her mines and her factories carried in their hearts loves for their lands like hers for America; that they, too, had dreams--some of them coming down from hundreds of years of struggle--of freedom and equal opportunity in their own nations. And her chivalry, her sense of protection, her determination to help them see it through, grew with her knowledge. It was perhaps quite natural that, as the days went on, Dick should come to feel that Sabinsport had had a change of heart so profound that it had softened even her bitterness against Germany, itself. It was this feeling that he might even talk mercifulness to Sabinsport now that led him into what afterwards was known as "the Parson's Big Break." It was not until October that Dick was able to bring himself to believe that at last the Allies had the upper hand. From the start he had seen the war as long--long--long. It was that that made him suffer so. Cantigny, Château-Thierry, the falling back to the Vesle--none of these things had really convinced him. But when the Americans captured St. Mihiel, following on the break in the North, he suddenly realized the splendid scheme on which the great French general was working. "She's beaten," he said, "she's beaten. It will take time, but we've got her." No longer was it, as the French had said it in that unquenchable faith of theirs--_On les aura_; it was no _On les a_. And as the days went on and he became more and more certain, his imagination flew ahead to the time when the Allies would reach the borders of enemy territory. He had his theory about this: Germany would unconditionally surrender before she would allow the Allies to fight on her territory. But he could not give up the idea that the Allies should enter Berlin--not as destroyers but as world peacemakers. He meditated much on this, and at last one October Sunday morning preached a sermon on the text: "He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty. And he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city." At the head of his notes he had put a title, "The Great Revenge." As he talked his imagination kindled, and almost before he knew it he fell into a rhapsody: