The absurdity of appeals to reason, addressed to nations unbalanced by fear and desire, has never been more apparent than to-day. With the tissue of patriotic idealism worn threadbare, exposing ugly national greeds, self-complacent incompetence, and shameless commercialism, it would seem incredible that even the mob mind should not revolt. Yet, it is just at this supreme moment of disillusion, when the showing up of all belligerents is complete, that voices are heard clamouring for more soldiers to fight for Liberty, and the more incurable professors of Democracy--that blessed word--actually suggest that the true significance of the war should be explained to an ignorant Ireland. Once our darkness was lightened by the lords of propaganda we would take our places, not in the rear as become late-comers, but in the forefront of the great crusade, which is to restore to France her frontier of 1814, to allocate the Balkan States to various masters, to partition Turkey, and rearrange the economic and geographical map, to the greater glory of the Allied God. To say the least, the moment is not quite propitious to the cultivation of the necessary faith in people living, politically, _in partibus infidelium_. It is no wonder that the Irish nation, without introspection of motive, has united in opposition to the application of a law which could never have established itself, if it had been born into a world as sceptical as that of to-day. Illusion or panic must urge the duty of compulsory military service.