IN the devastated region of Belgium--and most of Belgium is devastated--there stands a little house unharmed and tranquil as before the war. Round about it are ruined walls, standing black with smoke or grey with the powder of shell-fire. Two women live there, middle-aged women. They did not flee their home when the war-tide rushed over them. They were frightened--yes, but they did not flee. They saw neighboring houses in flames, they heard the detonation of shells bursting; but they remained between their four thin walls, and waited and prayed. Four gods they prayed to, God the Father and God the Son, and two others--their father and mother, who had passed on some years before into the other world, their Belgian father and their German mother! So great was their faith that they believed they would be unharmed, and they were not harmed. Incredible as it may seem, that little house stands there secure in the midst of desolation. Love is a protective force. The father and mother of those two middle-aged women had loved each other tenderly. Race was no barrier to their love. The German woman and the Belgian man had taught their children that Germany was their mother and Belgium was their father. Their bones lie together in the village churchyard, and their souls kept watch when the armies passed over. They guarded the children they loved. Does this seem an impossible story? I know it to be a fact. I have spoken with that father and mother, and I shall speak with them again. Their faith is rare, and their love is rare, and their reward has been rare. It is easier to guard a little house than to move a mountain, and it has been said that faith like a grain of mustard-seed could move a mountain. Those two souls had not yet passed away from the neighborhood of the earth; they waited for their children. When the war-tide rolled over, they stood guard at the doorstone of their home. The spirits of the peaceful dead do not like the sound of shells, but those two did not fly away. Had they been frightened from their vigil, the little house might now be like its neighbors. Am I over-credulous? Do you remember my telling you one day years ago that you were not credulous enough? I see that you remember. These two--the Belgian father and the German mother--were also credulous, as the world uses the word, and their children were credulous, too. Had the nations been equally credulous of the power of love, there would have been no war; for there would have been no armies to make war. I am not preaching against armies. I am only preaching love and faith. When love and faith grow greater, armies will grow smaller, and war will be at an end. I asked the Belgian father how he felt about the war, and he looked toward his German wife; I asked the German mother how she felt about the war, and she looked toward her Belgian husband. Neither would speak for fear of wounding the other.