Then the thousands of humble working class people moved off, “hoofing it,” marching behind the soldiers to the railway station. A half dozen bankers, a dozen lawyers, and many other “leading business men” lingered, left their carriages, surrounded the preacher and congratulated him on his “splendid effort”;—and that was part of his pay for his eloquent ferocity. Well-dressed women of the “best families in the city” gave the preacher their gloved right hands and practically embraced him with the virtuous and caressing fondness in their eyes;—and that was part of his pay for scarring the souls of men, women, and little children with the branding-iron of Old Testament ferocity. That savage prayer made him more popular in the city;—and that was part of his pay for his noble ferocity. He was now more secure in his job;—and that was part of his pay for his ecclesiastical buncombe and flap-doodle,—for his jungle growl of civilized ferocity. The collections were for some time larger in his church;—and that, yea, that also, was part of his pay for serving the cash-register and thus playing the rôle of betrayer of the Prince of Peace. The handsome preacher had performed a miracle. He had so fixedly riveted the attention of the “brave boys” upon the Spaniards that the gullible volunteers noticed nothing strange in the fact that strong, healthy bankers, lawyers, merchants and preachers (patriots all of them of course)—with the stealthy quiet of a cat on a carpet—remained at home just at the very time when “great deeds of glory and patriotism” and manly heroism were to be done. Doubtless many a shot-torn boy soldier wallowing in his own blood, his chest half crushed with the hoofs of galloping cavalry horses, his splintered bones grinding together at every move, the roar of cannon and the din of curses, prayers, yells, sobs and groans of dying comrades crowding into his ears—thinks of his well-fed, soft-voiced pastor at home far away (and safe), the _good_ man, the _nice_ man, who fired his and his fellow-fighters’ hearts with “lust of death and vulgar slaughter,” who helped betray him and his fellows to the human butchering field. No doubt many working class people fondly hope that the ministers of the Christ of Peace will presently _combine_ and use their vast influence against war—to drive the red demon from the earth that it may no longer desolate the homes of the humble. Vain hope. Long ago the cynical, shrewd (and carefully baptized) Napoleon Bonaparte remarked, with biting irony, “God is always on the side of the heaviest battalions.” Today it is easy to see that not Christ,[287] but the Church of Christ, is on the side of the business man and the politician concerning war. And thus the bayonet still sticks in the breast of the working class. Thus the Cross dips to the cannon. Really, will not the followers of the gentle Christ of Peace presently sweep war from the world?