The service begins with this ancient chorale, and as voice after voice joins in the effect is indescribable. During the solemn moments of the mass practically the whole congregation kneels. Often as I have watched some fat square-headed German singing the words of petition and penitence, or bending humbly before the Host, I have asked myself in utter bewilderment what it all means. How are we to reconcile the discrepancy between the sincerity and devotion of such worshippers, and the darker, more sinister sides of the German character? The Rhineland, a Catholic country civilised originally by ancient Rome, is not Prussia. But it is thoroughly German in sentiment and outlook. “Pious Cologne” had a bad reputation for the treatment of our prisoners. I have known personally two officers who were spat upon by well-dressed women in the railway station. Stories well attested were told me of wounded prisoners who were insulted when marched through the streets. Many cases of cruelty, often of gross cruelty, are proved. To shut our eyes to such facts, or to minimise them, is as foolish as to write off the whole German people as bred of Beelzebub. The passions roused by years of bitter warfare do not subside with any formal signing of peace. Yet to see things steadily, and to see them whole, is of all difficult principles the most essential in our relations with Germany. The future of Europe and of Western civilisation largely turns on our power to place these discrepant facts side by side, to recognise that both are true and then to strike some balance between them. It is extraordinarily difficult to judge what the incidence of brutality was among the Germans during the war; how far it was natural, how far deliberately stimulated by those in authority. Our own gallant Hun hunters, who glowed with patriotic pride and satisfaction over the persecution of some wretched hairdresser or inoffensive nursery governess, are a sorry proof as to the ease with which vile instincts can be cultivated and spread. The overwhelming majority of the English in Cologne arrive with rigid ready-made ideas about the country and people, and they do not part from them willingly. They feel it below their dignity to study the Boche dispassionately, to watch him at work, at play, at prayer. But if we are concerned in this distracted world not to rest perpetually in the barren measures of strife, then it may be worth while to consider dispassionately what qualities the Germans possess which hold out some hope for the future. From this aspect it seems to me that Cologne Cathedral and its congregations are worthy of attention. The heart of every man is an altar, neglected, desecrated perhaps, but never forfeiting its right to serve the divine purpose. The sacred fire may burn low, but so long as one votary remains, holden though his eyes may be, the fire can never know extinction. A spark from heaven may fall again upon the ashes so that they blaze upwards