Still eastward, and now with a thrill of indescribable emotion we find ourselves at Herbesthal, the German frontier. Before us in the sunshine lie the broad fertile plains of the people whose rulers have deluged the world with blood and tears. One remembers with bowed head the many million lives laid down before we handful of British folk could journey thus far into the country of the enemy who had challenged our very existence. With the memory of shattered and devastated France before our eyes, we think with sternness no punishment can be too severe in expiation of the crime under whose consequences the world is staggering to-day. A train-load of German prisoners, homeward bound, runs into the station. They cheer, not very loudly or energetically, it is true, but nevertheless they cheer as once again they touch the soil of the Fatherland. From the windows we catch sight of eager, excited faces among the shabby men in their faded uniforms. Insensibly the heart softens. They too have gone through hardship and suffering, just ordinary men glad to be home again, eager to see wife and child and sweetheart. And then, as the train rolls forward, suddenly on the threshold of the enemy’s land comes the remembrance of those noble words, one of the few great utterances which illumine the darkness and the passions of war, “Patriotism is not enough, I must have no hatred or bitterness in my heart.” The hands of brutal men could not touch the serenity of Edith Cavell’s soul. On the threshold of a cruel death her spirit had soared above the hideous welter of passion and brutality all around. She saw these things in the light of eternity; saw also the ultimate good of life express itself, not in the narrow terms of race, but in abiding spiritual values. The demand for vengeance which followed on her death has to a large extent obscured the greatness of her message. Yet Edith Cavell indicated expressly that vengeance was not the way. No individual during the war has thrown a ray of light more clear on the turmoil of the struggle. But the path she trod is not an easy one, and many who honour her name shrink from a task of self-conquest so great as what she indicates.... No hatred and no bitterness: and we are English people crossing the German frontier for the first time after the war.... What has Edith Cavell to say to each one of us? Aix-la-Chapelle--Aachen--with its memories of Charlemagne, King of the Franks, lies some ten miles within the German frontier. Few outward signs of its venerable history survive in the busy manufacturing centre of to-day. The cathedral, founded by Charlemagne, where the ashes of the great monarch lie buried, rises--an incongruous and protesting relic--among factories, tall chimneys, and all the ugly apparatus of modern industry. Aachen is in Belgian occupation, and we stare from our carriage windows at a mixed throng of Belgian soldiers, British Tommies, and German civilians, with whom the station is crowded.