To get out of the Sunday crowd I walked along the Spree. Here is one of the largest barracks in Berlin. I wonder how many men of the Kaiser Alexander Garde Grenadiers will come back to their beautiful home. It seems to have been one of the regiments most severely cut up in France lately. On a large poster at the corner of Eberts-Brücke, amongst many _affiches_ of music-halls, boot polish, and tooth paste, I read the announcement of a special evening service and sermon at the cathedral at five o'clock. I walked down to the Lustgarten, just in time for the service. The large church was full of people. The crowd of over two thousand perhaps was chiefly composed of women and old men. I noticed that an extraordinary number were in mourning. The dark crowd contrasted curiously with the aggressive bright gold of the dome lighted by a number of electric lamps. The minister began his sermon. As I was right at the back of the church I missed at first most of his words, but, little by little, I began to understand better. "We don't know how many of our sons have lost their lives up to now," he said, "but be sure that they have found the way which leads straight to eternal happiness. He who dies in war for his country and for the Kaiser is certain of the sight of God. The Lord has put a sword in the hands of our Kaiser. He knows where and how to strike in this war. Glory on our sons who have died; they died like heroes, all of them, and every mother, every sister, every wife, must be proud to have lost the man they love in such a noble way. Be sure that our soldiers have never done anything less than noble. They are fighting in a treacherous country, but they are fighting for a right, holy cause, and they are bound to win." I felt like shouting at him: "Malines, Rheims, Louvaine, Termonde! What do you say of these? Is that the way the favourites of God should fight! Is that the way to fight for civilisation?" I could not stand it any more, and walked out. In front of me was the Schloss-Brücke, with huge groups illustrating the education, life, and glorification of the warrior. This is one of the many proofs of how Germany has been preparing her children for war for generations and generations. I thought of the sentence, "The war into which we have been driven," I had just heard from the priest's lips, and I wondered if that man of God, in the House of God, was lying, knowing that he did so, or if he, too, was simply consumed utterly by the mad wave of military exaltation which seemed to have covered the whole of Germany. * * * Sitting round a large corner table at the Café Fürstenhof with huge glasses of beer in front of us and a good after-dinner cigar, the reticence of the two officers who were in my company melted away slowly. Even the latest German atrocities will not make me deny the wonderful convivial effect of a large glass of blonde cervogie.