Far behind us, marking the slow advance up this ridge of death, are the sheltered cemeteries of white crosses that tell the price that has already been paid. There are five thousand crowded graves in yonder acre alone. Great is the price, awful in its solid weight of agony. This is no longer a war between two peoples, but between two principles; it is as much to free the German people as to protect ourselves. It is not for this narrow strip of hard-won soil, but for every foot of a world that from henceforth must be free. The men who are fighting on grounds of moral principle would rather pay any price than lie at ease under the false shadow of militarism, materialism, and grasping greed. These men are fighting, and many of them know that they are fighting, for a new world. Not only military oppression, but industrial oppression, must go. Not only German militarism, and Russian autocracy, and Turkish cruelty must be done away; but American materialism must be purged in the fiery furnace of this war. Its purposes will reach far beyond our ken, and though man's sin alone has caused the war, its issues are in the hands of God. The whole war has been a demonstration of the result of leaving God out of His world. The world with God left out leaves war; and life with God left out leaves hell. There must be a turning to God in our own national life. We speak of the menace of German militarism, but what is militarism but armed and aggressive materialism, the deeper principle which lies behind it? And what is materialism but organized selfishness? Materialism and selfishness are the dangers of our own land as well as of Germany. And the war is a call to set our own house in order. America can no longer live to herself alone. She is fighting for the freedom of humanity. Here on the very field of battle, at the throbbing heart of the conflict, we ask ourselves, What is the real issue of the war? What are they fighting for? Away there in Austria a young crown prince, Francis Ferdinand, was murdered. It was the spark which set off the powder mine of Europe. But not for him are they fighting. Behind him stood the two contending forces of the growing nationalism of Serbia and the expanding commercialism of Austria. These two forces clashed in conflict, but not for them are they fighting. Behind these stood two greater powers, those of pan-Germanism and pan-Slavism, a growing Germany and a rising Russia, which like a vast glacier for a thousand years had sought the open sea. The ambitions of these two powers clashed in conflict at Constantinople and elsewhere. But not for them are they fighting.