Page:The Dial (Volume 68).djvu/462

308 one apostle of another at Emmaus, 'Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us by the way!

Mr. Graham's faith is a point of prime importance, but only for him and for those who share it. It is interesting to be assured of the vitality of such a Christian faith but Mr. Graham carefully avoids thinking of the purpose of the war and of its results; he enters no defence; his whole book condemns utterly the system which produced the war, the system which carried it through and by implication the social system which was strengthened by it. He has much to say of the goodness and greatness of the men in battle; he has nothing to say for the harassed and drunken and limited lives they led before they entered the Guards. When he has to face a disagreeable thing he faces it boldly; but he can always turn to the thought of the King or to the thought of God. And without desiring to belittle either of these attitudes of mind I would point out to Mr. Graham that to meet a fact by a thought, instead of by a deed, is a sin against man if not against the God who made man.

I have a silly suspicion that those who are preparing for the next war are discouraging the sale of books like these two. It should be stated, therefore, that both authors were volunteers, that both fought with honour, and that both believed in the war as long as they could. Mr. Gibbs wishes that he had been a pacifist long ago; Mr. Graham, I take it, hopes that the world will be pacifist a long time from now. If barricades rise in the streets these men will be on opposite sides; and that, too, is one of the war's little ironies, for they suffered much together and for the same high purpose, and they are for ever asunder Nor is the irony exclusively theirs.