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A few days later, with some children, I went to the Hippodrome. And it remained for the Hippodrome, of all places, to give me the thrill I had not achieved abroad, the thrill I had not experienced since the first months of the war. Mr. George Cohan accomplished it. The transport with steam up, is ready to leave the wharf, the khaki-clad regiment of erect and vigorous young Americans marches across the great stage, and the audience strains forward and begins to sing, under its breath, the words that proclaim, as nothing else perhaps proclaims, how America feels.

“Send the word, send the word over there…
We’ll be o-ver, we’re coming o-ver,
And we won’t come back till it’s o-ver, over there!”

Is it the prelude of a tragedy? We have always been so successful, we Americans. Are we to fail now? I am an American, and I do not believe we are to fail. But I am soberer, somehow a different American than he who sailed away in August. Shall we learn other things than those that have hitherto been contained in our philosophy?

Of one thing I am convinced. It is the first war of the world that is not a miltary war, although miltary genius is demanded, although it is the bloodiest war in history. But other qualities are required; men and women who are not professional soldiers are fighting in it and will aid in victory. The pomp and circumstance of other wars are lacking in this, the greatest of all. We had the thrills, even in America, three years ago, when Britain and France and Canada went in. We tingled when we read of the mobilizing of the huge armies, of the leave-takings of the soldiers. We bought every extra for news of those first battles on Belgian soil. And I remember my sensations when in the province of Quebec in the autumn of 1914, looking out of the car-window at the troops gathering on the platforms who were to go across the seas to fight for the empire and liberty. They were singing “Tipperary!” “Tipperary!” One seldoms hears it now, and the way has proved long–longer than we reckoned. And we are singing “Over There!”

In those first months of the war there was, we were told, in England and France a revival of “religion,” and indeed many of the books then written gave evidence of having been composed in exalted, mystic moods. I remember one in particular, called “En Campagne,” by a young French officer. And then, somehow, the note of mystic exaltation died away, to be succeeded by a period of realism. Read “Le Feu,” which is most typical, which has sold in numberless editions. Here is a picture of that other aspect–the grimness, the monotony, and the frequent bestiality of trench life, the horror of slaughtering millions of men by highly specialized machinery. And yet, as an American, I strike inevitably the note of optimism once more. Even now the truer spiritual goal is glimpsed through the battle clouds, and has been hailed in world-reverberating phrases by our American President. Day by day the real issue is clearer, while the “religion” it implies embraces not one nation, wills not one patriotism, but humanity itself. I heard a Frenchwoman who had been deeply “religious” in the old sense exclaim: “I no longer have any faith in God; he is on the side of the Germans.” When the war began there were many evidences of a survival of that faith that God fights for nations, interferes in behalf of the “righteous” cause. When General Joffre was in America he was asked by one of our countrywomen how the battle of the Marne was won. “Madame,” he is reported to have said, “it was won by me, by my generals and soldiers.” The tendency to regard this victory, which we hope saved France and the Western humanitarian civilization we cherish, as a special interposition of Providence, as a miracle, has given place to the realization that the battle was won by the resourcefulness, science, and coolness of the French commander-in-chief. Science preserves armies, since killing, if it has to be done, is now wholly within that realm; science heals the wounded, transports them rapidly to the hospitals, gives the shattered something still to live for; and, if we are able to abandon the sentimental view and look facts in the face–as many anointed chaplains in Europe are doing–science not only eliminates typhoid but is able to prevent those terrible diseases that devastate armies and nations. And science is no longer confined to the physical but has invaded the social kingdom, is able to weave a juster fabric into the government of peoples. On all sides we are beginning to embrace the religion of self-reliance, a faith that God is on the side of intelligence–intelligence with a broader meaning than the Germans have given it, for it includes charity.