‘Adversity,’ wrote Francis Bacon, ‘like a toad ugly and venomous, yet holds a precious jewel in its head.’ In our present adversity the ugliness and venom bulk so large that the precious jewel, the one redeeming feature best calculated to afford consolation, may be easily missed. To the thoughtful mind, and especially to the religious mind that is rooted in God as the one sure foundation of all things, this consoling side can most easily be seen in a comparison between the sort of victory that most were looking for and the kind of victor)-’ that must now be won.

Most people began with a short-sighted view of the war as a conflict for supremacy between certain combinations of nations. They hoped that we had a better combination than our opponents, and that in the long run we should beat them by the weight of our resources and superior position rather than, necessarily, in the field. That seemed the easiest way and the least painful to ourselves. It was but human nature to hope for victory without great suffering to ourselves. Such a view, however, misses both the deeper underlying nature of the conflict and the fact that such a victory would have no more chance, rather considerably less, of solving the real problems than did the victory of 1918. Not peace, but an armed truce would be again the state of the world.