And a new religion has risen in the trenches, a faith much more akin to Mahomet than to Christ.  It is a fatalism of action.  The soldier finds his salvation in the belief that nothing will happen to him until his hour comes, and the logical corollary of this belief, that it does no good to worry, is his rock of ages.  It is a curious thing to see poilus—­peasants, artisans, scholars—­completely in the grip of this philosophy.  There has been a certain return to the Church of Rome, for which several reasons exist, the greatest being that the war has made men turn to spiritual things.  Only an animal could be confronted with the pageant of heroism, the glory of sacrifice, and the presence of Death, and not be moved to a contemplation of the fountain-head of these sublime mysteries.  But it is the upper class which in particular has returned to the Church.  Before the war, rationalist and genial skeptic, the educated Frenchman went to church because it was the thing to do, and because non-attendance would weaken an institution which the world was by no means ready to lay aside.  This same educated Frenchman, brought face to face with the mystery of human existence, has felt a real need of spiritual support, and consequently returned to the Church of his fathers.

The religious revival is a return of upper-class prodigals to the fold, and a rekindling of the chilled brands of the faith of the amiably skeptical.  The great mass of the nation has felt this spiritual force, but because the mass of the nation was always Catholic, nothing much has changed.  I failed to find any trace of conversions among the still hostile working men of the towns, and the bred-in-the-bone Socialists.  The rallying of the conservative classes about the Cross is also due to the fact that the war has exposed the mediocrity and sterile windiness of the old socialistic governments; this misgovernment the upper classes have determined to end once they return from the trenches, and remembering that the Church of Rome was the enemy of the past administrations, cannot help regarding her with a certain friendliness.  But this issue of past misgovernment will be fought out on purely secular grounds, and the Church will be only a sympathizer behind the fray.  The manner in which the French priests have fought and died is worthy of the admiration of the world.  Never in the history of any country has the national religion been so closely enmeshed in the national life.  The older clergy, as a rule, have been attached to the medical services of the front, serving as hospital orderlies and stretcher-bearers, but the younger priests have been put right into the army and are fighting to-day as common soldiers.  There are hundreds of officer-priests—­captains and lieutenants of the regular army.

But the real religion of the front is the philosophy of Mahomet.  Life will end only when Death has been decreed by Fate, and the Boches are the unbelievers.  After all, Islam in its great days was a virile faith, the faith of a race of soldiers.