We got out together when we went back to our own Company to get extra clothes.  We stayed out about as long as we liked, too, and when we came back, we had the Belgian with us, so nothing was said.  The strafe-barrack keepers, even the bayonet man, had a wholesome fear of the Belgian.

This Belgian was always more or less of a mystery to us.  He was certainly a spy, but it was evident he took advantage of his position to show many kindnesses to the other prisoners.

* * *

There was one book which we were allowed to read while in Strafe-Barrack, and that was the Bible.  There were no Bibles provided, but if any prisoner had one, he might retain it.  I don’t think the Germans have ever got past the Old Testament in their reading, and when they read about the word of the Lord coming to some one and telling him to rise up early and go out and wipe out an enemy country—­men, women, and children—­they see themselves, loaded with Kultur, stamping and hacking their way through Belgium.

I read the Books of the Kings and some other parts of the Old Testament, with a growing resentment in my heart every time it said the “Lord had commanded” somebody to slay and pillage and steal.  I knew how much of a command they got.  They saw something they wanted, a piece of ground, a city, perhaps a whole country.  The king said, “Get the people together; let’s have a mass-meeting; I have a message from God for the people!” When the people were assembled, the king broke the news:  “God wants us to wipe out the Amalekites!” The king knew that the people were incurably religious.  They would do anything if it can be made to appear a religious duty.  Then the people gave a great shout and said:  “The Lord reigneth.  Let us at the Amalekites!  If you’re waking, call me early”—­and the show started.

The Lord has been blamed for nearly all the evil in the world, and yet Christ’s definition of God is love, and He goes on to say, “Love worketh no ill to his neighbor.”

I can quite understand the early books in the Bible being written by men of the same cast of mind as the Kaiser, who solemnly and firmly believed they were chosen of God to punish their fellow-men, and incidentally achieve their ambitions.

But it has made it hard for religion.  Fair-minded people will not worship a God who plays favorites.  I soon quit reading the Old Testament.  I was not interested in fights, intrigues, plots, and blood-letting.

But when I turned to the teachings of Christ, so fair and simple, and reasonable and easy to understand, I knew that here we had the solution of all our problems.  Love is the only power that will endure, and when I read again the story of the Crucifixion, and Christ’s prayer for mercy for his enemies because he knew they did not understand, I knew that this was the principle which would bring peace to the world.  It is not force and killing and bloodshed and prison-bars that will bring in the days of peace, but that Great Understanding which only Love can bring.