proud of—­this unbreakable spirit of self-sacrifice in the daily routine of trench warfare.  We are proud of it because it is the highest of all forms of self-sacrifice, for it is not the act of a moment when the blood is up or the excitement of battle is at fever heat; but it is demanded of the soldier, day in and day out, and shown by him coolly and deliberately, day in and day out, with death always at hand.  We are proud of it, too, because it is so surely a sign of the magnificent ’moral’ of our troops—­and moral is going to play a very leading part as the war proceeds....  What is inspiring this splendid disregard of self is partly the certainty that the Cause is Right; partly, it is a hidden joy of conscience which makes them know that they would be unhappy if they were not doing their bit—­and partly (I am convinced of this, too,) it is a deepening faith in the Founder of their Faith Whom so many appreciate and value as never before, because they realise that even He has not shirked that very mill of suffering through which they are now passing themselves.”

A few days ago, I accompanied a woman official distributing some leaflets on behalf of a Government department, in some visits to families living in a block of model dwellings somewhere in South London.  We called on nine families.  In every single case the man of the family had gone, or was expecting to go, to the war; except in one case, where a man who, out of pure patriotism and at great personal difficulty had joined the Volunteer Reserve at the outbreak of war, had strained his heart in trench-digging and was now medically unfit, to his own bitter disappointment.  There was some grumbling in the case of one young wife that her husband should be forced to go before the single men whom she knew; but in the main the temper that showed itself bore witness both to the feeling and the intelligence that our people are bringing to bear on the war.  One woman said her husband was a sergeant in a well-known regiment.  He thought the world of his men, and whenever one was killed, he must be at the burying.  “He can’t bear, you know”—­she added shyly—­“they should feel alone.”  She had three brothers-in-law “out”—­one recently killed.  One was an ambulance driver under the R.A.M.C.  He had five small children, but had volunteered.  “He doesn’t say much about the war, except that ’Tommies are wonderful.  They never complain.’” She notices a change in his character.  He was always good to his wife and children—­“but now he’s splendid!” The brother of another woman had been a jockey in Belgium, had liked the country and the people.  When war broke out he “felt he must fight for them.”  He came home at once and enlisted.  Another brother had been a stoker on a war-ship at the Dardanelles, and was in the famous landing of April 25.  Bullets “thick and fast like hailstorm.  Terrible times collecting the dead!  Her brother had worked hard forming burial parties.  Was now probably going to the Tigris.  Wrote jolly letters!”