In this booklet I get no information as to the commercial causes of war, nor about the part which the clerical vote may have played throughout Europe in supporting military systems.  I do not even find anything about the sacred cause of democracy, the resolve of a self-governing people to put an end to feudal rule.  Instead I discover a soldier-boy who obeys and keeps silent, and who, in his inmost heart, is in the grip of terrors both of body and soul.  Poor, pitiful soldier-boy, marking yourself with crosses, performing genuflexions, mumbling magic formulas in the trenches—­how many billions of you have been led out to slaughter by the greeds and ambitions of your religious masters, since first this accursed Antichrist got its grip upon the hearts of men!

I quote from this little book: 

Start this day well by lifting up your heart to God.  Offer yourself to Him, and beg grace to spend the day without sin.  Make the sign of the cross.  Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, behold me in Thy Divine Presence.  I adore Thee and give Thee thanks.  Grant that all I do this day be for Thy Glory, and for the salvation of my immortal soul.

During the day lift your heart frequently to God.  Your prayers need not be long nor read from a book.  Learn a few of these short ejaculations by heart and frequently repeat them.  They will serve to recall God to your heart and will strengthen you and comfort you.

You remember a while back about the prayer-wheels of the Thibetans.  The Catholic religion was founded before the Thibetan, and is less progressive; it does not welcome mechanical devices for saving labor.  You have to use your own vocal apparatus to keep yourself from hell; but the process has been made as economical as possible by kindly dispensations of the Pope.  Thus, each time that you say “My God and my all,” you get fifty days indulgence; the same for “My Jesus, mercy,” and the same for “Jesus, my God, I love Thee above all things.”  For “Jesus, Mary, Joseph,” you get three hundred days—­which would seem by all odds the best investment of your spare breath.

And then come prayers for all occasions:  “Prayer before Battle”; “Prayer for a Happy Death”; “Prayer in Temptation”; “Prayer before and after Meals”; “Prayer when on Guard”; “Prayer before a long March”; “Prayer of Resignation to Death”; “Prayer for Those in their Agony”—­I cannot bear to read them, hardly to list them.  I remember standing in a cathedral “somewhere in France” during the celebration of some special Big Magic.  There was brilliant white light, and a suffocating strange odor, and the thunder of a huge organ, and a clamor of voices, high, clear voices of young boys mounting to heaven, like the hands of men in a pit reaching up, trying to climb over the top of one another.  It sent a shudder into the depths of my soul.  There is nothing left in the modern world which can carry the mind so far back into the ancient nightmare