cloud of smoke and dust indicated the points of possible conflict. Many highways were visible, all crowded with an unending stream of traffic, motor trucks, artillery trains, horses, marching men and swiftly moving ambulances. Here and there we got a glimpse of the thousands of engineers building roads and bridges and various fortifications. With the methodical persistency of ants, they toiled night and day, in the mud and the dust and the confusion of traffic-digging, burrowing, breaking stone, chopping, building, and all the while making a superb contribution to the winning of that greatest of all battles of the war. To the northwest Montfaucon loomed clear against the sky. From this high point of vantage the Crown Prince directed the Battle of Verdun in 1916. Here also the Seventy-ninth Division received its first baptism of fire and blood, wresting this strategic ground from the Hun after two days of desperate fighting. Beyond lay the dark outlines of the Argonne Forest about Apremont and Grand-Pre. Here the

Third, the Forty-second and the Seventy-eighth Divisions were pushing forward slowly, fighting for every foot of the ground while the rumble of the guns came up out of the depth of the forest and reverberated along the hills like thunder from out the caverns of some vast deep. As the evening shadows fell and the outlines of those seemingly impregnable hills became enveloped in darkness and death, my heart almost failed me; for only three days before a French artillery officer had expressed

to me his fear that the Americans would never be able to accomplish what to him was an impossible task. Again I looked at the battered old cathedral, the altar and the crucifix and I seemed to understand, as never before, what Jesus meant when He said to Peter: "Upon this rock will I build my church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.” The Church is built upon the rocklike foundation of a two-fold faith, the unfaltering faith of men in the sacrifice of Christ and the undying faith of Christ in the heroism of men.

Three weeks later to a day, the armistice was to go into effect at eleven o'clock. Five minutes before eleven, soldiers from all nations began to gather about the old cathedral in Verdun as if drawn by some mysterious magnet. The following by B. C. Edworth, in Association Men, is a vivid description of what took place: "The firing all along the line was intense and heavier than usual right up to the appointed minute. Then, as suddenly as though God Himself had dropped a wet blanket over the crackling flames of Hell and at one blow had extinguished them all, the firing and the rumbling immediately ceased. Then from the forty bells high in the still untouched towers of that old cathedral at Verdun, which had witnessed the most heroic sacrifice of life and love save that on Calvary alone, pealed forth as did the voices over the Bethlehem hills, those silver tones that once again were saying, 'Peace on Earth.'”

The men were joyously and deliriously leaping about, yelling, and shouting, and singing, and kissing one another. Slowly those heavy cathedral doors were opened and in rushed about six hundred of the Allied soldiers. Dr. Oscar Maurer walked to the altar rail and knelt there, praying the prayer As he rose he turned,

of a sincere Christian. and all was quiet. He said, "Boys, I believe we all want to sing and that we ought to sing the Dox ology." As though it had been arranged, an English soldier with a splendid tenor voice started that wonderful paean of praise, "Praise God from whom all blessings flow," and everyone who knew the words joined him in the singing.

"At its close, Mr. Maurer lifted his hands, intending to speak. Not misinterpreting but rather interpreting more deeply the meaning of the man, Mohammedans, Catholics, Jews and Protestants, as well as the unbelieving brothers, bowed their heads and fell on their knees. And there, in that ruined place, six hundred soldiers knelt, Mohammedans bumping their heads on the stone, Catholics devoutly crossing themselves, and Jews and Protestants with hands clasped and faces shining, their eyes lifted to heaven. Dr. Maurer led in that everwonderful prayer, 'Our Father who art in heaven.""

In sharp contrast with the above pictured scene of men at prayer, one reads with a feeling of bewilderment, the following description of men by an experienced chaplain in the British Army:

"This chapter is about the men who do not profess to be religious. That is to say, it is about the majority of the men in the country-the majority in the army, or in any public works, or in any trade or profession.

"I have known really half a battalion profess faith in Christ by sitting down together at His table. I have also known where not ten per cent. would take advantage of any religious privileges offered them. And I have never heard of any battalion where a numerical majority of the men were willing to profess faith.

"It was the great good fortune of chaplains at the front that they got to know well many of that majority. They mixed with men with whom at home they could never have mixed. They came to understand and like scores of men who, in civil life, had given all parsons a wide berth.

"It was, of course, a breezy experience to live with them. Most chaplains heard enough swearing in a week to keep their hair on end for the rest of their lives. Many of them learnt priceless hometruths through talks with soldiers who were just drunk enough to be confidential and unreserved. Those who were of the 'pale young curate' type must have been sadly shocked at the amount of horseplay and rude speech they witnessed.

"But what of the actual men who live beneath this strange veneer of rough speech and manners? "Well, of course, they are of all types and kinds. A few are low in mind and mean in conduct

dodgers, and shirkers of the worst sort. A few are as unattractive as the human being can be. But many also are amazingly attractive sunny in nature, witty, cheery, and full of kindly instincts. Some are dull and ignorant, but many are alert in intellect and have well-stored minds. Some are gross, but many are refined in feeling. Some are noisy, and some are quiet. Some are sly, but many are open and honest in heart. Most seem careless and thoughtless, but many, in fact, live their lives according to definite principles.

"And yet they have this in common, that they remain apparently stubbornly indifferent to the appeals of religion. They do not join churches, and do not seem interested in religious truth.

"Why is it? The conventional explanation is that they are in self-will refusing to submit to God, that they are worldly in mind, that they love pleasure more than God, that they continue in sin by definite choice, and shun religion because of its moral restraints. Alas! Alas! there is truth in these charges. The natural man may be very attractive and yet live in enmity towards God. Love itself could not deny that many men in the army are resisting God.

"But do these charges express the whole truth? That is just what a chaplain's life constrains him to doubt. For these men have such splendid virtues -all the more splendid because unconscious. They are heroically patient under horrible hard