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popular imagination. Gentle-hearted, if not actually shy, one feels that the formalism and ceremony of the Court appeal less to the King than to the Queen, whose stateliness sometimes leaves an impression of aloofness. Something of the same shyness one detects in the modest, manly, happy-hearted Prince of Wales, whose personality is so captivating alike in its simplicity and its sincerity. At a time when thrones are falling, the British King moves freely among his people, everywhere honored and beloved and all who know the worth of this Empire to civilization rejoice and give thanks.

May 19. Dr. Jowett began his ministry at Westminster Chapel today, the anniversary of Pentecost,

welcomed by a hideous air-raid. Somehow, while Dr. Jowett always kindles my imagination, he never gives me that sense of reality which is the greatest thing in preaching. One enjoys his musical voice, his exquisite elocution, his mastery of the art of illustration, and his fastidious style; but the substance of his sermons is incredibly thin. Of course, this is due, in large part, to the theory of popular preaching on which he works. His method is to take a single idea large or small and turn it over and over, like a gem, revealing all its facets, on the ground that one idea is all that the average audience is equal to. Of this method Dr. Jowett is a consummate master, and it is a joy to see him make use of it, though at times it leads to a tedious repetition of the text. Often, too, he seems to be laboring under the handicap of a brilliant novelist, who must needs make up in scenery what is lacking in plot.

Since his return to London he has been less given to filigree rhetoric, and he has struck almost for the first time a social note, to the extent, at any rate, of touching upon public affairs - al

though no one would claim that Dr. Jowett has a social message, in the real meaning of that phrase. No, his forte is personal religious experience of a mild evangelical type; and to a convinced Christian audience of that tradition and training he has a ministry of edification and comfort. But for the typical man of modern mind, caught in the currents and alive to the agitations of our day, Dr. Jowett has no message. However, we must not expect everything from any one servant of God, and the painter is needed as well as the prophet.

June 2. Spent a lovely day yesterday at Selborne, a town tucked away among the chalk-hills of Hampshire. There, well-nigh two hundred years ago, Gilbert White watched the Hangar grow green in May and orange and scarlet in October, and learned to be wise. One can almost see him in the atmosphere and setting of his life, an old-bachelor parson, his face marked by the smallpox, as so many were in that day, walking over the hills, which he called 'majestic mountains,' a student and lover of nature. He was a man who knew his own mind, worked his little plot of earth free from the delusions of grandeur, and published his classic book, The Natural History of Selborne, in the year of the fall of the Bastille. Because of this coincidence of dates, it has been said that White was more concerned with the course of events in a martin's nest than with the crash of empires. No doubt; but it may be that the laws of the universe through which empires fall are best known by a man who has such quietness of soul that a brooding mother-bird will not fly away when he visits her. White asked the universe one question, and waited to hear the answer: Take away fear, and what follows? The answer is: Peace, even the peace without which a man cannot learn that when 'redstarts shake their tails, they move them hori

zontally.' It was a day to refresh the the tourist, the globe-trotter, the unsoul.

June 10. Attended a Ministerial Fraternal to-day, and greatly enjoyed the freedom and frankness of the discussion. A conservative in England would be a radical in America, so far are they in advance of us. Evidently our English brethren have gotten over the theological mumps, measles, and whooping-cough. For one thing, they have accepted the results of the critical study of the Bible, without losing any of the warmth and glow of evangelical faith, uniting liberal thought with orthodoxy of the heart, as we in America have not succeeded in doing. All confessed that the atmosphere of their work has changed; that the fingers of their sermons grope blindly amid the hidden keys of the modern mind, seeking the great new words of comfort and light. It was agreed that a timid, halting, patched-up restatement of faith will not do: there must be a radical reinterpretation, if we are to speak to the new time, which thinks in new terms. On social questions, too, the discussion was trenchant, at times even startling. There was real searching of hearts, drawing us together in a final candor, and driving us back to the permanent fountains of power. The spirit of the meeting was most fraternal, and I, for one, felt that fellowship is both creative and revealing.

June 25. American troops are pouring into England, and the invasion is a revelation to the English people. Nothing could surpass the kindness and hospitality with which they open their hearts and homes to their kinsmen from the great West. They are at once courteous and critical, torn between feelings of joy, sorrow, and a kind of gentle jealousy at thought of their at thought of their own fine fellows who went away and did not come back. They have seen many kinds of Americans, among them

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speakable fop, and the newly rich who spread their vulgarity all over Europe; but now they are discovering the real American, the manly, modest, intelligent lad from the college, the store, the farm, and they like him. He is good to look at, wholesome, hearty, straightforward, serious but not solemn, and he has the air of one on an errand. On the surface the British Tommy affects to take the war as a huge joke, but our men take it in dead earnest. 'Why, your men are mystics; they are crusaders,' said an English journalist to me recently; and I confess they do have that bearing - for such they really are. Last night, in a coffee-house on the Strand, I asked the Cockney proprietor if he had seen many American boys and what he thought of them. Something like this is what I heard:

'Yerce, and I like what I've seen of 'em. No swank about 'em, y' knowofficers an' men, just like pals together. Talks to yeh mately-like-know what I mean? man to man sort o' thing. Nice, likable chaps, I alwis finds 'em. Bit of a change after all these damn foreigners. I get on with 'em top-'ole. And eat? Fair clean me out. Funny the way they looks at London, though." Mad about it, y' know. I bin in London yers an' yers, and it don't worry me. Wants to know where that bloke put 'is cloak down in the mud for some Queen, and 'ow many generals is buried in Westminster Abbey. 'Ow should I know? I live in Camden Town. I got a business t'attend to. Likable boys, though. 'Ere's to 'em!'

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July 4. Went to the American Army and Navy baseball game, taking as my guests a Member of Parliament and a City Temple friend. Never has there been such a ball game since time began. The King pitched the first ball, and did it right well, too. The papers say he has been practising for days.

Then bedlam broke loose; barbaric pandemonium reigned. Megaphones, whistles, every kind of instrument of torture kept accompaniment to tossing arms and dancing hats while the grandstand gave such an exhibition of 'rooting' in slang as I never heard before. Much of the slang was new to me, and to interpret it to my English friends, and at the same time explain the game, was a task for a genius. Amazement sat upon their faces. They had never imagined that a hard business people could explode in such a hysteria of play. An English crowd is orderly and ladylike in comparison. Of course, the players, aware of an audience at once distinguished and astonished, put on extra airs; and as the game went on, the fun became faster and more furious. My friends would stop their ears to save their sanity, at the same time pretending, with unfailing courtesy, to see, hear, and understand everything. The Navy won, and one last, long, lusty yell concluded the choral service of the day.

July 20."The Miracle of St. Dunstan's.' It is no exaggeration, if by miracle you mean the triumph of spirit over matter and untoward disaster.

St. Dunstan's is the college where young men who gave their eyes for their country learn to be blind; and as I walked through it to-day I thought of Henley's

lines:

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. Many of the men are horribly disfigured, and it is a mercy that they cannot see their own faces. Yet, for the most part, they are a jolly set, accepting the inevitable with that spirit of sport which is so great a trait of their race. At least, the totally blind are happy. Those who see partially, and do not know how it will turn out, mope a good deal. At the

head of the college is Sir Arthur Pearson, himself a blind man who has learned to find his way in the dark- - a blind leader of the blind. It is wonderful to hear him talk to a boy brought into the college dejected and rebellious against his fate. There is no maudlin sentiment. It is much easier to cry than to succor. They sit hand in hand, comrades in a conquest, while Sir Arthur tells the lad, out of his own experience, that, though night has come at noon, the day is not ended. His words, taken out of their context and atmosphere, might sound preachy, as he tells how he refused to be beaten, and how darkness has its surprises. All honor to Sir Arthur, Knight of the Dark Table, - unforgettable for his courage, his chivalry, and his cheerfulness!

(Early in August I went again to America, on another speaking tour, crossing the bar at Liverpool, in the glow of a miraculous sunset, the sacramental beauty of which haunts me still. Time out of mind I had known Uncle Sam, in his suit of nankeen trousers strapped under his instep, his blue swallow-tail coat and brass buttons, and his ancient high hat. It was not easy to recognize him clad in khaki, wearing a gas-mask and a 'tin lid,' and going over the top with change in outward garb was a visible sign of a Springfield rifle in his hand; and that

much else. Down the streets of New York, at midnight, one saw long lines of men marching, singing 'Over There'; and Service Stars were everywhere, changing from silver to gold. It was an awe-inspiring America, new in its unity, its power, and its vision of duty, albeit to-day, it seems like a dim dream of some previous state of existence. Returning to England in October, my ship was one of fifteen loaded with troops, following a zigzag course over a lone

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ly sea. It was at the time of the influenza epidemic, and almost every ship kept a funeral flag flying all the way. Off the north coast of Ireland we witnessed the destruction of an enemy submarine. Once more, on a Thursday noon, I took up my labors at the City Temple, in an address entitled

"The New America,' in which I tried to describe the novel experience of rediscovering my own country. Events moved rapidly, and I need add only one or two items from the diary, telling of the end of the greatest war in history, the meaning and issue of

which are locked in the bosom of God.)

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October 25. - Three times since I returned I have spoken to groups in behalf of Anglo-American friendship, but to little avail. My audiences were already utterly convinced, and it was like arguing with Miss Pankhurst in favor of woman suffrage as useless as rain at sea. Somehow we never get beyond the courtesies and commonplaces of after-dinner eloquence. Yet the matter is of vital importance just now. Already there are rumors of friction between our boys and the Tommies. These are little things, but the sum of them is very great, and in the mood of the hour so many reactions of personal antagonism may be fatal. Not much idealism is left after the long struggle, and one fears a dreadful reaction, swift, hideous slip backward, - driving Britain and America further apart than they were before the war. Little groups do something, but what we need is some great gesture, to compel attention and dramatize the scene for the masses on both sides of the sea. Frankly, I am not clear as to the best method

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except that we have not found it. Even now, all feel that the end of the war is near, and one detects tokens which foretell a different mood when peace arrives.

October 29.- Ever and again one hears rumors of a revolution in England in which things will be turned upside down. One might be more alarmed, but for the fact that the revolution has already taken place. The old England has gone, taking with it much that was lovely and fair; a new England is here, - new in spirit, in vision, in outlook, — not only changing in temper, but ac

tually changing hands. As the Napoleonic wars ended the aristocratic epoch and brought the middle class to the fore, so the great war has ended the rule of the middle class and will

bring the man down under to the top. Of course, as to outward appearance, the aristocratic and middle classes still rule; but their ideas do not rule. There will be no violent upheaval in England; the genius of the British mind-a practical mysticism, so to name it, though the practicality is often more manifest than the mysticism - will not let it be so. Again and again I have seen them drawn up in battle-array, ready for a fight to a finish - then, the next moment, they begin to parley, to give and take; and, finally, they compromise, each getting something and nobody getting all he asked. Therein they are wise, and their long political experience, their instinct for the middle way, as well as their non-explosive temperament, stand them in good stead in these days. Besides, if English society is a house of three stories, the house has been so shaken by the earthquake of war that all classes have a new sense of kinship and obligation. No doubt there will be flare-ups in Wales, or among the hot-heads on the Clyde; but there is little danger of anything more.

November 8. Went to Oxford last night to hear Professor Gilbert Murray lecture on the Peloponnesian War of the Greeks as compared with our great war; and his words haunt me. With an uncanny felicity, the great scholar

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The lecturer has the creative touch which makes history live in all its vivid human color. Euripides and Aristophanes seemed like contemporaries.

What depressed me was the monotonous sameness of human nature throughout the ages. Men are doing the same things they did when Homer smote his lyre or Hammurabi framed his laws. For example, in the Athens of antiquity there were pacifists and bitter-enders, profiteers and venal politicians — everything, in fact, with which the great war has made us familiar. After twenty centuries of Christian influence, we do the same old things in the same old fashion, only on a more gigantic scale.

This shadow fell over me to-day as I talked with a young French officer in my study. He used this terrible sentence with an air of sad finality: 'Ideals, my reverend friend, are at the mercy of the baser instincts.' What faith it takes to sustain an ardent, impatient, forward-looking soul in a slow universe! 'Keep facing it,' said the old skipper to the young mate in Conrad's Typhoon; and ere we know it, the ship has become a symbol of the life of man. He did not know whether the ship would be lost or not - nor do we. But he kept facing the storm, taking time to be just to the coolies on board, much to the amazement of Jukes. He never lost hope; and if he was an older man when he got through the storm, he at least sailed into the harbor.

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ourselves has made for righteousness, and we are awed, subdued, overwhelmed. The triumph seems wrought, not by mortal, but by immortal thews, and shouts of joy are muffled by thoughts of the gay and gallant dead.

The rebound from the long repression was quick, the outburst startling. Men danced in the streets. They hugged and kissed and sobbed. Flags flew everywhere, flags of every color. Women wore dresses made of flags. Shops and factories emptied of their own accord. At an early hour a vast host gathered at the gates of Buckingham Palace, singing the national anthem. The King and Queen appeared on the balcony, and a mighty shout went uplike the sound of many waters.

St. Paul's was jammed by noon; the Abbey was packed. It melted the heart to hear them sing - there was an echo of a sob in every song. All know that the secret of our joy is locked in the cold young hearts that sleep in Flanders, in eyes that see the sun no more. Never was the world so coerced by its dead. They command; we must obey. From prayer the city turned to play again. No wonder; the long strain, the bitter sorrow, the stern endurance had to find vent. At first, peace seemed as unreal as war. It took time to adjust the mind to the amazing reality. Even now it seems half a dream. There is little hate, only pity. The rush of events has been so rapid, so bewildering, that men are dazed. Down on the Embankment I saw two old men, walking armin-arm, one blind, the other half-blind, and both in rags. One played an old battered hand-organ, and the other sang in a cracked voice. They swayed to and fro, keeping time to the hymn, 'Our God, our hope in ages past.' So it was from end to end of London. The gray old city seemed like a cathedral, its streets aisles, its throngs worshipers.

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