DECLINE OF THE WAR SPIRIT
It is significant that the most democratic nations are likewise the most peace-loving. With the spread of democracy must come the decline of the war spirit. The teaching that war is a biological necessity for the preservation of the heroic virtues in men has met its fate in this war, for we have found men, whole regiments of them, who had only been in warlike training a few months, showing just as cool courage and just as stubborn fighting powers as men who had been trained to war from their youth. Even from the standpoint of effectiveness in war the war spirit is unnecessary.
And we have a right to insist that the bravery of the battle-line is not the highest bravery, and that the deliverance wrought by bayonet and shrapnel is not the most necessary to the welfare of humanity. The courage which is unmoved by the roar of great guns and undaunted by the gleam of advancing bayonets is good, but it is no better than the courage of the timid woman who faces death upon the operating-table without shrinking or complaint; and it is in nothing superior to the courage which, in the daily life of our people, takes up patiently the burden of the day, and in the face of poverty, sorrow, and pain, and bearing also the contempt of many, goes forward without bitterness and even with cheerfulness to the end of the journey, faithful unto death.