INFLUENCE, AND THE STRATEGIC ELEMENT IN OPPORTUNITY.
"And now, gentlemen, was this vast campaign fought without a general? If Trafalgar could not be won without the mind of a Nelson, or Waterloo without the mind of a Wellington, was there no one mind to lead these innumerable armies, on whose success depended the future of the whole human race? Did no one marshal them in that impregnable convex front, from the Euxine to the North Sea? No one guide them to the two great strategic centres of the Black Forest and Trieste? No one cause them, blind barbarians without maps or science, to follow those rules of war without which victory in a protracted struggle is impossible: and by the pressure of the Huns behind, force on their flagging myriads to an enterprise which their simplicity fancied at first beyond the powers of mortal men? Believe it who will; I cannot.
"But while I believe that not a stone or a handful of mud gravitates into its place without the will of God; that it was ordained, ages since, into what particular spot each grain of gold should be washed down from an Australian quartz reef, that a certain man might find it at a certain moment and crisis of his life—if I be superstitious enough (as thank God I am) to hold that Creed, shall I not believe that though this great war had no general upon earth, it may have had a general in Heaven; and that in spite of all their sins the hosts of our forefathers were the hosts of God?"—Charles Kingsley.