"Yes," I said, "that is the tragedy. That is the unforgivable sin."
"Go on," he said. "Say what you want to say."
"Hugh was hungering for your love, just hungering for it; but he didn't believe you cared for him. You ask me to speak plainly, Mr. Lethbridge, and so, at the risk of offending you, I am going to do so. You had your hard-and-fast ideas about life; you worshipped success, position, power, and money; you wanted Hugh to conform to your iron rules and laws, and because he was a live, human boy you tried to crush him."
"Yes! yes! I know." He spoke almost eagerly. "But even now I cannot feel right about it. After all, war is murder. How can I, a Christian man, a believer in the teaching of the founder of Methodism, believe that my son was anything but murdered? After all, is not a soldier a paid murderer? I think if I could only get that right in my mind I should be happier. Look here! Do you honestly believe that Hugh did right?"
"I don't believe; I am sure," was my reply.
"Ah! but you don't believe in Christian teaching. You told me months ago that you were an agnostic. Legalized murder cannot be right."
"Mr. Lethbridge," I said, "supposing there lived in this neighborhood a band of men without moral sense, without honor, without truth; men to whom you could not appeal because their standards of life were utterly opposed to yours. And suppose that by rapine, cruelty, and murder they sought to rule this district, to rob people of their homes, to outrage everything sacred in life. What do you think it would be your duty to do?"
"Yes! yes! I see what you mean. But are the Germans like that? Aren't they as good and as honorable as we are?"
"Listen!" I said. "I have just been reading some German books and reviews, and this is what some of the leading men in Germany have lately said. Mark you, they are not men in the street. They express the thoughts which dominate the population of Germany. Here is one by a leading General: 'We have been called Barbarians; we are, and we are proud of it. Whatever acts will help us, we shall commit them, no matter what the world may say. Germany stands as the Supreme Arbiter of her own actions, and however the world may rave at our cruelty and our atrocities, our devilry, we shall commit these deeds, we shall rejoice in them, and we shall be proud of them.'"
"Who said that?" he asked.