"Nothing," I said almost involuntarily.
"No, nothing. Tell 'ee what, sir, this war is bringing us all back to our senses; we've thought that we could do without Almighty God, sir, but we ca'ant. A man who was preachin' at the Chapel on Sunday night called this war 'The World's great tragedy.' He was right, sir; but God is overruling it. He is answering men out of the whirlwind and the fire, as He did Job of olden times. Forty boys have gone out from St. Issey, sir; how many of 'em will come back again?"
I shook my head.
"Exactly, sir. Here is a wisht story in the newspaper. A poor woman, sir, who 'ad lost her husband and three sons in the war, wrote to the editor and asked him to give her some explanation of it all, to offer some word of comfort. So the editor wrote to a lot of clever men, sending them copies of the woman's letter, and asking them what they 'ad to say. Here are their answers, sir. They are from a scientist, a politician, a philosopher, and a literary man, and that's what they 'ad to say by way of comfort. She asked for bread, and they gave 'er stone."
I took the paper, and saw that the man had spoken truly. The answers which our leading scientists, politicians, philosophers, and scholars had to give were utterly in the negative. They could say nothing that would help to heal the poor woman's bleeding, broken heart. All their scholarship, all their learning, all their philosophy was Dead Sea fruit. Only the man of faith, the man of vision, could give her comfort.
I left the village wondering: I realized as I never realized before the impotence of mere intellectualism, of material success, of the advancement of physical science, in the face of life's great tragedies.
Then suddenly my thoughts were diverted into another channel, for coming towards me I saw Isabella Lethbridge.