There is another aspect of this question of the psychology of war. It is a boast of the age that we have freed ourselves from what is called the deadening influence of superstition. Nevertheless, since the outbreak of the war there has been an extraordinary revival of the secular belief in omens, witchcraft, incantations and all that they imply—the direct influence of supernatural powers, of some sort or other, on the fortunes of individuals in certain events. One amiable form of it is the enormously increased demand for those jewellers' trinkets called charms and amulets, consisting of figures or symbols in stone and metal which are popularly supposed to possess powers of bringing good fortune or averting evil, and which formerly lovers used to present to each other, and wear attached to bracelets and chains, to ensure mutual constancy, prosperity and happiness. Even the eighteenth-century veneration of a child's caul—the membrane occasionally found round the head of an infant at birth—as a sure preservative against drowning is again rife among those who go down to the sea in ships. The menace of the German submarine has revivified the ancient desire of seafaring folk to possess a caul, which was laid dormant by the sense of security bred by years of freedom from piracy, and the article has gone up greatly in price in shops that sell sailors' requirements at the chief ports. Fortune-tellers, crystal-gazers, and other twentieth-century witches and dealers in incantations, who pretend to be able to look into the future and provide safeguards against misfortune, are being consulted by mothers, wives and sweethearts, anxiously seeking for some safe guidance for their nearest and dearest through the perils of the war.

So far as the Army is concerned, the belief that certain things bring good luck or misfortune has always been widely held by the rank and file. Formerly there were two talismans which were regarded as especially efficacious in warding off evil, and particularly death and disablement in battle. These were, in the infantry, a button off the tunic of a man, and, in the cavalry, the tooth of a horse, in cases where the man and the horse had come scathless through a campaign. A good many years ago the old words "charm," "talisman," "amulet," dropped out of use in the Army. The French slang word "mascot," which originated with gamblers and is applied to any person, animal or thing which is supposed to be lucky, came into fashion; and some animal or bird—monkey, parrot, or goat, or even the domestic dog or cat—was appointed "the mascot of the regiment." But since the outbreak of the war the Army has returned to its old faith in the old talisman. A special charm designed for soldiers, called "Touchwood," and described as "the wonderful Eastern charm," has had an enormous sale. It was suggested by the custom, when hopes are expressed, of touching wood, so as to placate the fates and avert disappointment, a custom which is supposed to have arisen from the ancient Catholic veneration of the true Cross.

"Touchwood" is a tiny imp, mainly head, made of oak, surmounted by a khaki service cap, and with odd, sparkling eyes, as if always on the alert to see and avert danger. The legs, either in silver or gold, are crossed, and the arms, of the same metal, are lifted to touch the head. The designer, Mr. H. Brandon, states that he has sold 1,250,000 of this charm since the war broke out. Not long ago there was a curious scene in Regent's Park. This was the presentation of "Touchwood" to each of the 1200 officers and men of a battalion of the City of London Regiments (known as "The Cast-Irons") by Mdlle. Delysia, a French music-hall dancer, before they went off for the Front. Never has there been such a public exhibition—uncontrolled and unashamed—of the belief in charms. Mr. Brandon has received numerous letters from soldiers on active service, ascribing their escape from perilous situations to the wearing of the charm. One letter, which has five signatures, says—

"We have been out here for five months fighting in the trenches, and have not had a scratch. We put our great good fortune down to your lucky charm, which we treasure highly."

Thus we see that mankind has not outgrown old superstitions, as so many of us thought, but, on the contrary, is still ready to fly to them for comfort and protection in danger. The truth is that the human mind remains at bottom essentially the same amid all the changes made by time in the superficial crust of things. Man is still the heir of all the ages. Some taint of "the old Popish idolatries" survives in the blood of most of us, no matter how Protestant and rationalistic we may suppose ourselves to be. And now that the foundations of civilisation are disrupted, and humanity is involved in the coils of the most awful calamity that has ever befallen it, is it to be wondered at that hands should be piteously stretched out on all sides, and in all sorts of ways—unorthodox as well as orthodox—groping in the dark for protective touch with the unseen Powers who rule our destinies.

It is in these circumstances that non-Catholic soldiers of the new Armies are turning from materialistic charms to holy emblems. It may be thought that this new cult is but a manifestation, in a slightly different form, of the same primal superstitious instinct of mankind as inspired the old, but as it has a religious origin and sanction and is really touched by spiritual emotion, it seems to me to be far removed from the other in spirit and intention. Non-Catholic soldiers appear to have been led into the new practice by the example of Catholic soldiers. These religious objects, commemorative of the Blessed Virgin and other saints, have always been carried about their persons by Irish Catholic soldiers, to some extent, as well as by Catholics generally in civil life. The custom is now almost universal among Catholic officers and men at the Front. It resembles, in a way, the still more popular practice of carrying photographs of mother, wife and child. Will it be denied that the soldier, as he looks upon the likenesses of those who cherish him, and hold him ever in their thoughts, does not derive hope and consolation from his consciousness of their watchful and prayerful love?

There are several little breastplates thus worn by Catholics to shield them from spiritual evil and bodily calamity. The chaplet of beads, known as the rosary, is well known. The brown scapular of St. Mary of Mount Carmel is made of small pieces of cloth connected by long strings, and is worn over the shoulders in imitation of the brown habit of the Carmelite friars. Then there are the Medal of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour, a reproduction of the wonderful picture discovered by the Redemptorist Order in Rome; and the Miraculous Medal of Our Lady, revealed by the Immaculate Virgin to Catherine Labouré, Sister of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, in Paris. Another is the "Agnus Dei" ("Lamb of God"), a small disc of wax, impressed with the figure of a lamb supporting a cross, and blessed by the Pope, which is the most ancient of the sacramentals, or holy objects worn, used or preserved by Catholics for devotional purposes. But what is now perhaps the most esteemed of all is the Badge of the Sacred Heart. On an oval piece of red cloth is printed a picture of Jesus, standing before a cross, with His bleeding heart, encircled by thorns and flames, exposed on His breast. The badge is emblematical of the sufferings of Jesus for the love of and redemption of mankind. It is the cognisance of a world-wide league, known as the Apostleship of Prayer, conducted by the Society of Jesus, and having, it is said, a membership of 25,000,000 of all nations. The promotion of these special devotions in the Catholic Church has been assigned to different Orders: such as the rosary to the Dominicans; the scapular to the Carmelites; the Way of the Cross to the Franciscans. So the spread of the devotion of the Sacred Heart is the work of the Jesuits. The headquarters of the Apostleship of Prayer in this country is the house of the Jesuits in Dublin, who publish as its organ a little monthly magazine called The Messenger. There has been so enormous a demand for the badge since the war broke out that the Jesuits have circulated a statement emphasising that it is not to be regarded as "a charm or talisman to preserve the wearer from bullets and shrapnel." To wear it in this spirit would, they say, be "mere superstition." "What it stands for and signifies is something far nobler and greater," they also say. "It is, in a sense, the exterior livery or uniform of the soldiers and clients of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, King of heaven and earth, just as the brown scapular is the livery of the servants and soldiers of Mary, heaven's glorious Queen. As such it procures for those who wear it in the proper spirit the grace and protection of God; and the scapulars the special protection of Mary, much more than the livery or uniform of a country procures for those who fight under its flag the help and protection of the nation to which they belong."

What is the attitude of the Irish Catholic soldier towards this religious movement as a means of preservation and grace in the trials and perils of war? I have read many letters from Irish Catholics on service in France, Flanders and the East in which the matter is referred to, and have discussed it with some of those who have been invalided home. All this testimony establishes beyond question that the mystical sense of the Irish nature, which has been developed to a high degree by the two tremendous influences of race and religion, leads the Irish Catholic soldier profoundly to believe that there is a supernatural interference often with the chances and fortunes of the battlefield in answer to prayers. Michael O'Leary, V.C., a splendid type of the Irish soldier in body and mind, gave a brief but pointed statement of his views on the matter. "A shell has grazed my cheek and blown a comrade by my side to pieces," he said, "though there was no reason, so far as I could see, but the act of God, why the shell should not have knocked my head off and grazed my comrade's cheek."

The average Irish soldier probably knows nothing of the materialistic theory that Nature is a closed system; that the laws of the universe are fixed and immutable; that no wearing of holy objects, and no amount of praying even, will ever disturb their uniform mechanical working; and that the sole reason why any soldier on the battlefield escapes being hit by a bullet or piece of explosive shell is that he was not directly in its line of flight. Such a doctrine would be regarded, at least by the simple and instinctive natures in the Irish ranks, as the limit of blasphemy. Their belief in the reality and power of God is most profound. God is to them still the lord and master of all the forces of Nature; and the turning aside of a bullet or piece of explosive shell would be but the slightest manifestation of His almighty omnipotence. Mystery surrounds the Irish Catholic soldier at all times. His realisation of the unseen is very vivid. The saints and angels are his companions, not the less real and potent because they are not visible to his eyes. But it is on the field of battle that he is most closely enveloped by these spiritual presences. He is convinced that he has but to call upon them, and that, if he be in a state of grace, they will come to his aid as the ministers of God. So he prays that God may protect and save him, and he wears next his heart the emblems of God's angels and saints. Thus he feels invincible against the powers of darkness in both the spiritual and material worlds. For these devotions have also the effect of putting him in train to receive submissively whatever fate God may will him. He knows that God can safeguard him in the fight if He chooses; and he believes that if God does not choose so to do it is because in His wisdom He does not deem it right. "Blessed be the holy will of God!" The old, familiar Irish ejaculation springs to his lips, that variant of Job's unshakable trust in the Almighty: "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him." Thus it is that the sight of his comrades lying around him, dead and wounded, who prayed like him and, like him, carried rosary beads or wore the badge of the Sacred Heart, has no effect in shaking his belief in his devotions and his holy emblems. So when the hour of direst peril is at hand he is found not unnerved and incapable of standing the awful test. There is an ancient Gaelic proverb which says: "What is there that seems worse to a man than his death? and yet he does not know but it may be the height of his good luck." Even if death should come, what is it but the shadowy gate which opens into life everlasting and blissful?

There are on record numerous cases of protection and deliverance ascribed by non-Catholics as well as Catholics to the wearing of religious emblems. The Sisters of Mercy, Dungarvon, Waterford, tell the story of the marvellous escape from death of Private Thomas Kelly, Royal Munster Fusiliers, at the first landing on the Gallipoli peninsula on April 25, 1915. Kelly had emerged with his comrades from the River Clyde—the steamer which had brought his regiment to the landing-place, Beach V—and was in the water wading towards the shore when this happened to him—