The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1919-02-28

came, not because we cared so much
| for America, but because our sympa-
thies were with France and this war
the greatest event in all history-ap-
pealed to our dramatic sense. We
could not let it pass without being
actors, however small our parts, III
the very storm center of it.
Over here in the fields of France
we learned to love America and to
hunger for her. The first deep thrill
of patriotism | ever experienced came
one evening when we stood retreal
that impressive ceremony in the
presence of the colors-on ground that
we had won from the Germans with
expenditure of many bright American
lives only few days before.
We came to miss America with the
poignancy of separation from some
loved person. We came to love the
very homeliness of America. These
antique French villages of creamy
stone, set like gems in green land
scape, charmed and fascinated us at
first. But very soon we longed for
the ugly, sprawling towns of our U.
S. A.
And so, through absence, we came
to know the nobility and greatness of
Americas soul, and found it well
worth fighting for. Probably if we
had not come to war we never would
have discovered this.
Men who have learned to love their
country by fighting for her, enduring
hardships for her that no one who has
not gone through drive can ever
imagine, will not make very bad citi-
zens. We feel, with some justice, that
the United States is, little more our
country than it is anybody else's, and
run. / think we shall take much in
terest in politics, in politics in the
bigger, broader sense. We shall de-
sire justice and charity in every rela-
tion of civic and economic and social
life.
Outwardly, at least, the war has
had little effect on the religious life
of the men who fought. 1t has not
retarded religion in them; nor is there
foundation for predictions of relig-
ious revival among them. Indeed, in
some ways they will present harder
problem for the church than they did
before. They will approve it or reject
it according as they find it possesses
the instinct for true, underlying
values they discovered in the presence
of death.
Courage and Fair Play
These lads, unconsciously, will
measure the preachers who seek to
appeal to them by the army chaplains
who served with them in France. And
these chaplains. without exception, so
far as / know, have set a brilliant
standard of devotion. | have seen the
chaplain of my regiment go through
a barrage to find our dead and say
prayer over them before the bury
ing detail covered them with earth.
These chaplains have gone over the
top with US, and the doughboys,
whether they were Epworth Leaguers
or barfiies before the war, loved them
and respected them and eagerly at
tended such services as the fighting
permitted.
And the soldiers will Judge church
people, as indeed they will Judge al
people henceforth, by the same Sc
verely just code they applied to the
men in their own company. Courage
and fair play are the cardinal vir.
tues and the only things that count
greatly in the soldiers scheme OF
ethics.
The American army has done little
philosophizing; it has not had time. Il
has spent comparatively little time il
the monotonous routine of holding
| trenches, for from the hour United
States troops were thrown into the
war in force it has been a strenuou:
/ period of drive. drive, drive. Condi
i tions have been anything but condu
Give to reflection. AS far as the aver
age soldier got toward solving thu
problem of the universe was his ia
talistic "If they're going TO get you
they'll get you, and if they aren't
Il they won't" He did not secept fatal