these things be? Why is the appeal of battle so universal, so deep in the human heart, that nations riven by dissension become as one man, and men the most diverse agree in the one cause?
It is not that men are unchristian, or attracted to cruelty. They love Joan of Arc most of all because she was a saint; and in England they made General Gordon almost into a legend, because with all his faults he was a converted man. The heroes of to-day, Foch, Haig, Beatty, Wilson, are the more popular because they do not hide their religion.
It is that man is at heart a fighter, that men as well as women adore the knightly spirit, and long for the uplifting thrill of battle. And the human instinct is right; for each man's life is a battle, and the progress of the race is one long struggle: foes are ever about us, and giants that have to be slain. Not from brutality, but for the love of chivalry, of generous sacrifice, and the glory of championship, of tranquil strength, of modest war-battered courage, men sing of battle, and salute the 'Veray parfit, gentil knight', the Happy Warrior. So the Crusaders came back, broken and futile, but went out again and again, and gave England a new half-mythical patron saint, in the place of that holy weakling, Edward the Confessor. They had not got the Holy Sepulchre, in the end, but they had got S. George— S. George, for merry England; and his red cross flutters still from half the ships of the world.
