and if there had to have been any approach between us, the approach should have come not from us, who have the right to anger, and who in fifty years may have the forbearance to forgive, but from the Germans.

Wilamovitz-Möllendorf to learn from him the following lesson? "See what the war has laid bare in others," he writes. "What have we learnt of the soul of Belgium? Has it not revealed itself as the soul of cowardice and assassination? They have no moral forces within them; therefore they resort to the torch and the dagger." Thus the compatriot of the butchers of

in

And Oxford has been snubbed by the Boche, as Oxford deserves. A little thought exercised by the anxious scholars might have convinced them that the snub was inevitable. The texts still exist which Louvain, a professor, who show what the Germans thought of us before the war, during the war, since the war. The German thought has not changed, and will not change. The one regret which the Germans feel is the regret that they did not emerge victorious, that they have not paid for their adventure by the enslavement of Europe, that they have not forced their kultur upon an admiring world. With those thoughts, and that one single regret, how should the Germans care to accept an offer of conciliation? The friends of Dr Bridges offered a gift which they did not value, and they rejected it with scorn.

After all, literature and scholarship are the pursuits of men, not of mobs. Our writers and scholars will not achieve better work because they have made a public attempt to overcome a just animosity, to stamp under foot a righteous embitterment. And what have the Germans to teach us that we cannot, if necessity asks us, get out of their books? Must we extend a civil hand to Herr

once affected the friendship of England. If the war has taught him to write like that, need we proffer him the hand of friendly intercourse public? And where the greatest of all has fallen so low, what shall we expect of the rest? Would it not be better to pursue our work in peace and leave the Germans of the next generation to return to the paths of comradeship if they find that those paths are pleasant? At any rate, it is for us to see whether we will take, it is not ours to proffer, the reconciling hand.

When the Unknown Warrior was proudly carried for burial to Westminster Abbey, our mind went back to the ancient legend of Cimon, who won the goodwill of the Athenians by bringing home to Athens what was left of Theseus. "Cimon was marvellous careful to seek out his tomb"-so Plutarch tells the story-"because the Athenians had an oracle and prophecy that commanded them to bring his ashes and bones back to Athens and to

honour him as a demi-god. In Westminster Abbey his But they knew not where he bones shall rest for ever among was buried, for that the in- the bones of kings and captains habitants of the island would and great poets. In Browne's never before confess where it noble words, he has "entered was, nor suffer any man to the famous nations of the dead, seek it out, till he at the last and sleeps with princes and with much ado found the counsellors." His is the imtomb, put his bones aboard the mortality which all would Admiral galley sumptuously covet. His is the better part: deoked, and so brought them he has no "naked nomination"; again to his country." As he has, what is better, "deserts Theseus returned in honour to and noble acts." Again the his native land, so has returned prose of Thomas Browne echoes the Unknown Warrior, he too in our ear, suggesting comfort on a galley sumptuously deoked. for the Unknown Warrior: "To A place has been found for his be nameless in worthy deed mortal spoils in Westminster exceeds an infamous history. Abbey, the last resting-place of The Canaanitish woman lives our greatest dead. He symbol- mere happily without a name ises, all unknown as he is, the than Herodias with one. And courage and the ready sacrifice who had not rather have been of his kind. He did his duty, the good thief than Pilate?" with a simple fortitude, and as he died for others, so he resumes in his unnamed self the glory and the gratitude owed to them all.

The thought and the oeremony were Greek in their simplicity, and their simplicity it was, no doubt, which brought Cimon and Theseus to our mind. Altars were once set up to the Unknown God. The supreme honour of Westminster Abbey is given to the Unknown Warrior. Theseus returned to Athens, because there was an oracle and a prophecy. The Unknown Warrior is carried to his place in Westminster that the whole Empire may mourn the loss of those who fell in thousands for their fatherland, and admire in one grave the sacrifice of them all. In France he gave his life. What more had he to give?

The Unknown Warrior, then, is nameless in worthy deeds, and in that nobility we can picture him to ourselves. He is brother to Francis Doyle's Private of the Buffs

"A man of mean estate,

Who died, as firm as Sparta's king, Because his soul was great."

A plain man, who did as he was told, like the rest-who set duty before ambition, who was content to serve his country and to die for it, without a thought of sending his name to eche round the world. And he has won the highest reward of all. He is the Unknown Warrior; and it is the essence of his greatness and our respect that nobody will ever wonder whence he came or what acts of heroism he performed.

The wars of to-day are the

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