THE KING’S BUSINESS 485 unhappy. I flipflappéd up to the best friend I had on earth. He lay there with his back broken, dead. Up came the other clowns. We picked him up and carried poor Dan off, doing funny stuff every minute, while the spectators roared with laughter. When we got Dan behind thé scenes we cried over him. That’s two sides of a clown’s life all in a nutshell.” Immediately after this: sad recital Slivers went out to perform his act. The reporter’s words were-: “ Slivers’ eyes were soft when he turned away to his dressing table. He painted his face so skillfully that you smiled when he turned it toward you. He put on his baggy black-and-white costume, his preposterous shoes, and his familiar bonnet of the Civil War period, with its array of rib bons and chicken feathers. With a little wave of his hand he ambled out into the arena, and a great roar of laughter went up at his very appearance.” Often the gayest man in a social gathering, the man that moves the others most to mirth, is the man with an unspeakably heavy heart. We remember well the j oiliest' man we ever knew. He was in greatest demand at every social gathering ; for every one knew that if he were present there would be mirth and laughter throughout the whole evening. One night as we walked home together he opened to me his heart. He told me how behind the mask of mirth was a heart bitter in its sadness, discontent and unrest. How much better is “ the joy of the Lord” than this world’s hollow mirth. upon the men was to bring out the higher qualities of character. An article has recently appeared in The Open Count, Chicago, by Mr. Bertrand Russell, a leading philosophical writer of England, which sets forth in a very forceful way the utter folly of those who advocate war because of its moral effects. He says: “ The men who repeat this hoary falsehood must have learned nothing from the reports of friends returned from .the war, and must have refrained from talking with wounded soldiers in hospitals and elsewhere. It is true that, in those who enlist of their own free will, there is a self-devotion to the cause of their country which deserves all praise; and their first experience of war fare often gives them a horror o f its futile cruelty which makes them for a time humane and ardent friends of peace. If the war had lasted only three months, these good effects might have been its most moral consequences. But as the months at the front pass slowly by, the first impulse is followed by quite other moods. Heroism'is succeeded by a merely habitual disregard of danger; enthusiasm for the national cause is replaced by passive obedience to orders. Familiarity with horrors makes war seem natural, not the abomination which it is seen to be at first. Humane feeling decays, since, if it survived, no man could endure the daily shocks. In every army, reports of enemy atrocities^ true or false, stimulate ferocity, and produce a savage thirst for reprisals. On the Western front, at least, both sides have long ceased to take prisoners except in large batches. Our newspapers have been full of the atrocities perpetrated by soldiers. Whoever listens to the conversation of wounded soldiers returned from the front will find that, in all the armies, some men become guilty of astonishing acts of ferocity. Will even the most hardened moralist dare to sáy About a year ago there appeared in T he K ing ’ s Busi- ness an editorial on “ The Demoralizing Effects of War.” We had many letters of protest against the article, some even maintaining that the effect of war Demoralizing Effects of War.
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