FOR little more than a week we have been in a state of war, yet within that short space we seem to have lived a whole life-time. Sudden as a bolt from the blue there has fallen on us the necessity wholly to re-order our lives in unaccustomed ways. Anxiety for our private interests mingles with the high resolve to face any hardship for King and country, and whatever we may be doing or wherever we turn the thought of war is ever haunting us. Peace and its blessings, which we have always enjoyed hitherto - but with how poor a return of thanks to the Author and Giver of all good things - seem to belong to a remote past and to have vanished from the earth. Never in this country have been seen so many fighting men, yet hundreds of thousands more are being rallied to the flag, and we know not for how long this conversion of England into an armed camp will continue. Very splendid is the outburst of enthusiastic devotion from every rank of life. Men and women alike are instant in their request to be allowed to do something. Not the least remarkable of the incidents of the war is the acceptance by the military authorities of the Boy Scouts as a non-militant body of public servants. These specially trained and active youngsters have already proved themselves of immense use; and we little thought when we smiled at their strange manœuvres, that what was their play would soon be converted to a business of grim earnest. Children, no less than their elders, are determined to see the Old Country through its troubles.

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