Part II.] FOOD CONSERVATION. 121 



consecration of the individual who is determined to stand by 

 the government, who is absolutely ready to follow directions, 

 and who meets the message from Washington with swift and 

 ready compliance rather than with challenge and doubt. Mis- 

 takes will doubtless be made. If the individual finds it im- 

 possible to avoid them, the government cannot be expected to 

 advance without blunders. But if the goal is clear, and if 

 every one marches straight toward it, we shall arrive in the 

 end, even if we stumble on the way. The thing most needed is 

 the clear understanding that every one of us is enlisted in the 

 food conservation army, and that every one will gladly sacrifice 

 his personal pleasure for the sake of the common good. 



We are seated at a common table. It stretches across the 

 sea. Through our hands, because of the abundance of our 

 harvest, bread will go to those starving men, women and chil- 

 dren across the sea. Our prayer shall be, not as before, "Give 

 W5 this day our daily bread," but rather, "Give them, O God, 

 their daily bread. Give them through us their daily bread." 



When we come to pray this prayer before partaking of our 

 bread or meat we shall have come to understand all the great 

 purpose of food conservation, and having once discerned the 

 soul of the message we shall know how to carry it across. 



It was said in the old days, "Seek ye first the Kingdom of 

 God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added 

 unto you." Even so, as soon as we clearly recognize that the 

 lives of starving men and women depend upon our sacrifice, as 

 soon as we are completely possessed by the great motive of food 

 conservation, then we shall learn how to practice it, for all the 

 necessary knowledge "shall be added unto us." 



