is religion if it collapses under calamity? Think of what earthquakes

and floods, wars and volcanoes, have done before to men! Did you

think God had exempted Weybridge? He is not an insurance agent."

For a time he sat in blank silence.

"But how can we escape?" he asked, suddenly. "They are

invulnerable, they are pitiless."

"Neither the one nor, perhaps, the other," I answered. "And the

mightier they are the more sane and wary should we be. One of them

was killed yonder not three hours ago."

Killed!" he said, staring about him. "How can God's ministers be

killed?"

"I saw it happen." I proceeded to tell him. "We have chanced to

come in for the thick of it," said I, "and that is all."

What is that flicker in the sky?" he asked abruptly.

I told him it was the heliograph signalling--that it was the sign

of human help and effort in the sky.

We are in the midst of it," I said, "quiet as it is. That flicker

in the sky tells of the gathering storm. Yonder, I take it are the

The War of the Worlds