The socialist magazines, a great smattering of Tolstoi, and his own intense longing for a cause that would bring out whatever strength lay in him, had finally decided him to preach peace as a subjective ideal.
"When the German army entered Belgium," he began, "if the inhabitants had gone peaceably about their business, the German army would have been disorganized in--" "I know," Amory interrupted, "I've heard it all.

But I'm not going to talk propaganda with you.

There's a chance that you're right--but even so we're hundreds of years before the time when non-resistance can touch us as a reality." "But, Amory, listen--" "Burne, we'd just argue--" "Very well." "Just one thing--I don't ask you to think of your family or friends, because I know they don't count a picayune with you beside your sense of duty--but, Burne, how do you know that the magazines you read and the societies you join and these idealists you meet aren't just plain _German ?_" "Some of them are, of course." "How do you know they aren't _all_ pro-German--just a lot of weak ones--with German-Jewish names." "That's the chance, of course," he said slowly.

"How much or how little I'm taking this stand because of propaganda I've heard, I don't know; naturally I think that it's my most innermost conviction--it seems a path spread before me just now." Amory's heart sank.
"But think of the cheapness of it--no one's really going to martyr you for being a pacifist--it's just going to throw you in with the worst--" "I doubt it," he interrupted.
"Well, it all smells of Bohemian New York to me." "I know what you mean, and that's why I'm not sure I'll agitate." "You're one man, Burne--going to talk to people who won't listen--with all God's given you." "That's what Stephen must have thought many years ago.

But he preached his sermon and they killed him.