It's 5 o'clock, and there are 37 people in the church. When you subtract the choir, the pianist and the invited speakers, you're down to 22. Considering that the word went out to congregations throughout the county, that a notice appeared in the Post-Dispatch, and that the airy, grand sanctuary at Salem Methodist in Ladue can hold more than four hundred, you're tempted to reverse Winston Churchill and say, never have so many done so much for so few. Many of the heads are graying; people nod to one another - they've seen each other at meetings like this before.

In the 1960s, the posters in college dormitories used to read, "What if there was a war and nobody came?" Judging from this, the first peace meeting to take place in the heart of St. Louis County since Sept. 11, the pertinent question three and a half decades later seems to be, "What if there was a war and nobody wanted to talk about it?" Opponents of the Afghan bombing and of what they see as new infringements on civil liberties at home, whether they operate in the city or the county, say the hardest problem they have had over the past two months isn't holding their own in a discussion about terrorism and war, but getting such a discussion started at all.

"I'd love to have seen us get together in our neighborhoods after Sept. 11 and have a dialogue about what to do," says Chris McClarren of Women in Black, a peace group that traces its roots to an Arab-Jewish organization in Israel. But "we're living in a climate where there's a lot of pressure not to dissent, not to give our country the feedback it needs. This is very frightening, because we need the dissent, we need the wisdom from all sectors to decide what is the proper course to take."

This evening's meeting starts with a welcome from Salem's pastor, Rev. David Kerr, who quickly leaves, followed by some fine gospel singing and short remarks by several ministers and an imam. The talk is peppered with quotations from the Bible and Koran and statements like, "unjust means do not bring just ends," "I don't believe in war - it solves nothing," and apropos of activism like this against a war that appears so popular, "If not us, who? If not now, when?" Rev. Charles E. Stikes, like a few of the other speakers a veteran of protests from the Vietnam era onward, sees Pres. George Bush's policies as an extension of American racism, corporate powergrabbing and military adventurism stretching back decades. "We need a war on poverty, and righteousness and justice at home," he says. "Nothing less will do." The ultimatum hangs in the air, where all 37 people can ponder it. For a while it seems the entire service will be equally earnest and equally vague.

Mike Schaefer hands out flyers in St. Louis for the Committee Against the U.S. Empire that are, if more specific, every bit as far-reaching as Rev. Stikes' speech. He says about 10 percent of the people who pass him refuse a leaflet; a fifth say something supportive and move along. Only five or six people out of every hundred actually stop to talk. "There are many people who are willing to listen to an alternative viewpoint. I've had people tell me, though, that I should be arrested for treason, and I've been very close to being punched on occasion, too."

Bill Ramsey of the St. Louis Forum for a Just Peace grounds the discussion by saying the World Trade Center attack "was the first real test I have felt in a long time" of his pacifist credo, "but I also know that retaliation - military retaliation - was not a proper response to the feeling in my gut. I knew we were in trouble the moment this was called an 'act of war.'" It diverted Americans away from thinking of the attack as a crime against humanity, a matter for an international court like the one that negotiated the extradition of Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic and has him on trial now. Ramsey urges the audience to do what they can "to help our government out of this" - for instance, to press for at least a pause in the bombing and to volunteer for the St. Louis-area "accompaniment program" to protect Arabs and Muslims from harassment.

The facts on the ground in Afghanistan have changed over the past week, but the collapse of the Taliban doesn't seem to have changed many minds (though most everyone you ask is glad that it happened), nor has it tempered the dire predictions of what the war may grow into next. Some foresee years' more intertribal fighting in Afghanistan, others a crackdown on non-U.S. citizens that may undo the goodwill toward Islam built during the first weeks after Sept. 11. "If there's one thing harder than preventing a war," Ramsey says, "it's once they start winning the war to stop them from going ahead with it."

Seventeen-year-old Evangeline Harvey says she came to the service, though she and her parents belong to a different congregation, because it's hard to talk intelligently with her friends at University City High School. "Lots of them are pro-war," she says, and that's where the conversation stops. "Things like this keep me going."

The final speaker is a decorated Vietnam veteran, Bill Colbert. ("I received a purple heart and a bronze star," he explains, "so people aren't in much of a position to tell me I don't understand the situation.") His words are as pragmatic as the first speakers' were grand and, if you closed your eyes and forgot the context, wouldn't sound out of place in the mouth of a Rotarian: Be informed and get involved. Read something about the Taliban or Pakistan or Saudi Arabia written long before Sept. 11. Check out the opinions in a foreign magazine or newspaper. Join a discussion group that doesn't have an agenda. Read your favorite scripture while you imagine bombs dropping nearby. Then, if you support the war, write a thank-you letter to a soldier. Or make sure the family he or she had to leave behind gets a visit on Thanksgiving. If you oppose the war, take part in a vigil. Write your Congressperson. One way or another, "Share in the democratic process that we are supposed to be fighting for abroad."

When it's all over, one of the bona fide spectators in the audience, Henry Kipp, offers his own opinion, baldly - and perhaps surprisingly. "I deplore war per se," he says, "but I don't see any way around it in this case. The action we're taking is as reasonable as any." So why did he come to this meeting? "I think I need to be informed." He looks around the sanctuary, now growing emptier by the minute. "My goodness. This is drawing from all over the area, and we have what? Fifty people?"