till he reached the German sentries, who stopped the crowd and demanded where they were going.

The Cardinal showed his Ausweiss, an identification card which every Belgian must carry, and he was allowed to proceed with two priests for companions. The other priests demanded the right to go on, and a heated dispute arose between them and the sentries. One of the priests lost his temper and forgot himself so far that he began to beat one of the sentries with his umbrella. The other sentry called for help, and the crowd was soon dispersed. The angry priest was put under arrest and led off to the guardhouse.

The Cardinal had gone on but a short way when the uproar behind him caused him to stop and look back at what was happening. When he saw the priest led off by the soldiers, he and his companions turned back and followed the soldiers to the little guardhouse. He walked directly in, looking neither to the right nor the left, standing a head above the rest of the crowd. He fixed his piercing black eyes upon the eyes of the priest; then he beckoned him to come and turned and walked out, followed by the priest.

The soldiers made no attempt to stop them. They seemed to recognize an authority that they could not help obeying, even though they did not want to. The Cardinal accompanied by the three priests went on down the road and out of Malines towards Brus

sels. They walked about half way to the city and then took the trolleys.

In speaking of the Germans, the Cardinal is reported to have said, "They are so stupid, these Germans! Sometimes I feel that they are like silly, cruel children, and that I should do something to help them.'

He loves America and the Americans and is grateful for all that the United States have done for his suffering people. He told one of his fellow-workers who had become discouraged, "If you follow a great Captain, as I do, you will never be discouraged."

In him martyred Belgium has found a voice heard round the world. He has never ceased to denounce the atrocious crimes of the German masters of his country and he has continually sought to comfort and cheer his unhappy people. He sees far, and so he sees clearly the power outside ourselves that finally brings to Right the victory over Might. His Pastoral Letter, Christmas, 1914, will never be forgotten nor will the words of cheer to his suffering people when he reminds them of the greatest truth of life, that only through sacrifice and suffering come the things best worth while. His statement in letters to the German Commandant of the facts concerning the deportation of Belgians into Germany, to work as virtual slaves, will forever form part of the records of history's blackest deeds.

This Pastoral Letter of Christmas, 1914, is in part as follows:

It was in Rome itself that I received the tidings-stroke after stroke of the destruction of the church of Louvain, of the burning of the Library and of the scientific laboratories of our great University and of the devastation of the city, and next of the wholesale shooting of citizens, and tortures inflicted upon women and children, and upon unarmed and undefended men. And while I was still under the shock of these calamities, the telegraph brought us news of the bombardment of our beautiful metropolitan church, of the church of Notre Dame, of the episcopal palace, and of a great part of our dear city of Malines.

Afar, without means of communication with you, I was compelled to lock my grief within my own afflicted heart, and to carry it, with the thought of you, which never left me, to my God.

I needed courage and light, and sought them in such thoughts as these. A disaster has come upon the world, and our beloved little Belgium, a nation so faithful in the great mass of her population to God, so upright in her patriotism, so noble in her King and Government, is the first sufferer. She bleeds; her sons are stricken down, within her fortresses, and upon her fields, in defense of her rights and of her territory. Soon there will not be one Belgian family not in mourning. Why all this sorrow, my God? Lord, Lord, hast Thou forsaken us?

The truth is that no disaster on earth is as terrible as that which our sins provoke.

I summon you to face what has befallen us, and to speak to you simply and directly of what is your duty, and of what may be your hope. That duty I shall express in two words: Patriotism and Endurance.

FATRIOTISM

When, on my return from Rome, I went to Havre to greet our Belgian, French, and English wounded; when, later at Malines, at Louvain, at Antwerp, it was given to me to take the hands of those brave men who carried a bullet in their flesh, a wound on their forehead, because they had marched to the attack of the enemy, or borne the shock of his onslaught, it was a word of gratitude to them that rose to my lips. "O brave friends," I said, "it was for us, it was for each one of us, it was for me, that you risked your lives and are now in pain. I am moved to tell you of my respect, of my thankfulness, to assure you that the whole nation knows how much she is in debt to you."

For in truth our soldiers are our saviors.

A first time, at Liége, they saved France; a second time, in Flanders, they halted the advance of the enemy upon Calais. France and England know it; and Belgium stands before them both, and before the entire world, as a nation of heroes. Never before in my whole life did I feel so proud to be a Belgian as when, on the platforms of French stations, and halting a while in Paris, and visiting London, I was witness of the enthusiastic admiration our allies feel for the heroism of our army. Our King is, in the esteem of all, at the very summit of the moral scale; he is doubtless the only man who does not recognize that fact, as, simple as the simplest of his soldiers, he stands in the trenches and puts new courage, by the calmness of his face, into the hearts of those of whom he requires that they shall not doubt of their country. The foremost duty of every Belgian citizen at this hour is gratitude to the army.

If any man had rescued you from shipwreck or from a fire, you would hold yourselves bound to him by a debt of everlasting thankfulness. But it is not one man, it is two hundred and fifty thousand men who fought, who suffered, who fell for you so that

you might be free, so that Belgium might keep her independence, so that after battle, she might rise nobler, purer, more erect, and more glorious than before.

Pray daily, my Brethren, for these two hundred and fifty thousand, and for their leaders to victory; pray for our brothers in arms; pray for the fallen; pray for those who are still engaged; pray for the recruits who are making ready for the fight to come.

Better than any other man, perhaps, do I know what our unhappy country has undergone. Nor will any Belgian, I trust, doubt of what I suffer in my soul, as a citizen and as a Bishop, in sympathy with all this sorrow. These last four months have seemed to me age-long. By thousands have our brave ones been mown down; wives, mothers are weeping for those they shall not see again; hearths are desolate; dire poverty spreads, anguish increases. At Malines, at Antwerp, the people of two great cities have been given over, the one for six hours, the other for thirty-four hours of a continuous bombardment, to the throes of death. I have passed through the greater part of the most terribly devastated districts and the ruins I beheld, and the ashes, were more dreadful than I, prepared by the saddest of forebodings, could have imagined. Other parts which I have not yet had time to visit have in like manner been laid waste. Churches, schools, asylums, hospitals, convents in great numbers, are in ruins. Entire villages have all but disappeared. At Werchter-Wackerzeel, for instance, out of three hundred and eighty homes, a hundred and thirty remain; at Tremeloo two thirds of the village are overthrown; at Bueken out of a hundred houses, twenty are standing; at Schaffen one hundred and eightynine houses out of two hundred are destroyed - eleven still stand. At Louvain the third part of the buildings are down; one thousand and seventy-four dwellings have disappeared; on the town land