II.
In 1912 the election of a Deputy to the Duma was to take place in Warsaw. The population of the town consists of between seven and eight hundred thousand. As among them there are 300,000 Jews, the majority of the electors, it was in the power of that majority to elect a Jewish Deputy. Because of their Polish national feeling, however, they gave up this right, as they wanted Warsaw, as the capital of the Kingdom of Poland, to be represented by a man who not only in spirit, but also by race, was a Pole. Of the Polish committee they only demanded that the party concerned be no enemy to the Jews. It proved, however, that the committee in its arrogance would not deal with them at all and proposed Kucharschewski, a pronounced anti-Semitic candidate and a man who publicly declared that he desired the election to the Duma only to work for the extermination of the Jews of Poland. By the way, it is strange to notice how the word "exterminate," which thirty years ago in the days of Bismarck and Eduard von Hartmann as Ausrotten was subject to the curse and condemnation of the Poles, has now come to honor, and how easily it passes their lips.
As the Jews, of course, could not vote on such a man, they urgently asked the committee to propose another candidate not inimical to them. This reasonable request was refused with coarseness and Kucharschewski's candidacy maintained. Because of that the Jews were obliged to look about for another candidate of Polish family who was fit for the position and was not hostile to them. In spite of numerous applications, they did not succeed in finding such a man; at the last moment, when all attempts had failed, Jagello, the Social Democrat, declared himself willing to accept the candidacy of the Jews.
The only thing in his favor was the fact that he was of pure Polish blood. As their leading men all belong to the higher middle class, they did not share his views. But the state of affairs forced them to support him. Lord Beaconsfield used to maintain that the natural disposition of the Jewish race was conservative, but foolish politics, instead of encouraging the conservative instincts of the race, forced it to cast its lot with the most extreme elements of the opposition. It has proved true here.
Jagello was elected.
The leading men in Russian Poland, who, as a matter of fact, through the whole new century, had fought against the Jews, although secretly, for fear they should forfeit the sympathy of the intellectual aristocracy of Europe, used this electoral victory of the Jews, which had been forced upon them, to throw off the mask and openly act as their passionate enemies. The so-called co-operative movement developed during the last twelve years, and in itself nothing but a fight against the Jewish commerce, under a different name, now changed into a systematic and cruelly effected boycotting of the Jewish population. In private as in public life, the openly pronounced password was: not to buy from Jews, not to associate with Jews.
At the head of this movement marched the intelligence of Poland, among others some of its most famous authors, avowed free thinkers as Nemojewski, nay, as Alexander Swientochowski. Literary life presents many changes, metamorphoses, which in thoroughness are not very much inferior to those of Ovid. A good deal is necessary to make one who for one-half century has witnessed the want of character among writers feel even the slightest surprise. But I should willingly have sworn that I should never have lived to see Alexander Swientochowski a nationalist, he the most uncompromising adversary of nationalism, who endured a good deal for his conviction, to see the poet of "Chawa Rubin" an anti-Semitic chief. Not only does all that Alexander Swientochowski wrote rise against him, but also the words, the powerful words, which issued from his mouth in his palmy days.
The whole Polish press placed itself at the disposal of this movement. Young Polish louts were posted outside the Jewish shops and ill-treated the Christian women and children who wanted to buy there. By means of the well-known Dumowski a new paper, Dwa Groszi, was started, which simply urged pogroms. It soon came to bloody struggles. Polish undergraduates killed an old Jew in the Sliska Street in Warsaw. In the little town of Welun peasants poured naphtha on the house of a Jew and put fire to it, burning a large family. Similar acts occurred in several other places, until the Russian Government stopped this pogrom movement in order to prevent the Polish nationalism from getting stronger.
The Polish priests in the villages incited the people from the pulpit to boycotting of and war against the Jews. After the sentence in the Beilis action the Polish newspapers were almost alone in publishing on circulars the information that Beilis had been acquitted, but that the existence of religious murder had been satisfactorily proved. Nay, the free thinker, Nemojewski, wrote a book, in which he maintained the monstrous lie that Jewish religious murders are facts, and traveled all over the country with an agitatorial lecture to the same purpose.
Under these circumstances, the Jews in Russian Poland turned to the few men whose names were so esteemed or whose characters were so unimpeachable that their words could not be unheeded.
Ladislas Mickiewicz, the excellent son of the great Mickiewicz, who had passed his whole life in Paris, first as a publisher and translator of the works of his father, and then as a Polish patriotic author, convened, together with some other prominent men, a great meeting at Warsaw to restore the inner peace. In vain he begged and besought his countrymen, who had enemies enough otherwise, not to act as enemies of the Jews, who had always been their friends. No Polish newspaper gave any report of his speech.
All this took place before the war. The provisional result was the economic destruction of the Russian-Polish Jews. But now during the war the glow of the bloody hatred of the Jews has blazed out in far stronger flames and the Russian Government has as yet done nothing to subdue or quench the fire.
During the mobilization several Polish newspapers, for instance, The Glos Lubelski, brought the alarming news in heavy type: "In England great pogroms against the Jews. The English Government does not check them." The paper was conscious of the lie. But the question was to set an example to follow.
When the lack of gold and silver began to be felt the Polish newspapers accused the Jews of hiding the valuable metals. On closer examination, it was found that many non-Jewish business people (for instance, Ignaschewski in Lublin, a very rich Pole) were withholding whole bags full of gold and silver coins, for which they were punished rather severely; but this was not proved against a single Jew.
Furthermore, the Jews were, among other things, accused of having smuggled in a coffin 1,500,000 rubles in gold into Germany; and the protest against the accusation entered by the representatives and ministers of the Jewish congregation at Warsaw was printed in Russian papers, but not in a single Polish one.
All these things were preparations for pogroms; but many others were made. The anti-Semites printed a proclamation in Yiddish in which the Jews were called upon to revolt against Russia; they took care that this proclamation was put into the pockets of the unsuspecting Jews in the streets of the different towns; those who had distributed the papers denounced the party concerned to the police. Everybody upon whom the proclamation was found was shot.
At last the Jews were, as in the Middle Ages, both in word and writing accused of having poisoned the wells. If some Cossacks or other Russian soldiers died, the Poles accused the Jews of having caused their death.
The chief accusation was, however, the accusation of espionage, which obtained general credence and was used both when Austrian troops came to some town or village and when Russian troops expelled the Austrians. The result was the same. A suitable number of Jews were conscientiously shot by the Russians as well as by the Austrians. There are, however, lists of those who really have been unmasked as spies. A Potocki was among them, and had to pay for it with his life; but no Jewish name is found on these lists.
The accusation is, however, always believed, as the Jew has, for about two thousand years, been characterized as Judas.
The legend about Judas may without exaggeration be described as one of the most foolish legends of antiquity; that it has been believed is one proof among thousands of the indescribable simplicity of mankind. Few legends carry like it the stamp of lie on their faces and few legends have millennium after millennium caused so many evils and horrors. It has tortured and murdered by hundred thousands.
According to the supposition the story is impossible. The supposition is that a man in possession of superhuman attributes, a god or a demi-god, day after day goes about and speaks in the open air in a town and its neighborhood. So little does he make a secret of his doings that a short time before he had made his entry at broad daylight, welcomed with exultation by the whole population. He is known by each and all, by each woman and each child. So little does he want to hide that he walks about accompanied by his disciples, preaching day and night, sleeping among them. And to think it should be necessary to buy one of his disciples to denounce him and deliver him, to betray him, and that—for the sake of the effect—with a kiss! Indeed if he had hidden in some cellar, then there would be some meaning in it; but as things are, those who seek him need only ask: which of you is Jesus? He would not have tried to deny his name.
Judas is then not only quite superfluous, but an absurdity, the origin of which is to be found in the desire to place the black traitor opposite the white hero of light and in the hatred of Jews arising among the first Gentile Christians, who later made the world forget that not only this straw-doll, Judas, but also Jesus and all the Apostles, all the Disciples and all the evangelists were Jews.
Nevertheless, in the conception of the rude masses this Judas—as he was called—has become the Jew, the typical Jew, the traitor, and the spy.
Still as late as in the last decennium of the last century, Capt. Alfred Dreyfus fell a victim to this old foolish legend.
And now it is again rehashed against the Jews in Russian Poland.
The pogroms have, by virtue of these Judas accusations and the many other dreadful accusations, spread all over Russian Poland and there they are spreading more and more, while Galicia as well as Posen has proved susceptible to the incitations which have not failed. Many hundreds of innocent people have fallen victims to them.
Here are a few instances from many:
In the town of Bechava, conquered by the Austrians, the Polish leaders, among whom was a very well-known estate owner, applied to the Austrian commandant, accusing the Jews of secret connection with the Russian Army. In consequence of this the Austrians killed a 67-year-old man called Wallstein, and his 17-year-old son. When, after a short time, the Austrians were driven away, the same estate owner accused the Jews of the town to the Russian commandant of being in communication with the Austrians, having delivered to them all provisions for the purpose of depriving the Russians of them. In consequence of his accusation, many Jews were shot and their houses burned down.
In the towns of Janow and Krasnik the Jews were accused of having put out mines to destroy the Russians. The Jews, and among them many children, were hanged on the telegraph poles, and the two towns destroyed.
The town of Samosch was conquered by the Austrian Sokol troops, those beautiful slender people whom you do not forget when once you have seen them train in the capital of Galicia. When they were driven away from the Russian Army the Poles accused the Jews of the town of having been the accomplices of the Austrians. Twelve Jews were arrested. When they denied the charge they were sentenced to death. Five of them had been already hanged, when in the middle of the execution a Russian priest, carrying an image of the Virgin in his hand, appeared and with his hand on this image took the oath that the Jews were innocent and that the accusation was all an outcome of Polish hatred of the Jews. He proved that the Poles of the town themselves had supported the Austrians and that even a telephone connection with Lemberg could be found. The seven Jews were then set free; five had already been hanged.
In the town of Jusefow, the Jews were accused of having poisoned the wells through which hundreds of Cossacks had lost their lives. Seventy-eight Jews were killed, many women were ravished, and houses and shops plundered.
Similar events happened and still happen daily by hundreds. Greater or smaller pogroms with murder, rape, and plunder have thus taken place in the districts of Warsaw, Random, Petrikow, and Kelts.
Only a few Russian Governors, such as Korff, in Warsaw; Kelepowski, in Lublin, and the Governors of Wilna, Petrikow, and Grodno have spoken, although too late, against the pogroms, but neither the Government nor the Poles take these warnings seriously.
Eyewitnesses have told me about Jewish soldiers in the different lazarets who have turned mad, not through the unavoidable horrors of the war, but because of the pogroms they have witnessed in the towns they have passed. They mistake those they have seen murdered for their own relations; they imagine they see their own mothers, sisters, or beloved ones in that plight. They are always raving about the same thing.
The pursuit of the Jews by the Russian-Polish anti-Semites is the more invidious under these circumstances, as 300,000 Jewish soldiers, among them many volunteers, are serving in the Russian Army, and as the self-sacrifice of the army and the Red Cross hitherto has been immeasurable. In the great congregations are special hospitals for Russian soldiers—regardless of their creed—founded by Jews and with Jewish money. Not a few Jewish soldiers have already won the highest military distinctions, nay, a few of them have even received them from Mr. Rennenkampf, the Commander in Chief himself, who used to be a zealous anti-Semite, as the Russian Court on the whole is passionately anti-Semitic. The manifesto from the Czar To my dear Jewish subjects, which has been printed in the French newspapers, has never been anything but a fabrication.
While the usual accusation against the Jews in Russian Poland was that of sympathizing with the Russians—for which they have no special reason—Mr. A. Warinski, who in Russia is classed among the black ones, also called the true Russians—in "Politiken" has made the charge against them that the German attempts of gaining the Poles "have only had the effect desired on the Russian and Polish Jews, as these elements, because of psychological relation with the Prussians, feel disposed to place themselves at the side of Germany." This accusation and the arguments for it might express the culmination. The Jew shall and must be Judas. If it cannot be accomplished in one way the opposite way is tried. Mr. Warinski does not say one word about how many Jews have gone into the war as volunteers out of pure enthusiasm for Poland. They have not been able to believe, as I for my part cannot believe, that the last outcrop of nationalism in Russian Poland is more than a temporary epidemic.
How could Russian Poles in the long run be unfaithful to the only powers they have been able to appeal to, the only powers which took an interest in them? How can they who are fighting for their liberty after so many years' ill-treatment be willing to seize an opportunity to ill-treat the only people who (to its misfortune) is in their power, the only people who have suffered far more and twenty times as long as they themselves; and the only ones who are too strong to be destroyed through any ill-treatment? How can the Poles, who were at times ruined as a State through the treachery of their own men, want to fling out the accusation of treason against a tribe which has never betrayed itself and which even in the deepest abasement never betrayed the only Slavic tribe who in the Middle Ages gave a refuge to its children?
I suppose that the Poles will maintain against this appeal to them that I, whom the Ruthenians could never bring to make any attack on them, am now, because of my descent, speaking in favor of a matter, which is very unpleasant to them. My personal descent has so little influenced my proceedings and way of thinking that during the whole of my public life I have been subject to continual attacks in national Jewish periodicals and newspapers as the man who denied community of descent and supposed community of faith.
This Spring during my stay in America I was continually attacked in the American Jewish papers as the callous denier of the Jews. It was nonsense, as is most of that which appears in print, but it proves at least that it is not on behalf of my blood but on behalf of my mind that I speak on this occasion. My sympathy is not with the Jews as Jews, but as the suppressed and ill-treated.
I am the man who a generation ago wrote: "We love Poland, not in the same way that we love Germany or France or England, but as we love liberty. For what is to love Poland but to love liberty, to feel a deep sympathy with misfortune and to admire courage and combative enthusiasm? Poland is the symbol of all that which the supreme among mankind have loved and for which they have fought."
These were my words and hitherto I have adhered to them.
Shall I have to feel ashamed of having written them, now that Poland's future is being decided?
GEORG BRANDES.
Commercial Treaties After the War
By P. Maslov.
[From Russkia Vedomosti, No. 207, Sept. 10, (23,) 1914.]
FOR reasons beyond my control,[2] I am unable as a member of the Free Economic Association[3] to participate in the discussion of the methods of raising money by taxation for the war expenditures. The political group to which I belong may not give full expression to its views. What follows is my personal opinion shared by several men.
The attack by Germany is not only a menace to the democracy of France and Belgium, it not only threatens a political dictatorship by the Prussian nobility over Europe, but is a danger of far greater magnitude than these. For the first time Europe is in peril of having her commercial treaties determined by the sword. Up to this time even the smaller countries have been saved from such a violent course, and European capital has been obliged to restrict itself to the oppression of Asiatic countries. Now for the first time—in case of a German victory—Europe stands in danger of having her commercial arrangements forced upon her by an iron hand, and is threatened with being turned into a German colony. For in the case of a German victory no power in Europe will be able to withstand Germany. And Germany will deal without ceremony even with Austria.
On the other hand, in case of German defeat, the foremost capitalistic country, Great Britain, may not menace Europe for two reasons: First, Great Britain holds to the policy of free trade; second—and this is the main point—she cannot support with armed force her policy as against her allies.
In the meantime the danger indicated above threatens economically backward Russia; her agricultural population may be ruined, her industries may be destroyed. An unprecedented situation has arisen for Russia. All the social classes of the empire are deeply interested in the repulse of the armies of the Kaiser. The working class is just as much interested in the existence of Russian industries as are the employers. The peasants are in no lesser degree interested in the development of agriculture; the killing of industries and agriculture like that committed by England in Ireland centuries ago is a gloomy prospect for all classes of society. If France and Belgium are threatened with a political oppression then Russia is threatened with an even more terrible economic subjugation. Such is the situation.
The poorest classes of the people are taking part in this fight with what they have, with their blood. It is but natural that they should expect that the material burdens of the war will fall not upon their shoulders, but upon big business.
It seems to me that in discussing the sinews of war the Free Economic Association has not considered fully the psychology of the masses. And yet this psychology has a decisive influence upon the war, and is bound to be unfavorable to the war, if the masses of the people feel that the financial burdens of the war are to be placed upon the weakest shoulders.
Considering that at the present moment our supreme duty is to repel the German invasion at all costs, I think that this duty will be better performed by putting the economic burden of the war upon the shoulders of the well-to-do classes, for we have to reckon not only with the taxpaying capacity of the mass of the people, but also with their psychology.
I regard it as a great mistake that the important problem of the most economical methods of spending money raised by taxation has not been considered.
P. MASLOV.
THE WOMAN'S PART.
By MAZIE V. CARUTHERS.
|
BESIDE my ruined cottage, desolate, The children cowering 'round me, mute from fright, With tearless eyes and brooding heart, I wait, Watching through all the long, the weary night. God of the homeless, look from Heaven and see! Out of the deeps, a woman calls on Thee! My little ones, they cry all day for bread, And, 'neath the shelter of my meagre breast, Stirs one unborn, who must e'er long be fed— Another babe to hunger with the rest. Madonna Mary, hear a mother's moan! Pity the travail I must bear alone! The tasseled corn would plenteous harvest yield, But all the crops are rotting in the sun. Where are the reapers? On some battlefield They fight for nought and die there, one by one! God's comfort be upon them where they lie, Sheep to war's shambles driven—who knows why? Death and destruction walk by day, by night, Men's blood is spilt and sacrificed in vain, While women wait for tidings of the fight Who may not even sepulchre their slain! They say "God's in His Heaven"—but, instead, 'Twould seem He is asleep—or, maybe, dead! |
A PHOTOGRAPHIC REVIEW OF THE WAR
CONSISTING OF A
CAREFULLY SELECTED
SERIES OF THE BEST
PICTURES OF THE
WAR PRINTED IN
ROTOGRAVURE
Shell Opens the Wall Surrounding the Convent of the Little Sisters of the Poor at Nieuport, Belgium, Exposing But Not Damaging the Shrine.
© (Photo, International News Service.)
Middle-Aged and Elderly Men in Response to the Last Call Leaving Berlin for the Front.
(Photo © International News Service.)
Louvain Peasant in Flight, Conveying His Sleeping Child and His Possessions on a Wheelbarrow.
(Photo © Underwood & Underwood.)
"Bridge of the Arches" Over the Meuse at Liége, Blown Up by the Belgians to Hamper the Enemy.
(Photo by Boon, Holland.)
French Artillery Advancing Through Chauconier, Near Meaux, on the Marne. One of the Houses on the Right Is Still Burning as a Result of the Bombardment.
(Photo by Paul Thompson.)
Ruins of the Cathedral at Louvain (to the left) After the German Destruction of the City. In the Background is the Hotel de Ville, Which Was but Slightly Damaged.
(Photo © International News Service.)
Belgian Soldier Turning Sadly from a Mere Lad Who Had Been Shot in the Fierce Engagement at Huy, and Whose Suffering He Is Unable to Relieve.
(Photo © Underwood & Underwood.)
Interior of the Famous Library at Louvain.
(Photo by N.J. Boon, Holland.)
Cupola of a Maubeuge Fort Shattered by the German 42-Centimeter Siege Gun.
(Photo by Paul Thompson.)
Trenches Dug in Paris in Preparation for Street Fighting.
(Photo—Sports & General.)
Battery of Searchlights from the Place de la Concorde Sweeping the Sky Over Paris by Night for German Airships.
(Photo © International News Service.)
German Soldiers Examining One of the Belgian Army's Concealed Forts Near Brussels.
(Photo by Paul Thompson.)
Sunken Belgian Battery Replying to German Siege Guns Near Antwerp.
(Photo—Sports & General.)
Belgian Armored Train in Action During the Attack on Antwerp.
(Photo © International News Service.)
Belgian Soldier in Armored Car Watching the Bursting of a German Shell at the Attack on Antwerp.
(Photo © Underwood & Underwood.)
Fort Wavre St. Catherine, One of the Strongest in the Ring Around Antwerp, Crumpled by the German 42-Centimeter Siege Guns.
(Photo © International News Service.)
Striking Photograph of the Destroyed Shoe-Market Section of Antwerp, Looking Toward the Cathedral.
Belgian Men, Women, and Children Sleeping on Straw at Rosendaal, Holland.
(Photo © International News Service.)
A Captured German Officer Salutes a Belgian Standard, Though His Men Ignore It as They March Past.
Sinking of the German Cruiser Mainz in the Naval Battle Off Heligoland. The Photograph, Taken from the Deck of a British Warship, Shows the Cruiser in Flames and Settling in the Water.
(Photo © International News Service.)
German Prisoners of War, Nearly a Thousand in Number, Reaching Southern England.
(Photo © International News Service.)
Belgian Girls Distributing Walnuts to the Soldiers Behind Antwerp's Now Ruined Defenses.
(Photo © Underwood & Underwood.)
A Remarkable Photograph Taken on the Firing Line at Ernecourt. One Man Lies Dead, Another Is Being Tended by a Red Cross Surgeon, and the Second Soldier from the Left Has Just Been Hit.
(Photo © International News Service.)
Huge German Siege Gun Used in Bombarding Malines.
(Photo © International News Service.)
Scene in the Krupp Gun Works, Where Germany's Army and Navy Guns Are Manufactured.
(Photo from Brown Bros.)
Zeppelin Dirigible, One of the Great Fleet of Airships Which Germany Is Using in the War.
(Photo © International News Service.)
Belgian Guns in Action During the Defense of Antwerp.
King Albert of Belgium Talking to One of the French General Staff in the Square at Furnes During a Review of French Reinforcements.
(Photo © International News Service.)
German Soldiers on Outpost Duty Near Antwerp Sharing Their Food with Little Belgian Orphans.
(Photo © Underwood & Underwood.)
Nurse Reading to a Convalescent Soldier in the War Hospital at Calais.
(Photo © International News Service.)
A Red Cross Nurse Taking Down the Last Message of a Dying British Soldier on the Battlefield.
(Photo by Paul Thompson.)
French Artillery Assembled in a Square at Stenay, Just Before the Town Was Captured by the Germans.
(Photo by Paul Thompson.)
A Belgian Outpost in Action on the Battle Line Near the Franco-Belgian Frontier.
(Photo © International News Service.)
Gen. Belin, Who Is Gen. Joffre's Right-Hand Man and an Important Factor in the Control of the French Forces.
(Photo © International News Service.)
Belgian Sharpshooters Attacking from an Armored Train in the Vicinity of Ypres.
(Photo © International News Service.)
German Crown Prince and the King of Saxony Witnessing a Parade of the Ninety-eighth Regiment of Infantry Before the Crown Prince's Headquarters.
The Kaiser (at the extreme left) Witnessing the Parade of a Saxon Landsturm Regiment.
(Photo © International News Service.)
King George and King Albert Reviewing the Belgian Troops in Flanders. Immediately Behind the Sovereigns Are the Prince of Wales and His Highness Pertab Singh.
(Photo © International News Service.)
Algerian Troops Bringing in German Prisoners From the Flanders Battle in the Canal Region of Belgium.
King George V., Queen Mary, and Lord Kitchener Cheered by Canadian Highlanders at Salisbury, England.
(Photo © American Press Assn.)
German Motor Convoy Destroyed in the Forest Near Villers-Cotteret, France.
(Photo © International News Service.)
Red Cross Nurse at a Hospital in Northern France Hanging Christmas Evergreens Above a Wounded Soldier's Cot.
(Photo © American Press Assn.)
Gen. von Heeringen, "the Victor of Saarburg," on the Right, Talking with Gen. von Emmich, Who Commanded Before Liége.
(Photo by R. Sennecke.)
Bringing a Suspected Spy Through the French Lines to Headquarters After Enveloping His Head to Prevent His Seeing Anything of Military Value.
(Photo © American Press Assn.)
Constantinople Crowds Gathered at the Mosque of Faith While Sheikh Ul-Islam Proclaims the Declaration of War Against the Allies.
(Photo © International News Service.)
Japanese Bluejackets Coming Ashore Near Tsing-Tau.
(Photo from Paul Thompson.)
The Defenders of Tsing-Tau Moving to the Outer Defenses During the Siege.
(Photo © International News Service.)
German Gun in the Bismarck Fortress, Tsing-Tau, Crumpled by Japanese and British Shells.
(Photos by Paul Thompson.)
Patriotism and Endurance
By Cardinal D.J. Mercier, Archbishop of Malines.
[Copyright by Burns & Oates, Ltd., 28 Orchard Street, London. All rights reserved.]
Here is the celebrated Christmas pastoral letter of Cardinal Mercier, Archbishop of Malines. It is the first authentic translated copy of the now famous document to be received in America. The letter has caused a worldwide sensation because of its bold appeal to the Belgian people. Its publication resulted in the detention of the Cardinal by the Germans in his palace and a consequent protest by the Pope and throughout the whole Roman Catholic world.
The first reports of the arrest of the Cardinal were denied by the German authorities. Subsequently an official report made to the Pope stated that 15,000 copies of the pastoral letter were seized in Malines and destroyed, the printer being fined; that the Cardinal was detained in his palace during all Jan. 4; that he was prevented by German officers on Jan. 3 from presiding at a religious ceremony; that they subjected him to interrogations and demanded of him a retraction, which he refused to make. The English reprint of the Cardinal's letter is copyrighted by Burns & Oates, Ltd., 28 Orchard Street, London. The New York Times Current History reproduces it by permission.
M Y Very Dear Brethren: I cannot tell you how instant and how present thought of you has been to me throughout the months of suffering and of mourning through which we have passed. I had to leave you abruptly on the 20th of August in order to fulfill my last duty toward the beloved and venerated Pope whom we have lost, and in order to discharge an obligation of the conscience from which I could not dispense myself, in the election of the successor of Pius X., the Pontiff who now directs the Church under the title, full of promise and of hope, of Benedict XV.
It was in Rome itself that I received the tidings—stroke after stroke—of the partial destruction of the Cathedral Church of Louvain, next of the burning of the library and of the scientific installations 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 Nôtre Dame au dela la Dyle, of the episcopal palace, and of a great part of our dear City of Malines.
Afar from my diocese, 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 the foot of the Crucifix.
I craved courage and light, and sought them in such thoughts as these: A disaster has visited 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? Then I looked upon the Crucifix. I looked upon Jesus, most gentle and humble Lamb of God, crushed, clothed in His blood as in a garment, and I thought I heard from His own mouth the words which the psalmist uttered in His name: "O God, my God, look upon me; why hast Thou forsaken me? O my God, I shall cry, and Thou wilt not hear."
And forthwith the murmur died upon my lips, and I remembered what our Divine Saviour said in His gospel: "The disciple is not above the master, nor the servant above his lord." The Christian is the servant of a God who became man in order to suffer and to die.
To rebel against pain, to revolt against Providence because it permits grief and bereavement, is to forget whence we came, the school in which we have been taught, the example that each of us carries graven in the name of a Christian, which each of us honors at his hearth, contemplates at the altar of his prayers, and of which he desires that his tomb, the place of his last sleep, shall bear the sign.
My dearest brethren, I shall return by and by to the providential law of suffering, but you will agree that since it has pleased a God-made man who was holy, innocent, without stain, to suffer and to die for us who are sinners, who are guilty, who are perhaps criminals, it ill becomes us to complain whatever we may be called upon to endure. The truth is that no disaster on earth, striking creatures only, is comparable with that which our sins provoked and whereof God Himself chose to be the blameless victim.
Having recalled to mind this fundamental truth, I find it easier to 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.
My dearest brethren, I desire to utter in your name and my own the gratitude of those whose age, vocation, and social conditions cause them to benefit by the heroism of others without bearing in it any active part.
When, immediately 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 valiant 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 arrested 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 serenity 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 assuredly hold yourselves bound to him by a debt of everlasting thankfulness. But it is not one man, it is 250,000 men who fought, who suffered, who fell for you so that you might be free, so that Belgium might keep her independence, her dynasty, her patriotic unity; so that after the vicissitudes of battle she might rise nobler, purer, more erect, and more glorious than before.
Pray daily, my brethren, for these 250,000 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.
In your name I send them the greeting of our fraternal sympathy and our assurance that not only do we pray for the success of their arms and for the eternal welfare of their souls, but that we also accept for their sake all the distress, whether physical or moral, that falls to our own share in the oppression that hourly besets us, and all that the future may have in store for us, in humiliation for a time, in anxiety, and in sorrow. In the day of final victory we shall all be in honor; it is just that today we should all be in grief.
To judge by certain rumors that have reached me, I gather that from districts that have had least to suffer some bitter words have arisen toward our God, words which, if spoken with cold calculation, would not be far from blasphemous.
Oh, all too easily do I understand how natural instinct rebels against the evils that have fallen upon Catholic Belgium. The spontaneous thought of mankind is ever that virtue should have its instantaneous crown and injustice its immediate retribution.
But the ways of God are not our ways, the Scripture tells us. Providence gives free course, for a time measured by Divine wisdom, to human passions and the conflict of desires. God, being eternal, is patient. The last word is the word of mercy, and it belongs to those who believe in love. "Why art thou sad, O my soul? and why dost thou disquiet me? Quare tristis es anima, et quare conturbas me?" Hope in God. Bless Him always. Is He not thy Saviour and thy God? Spera in Deo quoniam adhuc confitebor illi, salutare vultus mei et Deus meus.
When holy Job, whom God presented as an example of constancy to the generations to come, had been stricken, blow upon blow, by Satan, with the loss of his children, of his goods, of his health, his enemies approached him with provocations to discouragement; his wife urged upon him a blasphemy and a curse. "Dost thou still continue in thy simplicity? Curse God, and die." But the man of God was unshaken in his confidence. "And he said to her: Thou hast spoken like one of the foolish women: if we have received good things at the hand of God, why should we not receive evil? Dominus dedit, Dominus abstulit; sicut Domino placuit ita factum est. Sit nomen Domini benedictum." And experience proved that saintly one to be right. It pleased the Lord to recompense, even here below, His faithful servant. "The Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. And for his sake God pardoned his friends."
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 mowed 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, to a continuous bombardment, to the throes of death.
I have traversed the greater part of the districts most terribly devastated in my diocese,[4] and the ruins I beheld, and the ashes, were more dreadful than I, prepared by the saddest of forebodings, could have imagined.
Other parts of my diocese, which I have not had time to visit,[5] 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 380 homes 130 remain. At Tremeloo two-thirds of the village are overthrown. At Bueken, out of 100 houses 20 are standing. At Schaffen, 189 houses out of 200 are destroyed; 11 still stand. At Louvain the third part of the buildings are down; 1,074 dwellings have disappeared. On the town land and in the suburbs 1,823 houses have been burned.
In this dear City of Louvain, perpetually in my thoughts, the magnificent Church of St. Peter will never recover its former splendor. The ancient College of St. Ives, the art schools, the consular and commercial schools of the university, the old markets, our rich library with its collections, its unique and unpublished manuscripts, its archives, its gallery of great portraits of illustrious rectors, chancellors, professors, dating from the time of its foundation, which preserved for masters and students alike a noble tradition, and were an incitement in their studies, all this accumulation of intellectual, of historic, and of artistic riches, the fruit of the labors of five centuries—all is in the dust.
Many a parish lost its pastor. There is now sounding in my ears the sorrowful voice of an old man, of whom I asked whether he had had mass on Sunday in his battered church. "It is two months," he said, "since we had a church." The parish priest and the curate had been interned in a concentration camp.
Thousands of Belgian citizens have in like manner been deported to the prisons of Germany, to Munsterlagen, to Celle, to Magdeburg. At Munsterlagen alone, 3,100 civil prisoners were numbered. History will tell of the physical and moral torments of their long martyrdom.
Hundreds of innocent men were shot. I possess no complete necrology; but I know that there were ninety-one shot at Aerschot and that there, under pain of death, their fellow-citizens were compelled to dig their graves. In the Louvain group of communes 176 persons, men and women, old men and sucklings, rich and poor, in health and sickness, were shot or burned.
In my diocese alone I know that thirteen priests or religious were put to death.[6]
One of these, the parish priest of Gelrode, suffered, I believe, a veritable martyrdom. I made a pilgrimage to his grave, and amid the little flock which so lately he had been feeding with the zeal of an apostle, there did I pray to him that from the height of Heaven he would guard his parish, his diocese, his country.
We can neither number our dead nor compute the measure of our ruins. And what would it be if we turned our sad steps toward Liége, Namur, Audenne, Dinant, Tamines, Charleroi, and elsewhere?[7] And there, where lives were not taken, and there, where the stones of buildings were not thrown down, what anguish unrevealed! Families hitherto living at ease now in bitter want; all commerce at an end, all careers ruined, industry at a standstill, thousands upon thousands of workingmen without employment, working women, shopgirls, humble servant girls without the means of earning their bread, and poor souls forlorn on the bed of sickness and fever, crying, "O Lord, how long, how long?"
There is nothing to reply. The reply remains the secret of God.
Yes, dearest brethren, it is the secret of God. He is the Master of events and the Sovereign Director of the human multitude. Domini est terra et plenitudo ejus; orbis terrarum et universi qui habitant in eo. The first relation between the creature and his Creator is that of absolute dependence. The very being of the creature is dependent; dependent are his nature, his faculties, his acts, his works.
At every passing moment that dependence is renewed, is incessantly reasserted, inasmuch as, without the will of the Almighty, existence of the first single instant would vanish before the next. Adoration, which is the recognition of the sovereignty of God, is not, therefore, a fugitive act; it is the permanent state of a being conscious of his own origin. On every page of the Scriptures Jehovah affirms His sovereign dominion.
The whole economy of the old law, the whole history of the chosen people, tend to the same end—to maintain Jehovah upon His throne and to cast idols down. "I am the first and the last. I am the Lord, and there is none else; there is no God beside Me. I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create evil. Woe to him that gainsayeth his maker, a sherd of the earthen pots. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What art thou making, and thy work is without hands? Tell ye, and come, and consult together. A just God and a Saviour, there is none beside Me."
Ah, did the proud reason of mankind dream that it could dismiss our God? Did it smile in irony when through Christ and through His Church He pronounced the solemn words of expiation and of repentance? Vain of fugitive successes, O light-minded man, full of pleasure and of wealth, hast thou imagined that thou couldst suffice even to thyself?
Then was God set aside in oblivion, then was He misunderstood, then was He blasphemed, with acclamation, and by those whose authority, whose influence, whose power had charged them with the duty of causing His great laws and His great order to be revered and obeyed. Anarchy then spread among the lower ranks of mankind, and many sincere consciences were troubled by the evil example. How long, O Lord, they wondered, how long wilt Thou suffer the pride of this iniquity? Or wilt Thou finally justify the impious opinion that Thou carest no more for the work of Thy hands? A shock from a thunderbolt, and behold, all human foresight is set at nought! Europe trembles upon the brink of destruction!
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
Many are the thoughts that throng the breast of man today, and the chief of them all is this:
God reveals Himself as the Master. The nations that made the attack, and the nations that are warring in self-defense, alike confess themselves to be in the hand of Him without Whom nothing is made, nothing is done.
Men long unaccustomed to prayer are turning again to God. Within the army, within the civil world, in public, and within the individual conscience, there is prayer. Nor is that prayer today a word learned by rote, uttered lightly by the lip; it surges from the troubled heart, it takes the form, at the feet of God, of the very sacrifice of life. The being of man is a whole offering to God. This is worship, this is the fulfillment of the primal moral and religious law—the Lord thy God shalt thou adore, and Him only shalt thou serve.
And even those who murmur, and whose courage is not sufficient for submission to the hand that smites us and saves us, even these implicitly acknowledge God to be the Master, for if they blaspheme Him, they blaspheme Him for His delay in closing with their desires.
But as for us, my brethren, we will adore Him in the integrity of our souls. Not yet do we see in all its magnificence the revelation of His wisdom, but our faith trusts Him with it all. Before His justice we are humble, and in His mercy hopeful. With holy Tobias we know that because we have sinned He has chastised us, but because He is merciful He will save us.
It would perhaps be cruel to dwell upon our guilt now, when we are paying so well and no nobly what we owe. But shall we not confess that we have indeed something to expiate? He who has received much, from him shall much be required. Now dare we say that the moral and religious standard of our people has risen as its economic prosperity has risen? The observance of Sunday rest, the Sunday mass, the reverence for marriage, the restraints of modesty—what had you made of these?
What, even within Christian families, had become of the simplicity practiced by our fathers, what of the spirit of penance, what of respect for authority? And we, too, we priests, we religious, I, the Bishop, we whose great mission it is to present in our lives, yet more than in our speech, the Gospel of Christ, have we earned the right to speak to our people the word spoken by the Apostle to the nations, "Be ye followers of me, as I also am of Christ"?
We labor indeed, we pray indeed, but it is all too little. We should be, by the very duty of our state, the public expiators for the sins of the world. But which was the thing dominant in our lives—expiation or our comfort and well-being as citizens? Alas! we have all had times in which we, too, fell under God's reproach to His people after the escape from Egypt: "The beloved grew fat and kicked; they have provoked me with that which was no god, and I will provoke them with that which is no people." Nevertheless, He will save us, for He wills not that our adversaries should boast that they, and not the Eternal, did these things. "See ye that I alone am, and there is no other God beside me. I will kill and I will make to live. I will strike and I will heal."
God will save Belgium, my brethren; you cannot doubt it.
Nay, rather, He is saving her.
Across the smoke of conflagration, across the stream of blood, have you not glimpses, do you not perceive signs of His love for us? Is there a patriot among us who does not know that Belgium has grown great? Nay, which of us would have the heart to cancel this last page of our national history? Which of us does not exult in the brightness of the glory of this shattered nation? When in her throes she brings forth heroes, our mother country gives her own energy to the blood of those sons of hers. Let us acknowledge that we needed a lesson in patriotism. There were Belgians, and many such, who wasted their time and their talents in futile quarrels of class with class, of race with race, of passion with personal passion.
Yet when, on Aug. 2, a mighty foreign power, confident in its own strength and defiant of the faith of treaties, dared to threaten us in our independence, then did all Belgians, without difference of party, or of condition, or of origin, rise up as one man, close ranged about their own King and their own Government, and cry to the invader: "Thou shalt not go through!"
At once, instantly, we were conscious of our own patriotism. For down within us all is something deeper than personal interests, than personal kinships, than party feeling, and this is the need and the will to devote ourselves to that more general interest which Rome termed the public thing, Res publica. And this profound will within us is patriotism.
Our country is not a mere concourse of persons or of families inhabiting the same soil, having among themselves relations more or less intimate, of business, of neighborhood, of a community of memories happy or unhappy.
Not so; it is an association of living souls subject to a social organization, to be defended and safeguarded at all costs, even the cost of blood, under the leadership of those presiding over its fortunes. And it is because of this general spirit that the people of a country live a common life in the present, through the past, through the aspirations, the hopes, the confidence in a life to come, which they share together.
Patriotism, an internal principle of order and of unity, an organic bond of the members of a nation, was placed by the finest thinkers of Greece and Rome at the head of the natural virtues. Aristotle, the prince of the philosophers of antiquity, held disinterested service of the city—that is, the State—to be the very ideal of human duty.
And the religion of Christ makes of patriotism a positive law; there is no perfect Christian who is not also a perfect patriot. For our religion exalts the antique ideal, showing it to be realizable only in the absolute. Whence, in truth, comes this universal, this irresistible impulse which carries at once the will of the whole nation in one single effort of cohesion and of resistance in face of the hostile menace against her unity and her freedom?
Whence comes it that in an hour all interests were merged in the interest of all, and that all lives were together offered in willing immolation? Not that the State is worth more, essentially, than the individual or the family, seeing that the good of the family and of the individual is the cause and reason of the organization of the State. Not that our country is a Moloch on whose altar lives may lawfully be sacrificed. The rigidity of antique morals and the despotism of the Caesars suggested the false principle—and modern militarism tends to revive it—that the State is omnipotent, and that the discretionary power of the State is the rule of right. Not so, replies Christian theology; right is peace—that is, the interior order of a nation, founded upon justice. And justice itself is absolute only because it formulates the essential relation of man with God and of man with man.
Moreover, war for the sake of war is a crime. War is justifiable only if it is the necessary means for securing peace. St. Augustine has said: "Peace must not be a preparation for war. And war is not to be made except for the attainment of peace." In the light of this teaching, which is repeated by St. Thomas Aquinas, patriotism is seen in its religious character.
Family interests, class interests, party interests, and the material good of the individual take their place, in the scale of values, below the ideal of patriotism, for that ideal is right, which is absolute. Furthermore, that ideal is the public recognition of right in national matters and of national honor. Now, there is no absolute except God. God alone, by His sanctity and His sovereignty, dominates all human interests and human wills. And to affirm the absolute necessity of the subordination of all things to right, to justice, and to truth, is implicitly to affirm God.
When, therefore, humble soldiers whose heroism we praise answer us with characteristic simplicity, "We only did our duty," or "We were bound in honor," they express the religious character of their patriotism. Which of us does not feel that patriotism is a sacred thing, and that a violation of national dignity is in a manner a profanation and a sacrilege?
I was asked lately by a staff officer whether a soldier falling in a righteous cause—and our cause is such, to demonstration—is not veritably a martyr. Well, he is not a martyr in the rigorous theological meaning of the word, inasmuch as he dies in arms, whereas the martyr delivers himself, undefended and unarmed, into the hands of the executioner; but if I am asked what I think of the eternal salvation of a brave man who has consciously given his life in defense of his country's honor and in vindication of violated justice, I shall not hesitate to reply that, without any doubt whatever, Christ crowns his military valor, and that death, accepted in this Christian spirit, assures the safety of that man's soul. "Greater love than this no man hath," said our Saviour, "that a man lay down his life for his friends."
And the soldier who dies to save his brothers and to defend the hearths and altars of his country reaches this highest of all degrees of charity. He may not have made a close analysis of the value of his sacrifice, but must we suppose that God requires of the plain soldier in the excitement of battle the methodical precision of the moralist or the theologian? Can we who revere his heroism doubt that his God welcomes him with love?
Christian mothers, be proud of your sons. Of all griefs, of all our human sorrows, yours is perhaps the most worthy of veneration. I think I behold you in your affliction, but erect, standing at the side of the Mother of Sorrows, at the foot of the Cross. Suffer us to offer you not only our condolence, but our congratulation. Not all our heroes obtain temporal honors, but for all we expect the immortal crown of the elect. For this is the virtue of a single act of perfect charity—it cancels a whole lifetime of sins. It transforms a sinful man into a saint.
Assuredly a great and a Christian comfort is the thought that not only among our own men, but in any belligerent army whatsoever, all who in good faith submit to the discipline of their leaders in the service of a cause they believe to be righteous are sharers in the eternal reward of the soldier's sacrifice. And how many may there not be among these young men of 20 who, had they survived, might possibly not have had the resolution to live altogether well, and yet in the impulse of patriotism had the resolution to die so well?
Is it not true, my brethren, that God has the supreme art of mingling His mercy with His wisdom and His justice? And shall we not acknowledge that if war is a scourge for this earthly life of ours, a scourge whereof we cannot easily estimate the destructive force and the extent, it is also for multitudes of souls an expiation, a purification, a force to lift them to the pure love of their country and to perfect Christian unselfishness?
We may now say, my brethren, without unworthy pride, that our little Belgium has taken a foremost place in the esteem of nations. I am aware that certain onlookers, notably in Italy and in Holland, have asked how it could be necessary to expose this country to so immense a loss of wealth and of life, and whether a verbal manifesto against hostile aggression, or a single cannon shot on the frontier, would not have served the purpose of protest. But assuredly all men of good feeling will be with us in our rejection of these paltry counsels. Mere utilitarianism is no sufficient rule of Christian citizenship.
On the 19th of April, 1839, a treaty was signed in London by King Leopold, in the name of Belgium, on the one part, and by the Emperor of Austria, the King of France, the Queen of England, the King of Prussia, and the Emperor of Russia, on the other; and its seventh article decreed that Belgium should form a separate and perpetually neutral State, and should be held to the observance of this neutrality in regard to all other States. The co-signatories promised, for themselves and their successors, upon their oath, to fulfill and to observe that treaty in every point and every article without contravention or tolerance of contravention. Belgium was thus bound in honor to defend her own independence. She kept her oath. The other powers were bound to respect and to protect her neutrality. Germany violated her oath; England kept hers.
These are the facts.
The laws of conscience are sovereign laws. We should have acted unworthily had we evaded our obligation by a mere feint of resistance. And now we would not rescind our first resolution; we exult in it. Being called upon to write a most solemn page in the history of our country, we resolved that it should be also a sincere, also a glorious page. And as long as we are required to give proof of endurance, so long we shall endure.
All classes of our citizens have devoted their sons to the cause of their country, but the poorer part of the population have set the noblest example, for they have suffered also privation, cold, and famine. If I may judge of the general feeling from what I have witnessed in the humbler quarters of Malines and in the most cruelly afflicted districts of my diocese, the people are energetic in their endurance. They look to be righted; they will not hear of surrender.
Affliction is, in the hand of Divine Omnipotence, a two-edged sword. It wounds the rebellious, it sanctifies him who is willing to endure.
God proveth us, as St. James has told us, but He "is not a tempter of evils." All that comes from Him is good, a ray of light, a pledge of love. "But every man is tempted by his own concupiscence.... Blessed is he that endureth temptation, for when he hath been proved he shall receive the crown of life, which God hath promised to them that love Him."
Truce, then, my brethren, to all murmurs of complaint. Remember St. Paul's words to the Hebrews, and through them to all of Christ's flock, when, referring to the bloody sacrifice of our Lord upon the cross, he reminded them that they had not yet resisted unto blood. Not only to the Redeemer's example shall you look, but also to that of the 30,000—perhaps 40,000—men who have already shed their life blood for their country.
In comparison with them, what have you endured who are deprived of the daily comforts of your lives, your newspapers, your means of travel, communication with your families? Let the patriotism of our army, the heroism of our King, of our beloved Queen in her magnanimity, serve to stimulate us and support us. Let us bemoan ourselves no more. Let us deserve the coming deliverance. Let us hasten it by our virtue even more than by our prayers. Courage, brethren! Suffering passes away; the crown of life for our souls, the crown of glory for our nation, shall not pass!
I do not require of you to renounce any of your national desires. On the contrary, I hold it as part of the obligations of my episcopal office to instruct you, as to your duty in face of the power that has invaded our soil and now occupies the greater part of our country. The authority of that power is no lawful authority. Therefore in soul and conscience you owe it neither respect nor attachment nor obedience.
The sole lawful authority in Belgium is that of our King, of our Government, of the elected representatives of the nation. This authority alone has a right to our affection, our submission.
Thus the invader's acts of public administration have in themselves no authority; but legitimate authority has tacitly ratified such of those acts as affect the general interest, and this ratification, and this only, gives them juridic value. Occupied provinces are not conquered provinces. Belgium is no more a German province than Galicia is a Russian province. Nevertheless, the occupied portion of our country is in a position it is compelled to endure. The greater part of our towns, having surrendered to the enemy on conditions, are bound to observe those conditions. From the outset of military operations the civil authorities of the country urged upon all private persons the necessity of abstention from hostile acts against the enemy's army.
That instruction remains in force. It is our army, and our army solely, in league with the valiant troops of our allies, that has the honor and the duty of national defense. Let us intrust the army with our final deliverance.
Toward the persons of those who are holding dominion among us by military force, and who assuredly cannot but be sensible of the chivalrous energy with which we have defended and are still defending our independence, let us conduct ourselves with all needful forbearance. Some among them have declared themselves willing to mitigate, as far as possible, the severity of our situation and to help us to recover some minimum of regular civic life. Let us observe the rules they have laid upon us so long as those rules do not violate our personal liberty, nor our consciences as Christians, nor our duty to our country. Let us not take bravado for courage, nor tumult for bravery.
You especially, my dearest brethren in the priesthood, be you at once the best examples of patriotism and the best supporters of public order. On the field of battle you have been magnificent. The King and the army admire the intrepidity of our military chaplains in face of death, their charity at the work of the ambulance. Your Bishops are proud of you. You have suffered greatly. You have endured much calumny. But be patient; history will do you justice. I today bear my witness for you.
Wherever it has been possible I have questioned our people, our clergy, and particularly a considerable number of priests who had been deported to German prisons, but whom a principle of humanity, to which I gladly render homage, has since set at liberty. Well, I affirm, upon my honor, and I am prepared to assert upon faith of my oath, that until now I have not met a single ecclesiastic, secular or regular, who had once incited civilians to bear arms against the enemy. All have loyally followed the instructions of their Bishops, given in the early days of August, to the effect that they were to use their moral influence over the civil population so that order might be preserved and military regulations observed.
I exhort you to persevere in this ministry of peace, which is for you the sanest form of patriotism; to accept with all your hearts the privations you have to endure; to simplify still further, if it is possible, your way of life. One of you who is reduced by robbery and pillage to a state bordering on total destitution, said to me lately: "I am living now as I wish I had lived always."
Multiply the efforts of your charity, corporal and spiritual. Like the great Apostle, do you endure daily the cares of your Church, so that no man shall suffer loss and you not suffer loss, and no man fall and you not burn with zeal for him. Make yourselves the champions of all those virtues enjoined upon you by civic honor as well as by the Gospel of Christ.
"Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever modest, whatsoever just, whatsoever holy, whatsoever lovely, whatsoever of good fame, if there be any virtue, if any praise of discipline, think on these things." So may the worthiness of our lives justify us, my most dear colleagues, in repeating the noble claim of St. Paul: "The things which ye have learned and received and heard and seen in me, these do ye, and the God of Peace shall be with you."
Let us continue then, dearest brethren, to pray, to do penance, to attend holy mass, and to receive holy communion for the sacred intention of our dear country.... I recommend parish priests to hold a funeral service on behalf of our fallen soldiers on every Saturday.
Money, I know well, is scarce with you all. Nevertheless, if you have little, give of that little for the succor of those among your fellow-countrymen who are without shelter, without fuel, without sufficient bread. I have directed my parish priests to form for this purpose in every parish a relief committee. Do you second them charitably and convey to my hands such alms as you can save from your superfluity, if not from your necessities, so that I may be the distributer to the destitute who are known to me.
Our distress has moved the other nations. England, Ireland, and Scotland, France, Holland, the United States, Canada, have vied with each other in generosity for our relief. It is a spectacle at once most mournful and most noble. Here again is a revelation of the Providential wisdom which draws good from evil. In your name, my brethren, and in my own, I offer to the Governments and the nations that have succored us the assurance of our admiration and our gratitude.
With a touching goodness, our Holy Father Benedict XV. has been the first to incline his heart toward us. When, a few moments after his election, he deigned to take me in his arms, I was bold enough there to ask that the first Pontifical benediction he spoke should be given to Belgium, already in deep distress through the war. He eagerly closed with my wish, which I knew would also be yours. Today, with delicate kindness, his Holiness has decided to renounce the annual offering of Peter's Pence from Belgium.
In a letter dated on the beautiful festival of the Immaculate Virgin, Dec. 8, he assures us of the part he bears in our sufferings. He prays for us, calls down upon our Belgium the protection of Heaven, and exhorts us to hail in the then approaching advent of the Prince of Peace the dawn of better days. Here is the text of this valued message:
To Our Dear Son, Désiré Mercier, Cardinal Priest of the Holy Roman Church, of the Title of St. Peter in Chains, Archbishop of Malines, at Malines:
Our Dear Son: Health and apostolic benediction. The fatherly solicitude which we feel for all the faithful whom Divine Providence has intrusted to our care causes us to share their griefs even more fully than their joys.
Could we, then, fail to be moved by keenest sorrow at the sight of the Belgian Nation, which we so dearly love, reduced by a most cruel and most disastrous war to this lamentable state?
We behold the King and his august family, the members of the Government, the chief persons of the country, Bishops, priests, and a whole people enduring woes which must fill with pity all gentle hearts, and which our own soul, in the fervor of paternal love, must be the first to compassionate. Thus, under the burden of this distress and this mourning, we call in our prayers for an end to such misfortunes. May the God of mercy hasten the day.
Meanwhile we strive to mitigate, as far as in us lies, this excessive suffering. Therefore the step taken by our dear son, Cardinal Hartmann, Archbishop of Cologne, at whose request it was arranged that French or Belgian priests detained in Germany should have the treatment of officers, gave us great satisfaction, and we have expressed our thanks to him for his action.
As regards Belgium, we have been informed that the faithful of that nation, so sorely tried, did not neglect, in their piety, to turn toward us their thoughts, and that even under the blow of so many calamities they proposed to gather this year, as in all preceding years, the offerings to St. Peter, which supply the necessities of the Apostolic See.
This truly incomparable proof of piety and of attachment filled us with admiration; we accept it with all the affection that is due from a grateful heart; but having regard to the painful position in which our dear children are placed, we cannot bring ourselves to favor the fulfillment of that project, noble though it is. If any alms are to be gathered, our wish is that the money should be entirely devoted to the benefit of the Belgian people, who are as illustrious by reason of their nobility and their piety as they are today worthy of all sympathy.
Amid the difficulties and anxieties of the present hour we would remind the sons who are so dear to us that the arm of God is not shortened, that He is ever able to save, that His ear is not deaf to prayer.
Let the hope of Divine aid increase with the approach of the festival of Christmas and of the mysteries that celebrate the birth of our Lord, and recall that peace which God proclaimed to mankind by His angels.
May the souls of the suffering and afflicted find comfort and consolation in the assurance of the paternal tenderness that prompts our prayers. Yes, may God take pity upon the Belgian people and grant them the abundance of all good.
As a pledge of these prayers and good wishes, we now grant to all, and in the first place to you, our dear son, the apostolic benediction.
Given in Rome, by St. Peter's, on the feast of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady, in the year MCMXIV., the first of our Pontificate.
BENEDICT XV., Pope.
One last word, my dearest brethren: At the outset of these troubles I said to you that in the day of the liberation of our territory we should give to the Sacred Heart and to the Blessed Virgin a public testimony of our gratitude. Since that date I have been able to consult my colleagues in the episcopate, and, in agreement with them, I now ask you to make, as soon as possible, a fresh effort to hasten the construction of the national basilica, promised by Belgium in honor of the Sacred Heart.
As soon as the sun of peace shall shine upon our country we shall redress our ruins, we shall restore shelter to those who have none, we shall rebuild our churches, we shall reconstitute our libraries, and we shall hope to crown this work of reconciliation by raising, upon the heights of the capital of Belgium, free and Catholic, that national basilica of the Sacred Heart. Furthermore, every year we shall make it our duty to celebrate solemnly, on the Friday following Corpus Christi, the festival of the Sacred Heart.
Lastly, in every region of the diocese the clergy will organize an annual pilgrimage of thanksgiving to one of the privileged sanctuaries of the Blessed Virgin in order to pay especial honor to the protectress of our national independence and universal mediatrix of the Christian Commonwealth.
The present letter shall be read on the following dates: On the first day of the year and on the Sundays following the day on which it shall severally reach you.
Accept, my dearest brethren, my wishes and prayers for you and for the happiness of your families, and receive, I pray you, my paternal benediction.
D.J. CARDINAL MERCIER,
Archbishop of Malines.
APPEAL TO AMERICA FOR BELGIUM.
By THOMAS HARDY.
|
Seven millions stand Emaciate, in that ancient Delta-land: We here, full charged with our own maimed and dead, And coiled in throbbing conflicts slow and sore, Can soothe how slight these ails unmerited Of souls forlorn upon the facing shore! Where naked, gaunt, in endless band on band Seven millions stand. No man can say To your great country that, with scant delay, You must, perforce, ease them in their sore need: We know that nearer first your duty lies; But—is it much to ask that you let plead Your loving kindness with you—wooing wise— Albeit that aught you owe and must repay No man can say? |
With the German Army
By Cyril Brown.
[Staff Correspondent of The New York Times.]