Acting under the instructions of his Government, the Belgian Minister telegraphed to Mrs. Cavell:
'The Belgian Government shares with emotion and respect in your grief. Our entire population to-day associates in a universal sentiment of admiration and gratitude the name of Miss Cavell with that of the many Belgian women who have already fallen martyrs to German barbarism, and from whose innocent blood will arise new heroism for the defence of civilization.'
A Great Memorial Service.
London in particular, and the nation in general, laid its wreath of prayer around the bier of Edith Cavell in a great memorial service held in St. Paul's Cathedral on October 29, 1915. It was a fitting and touching token of affection and admiration of one of our greatest national heroines, solemnly performed in one of the most sacred of our national shrines.
The morning found London enshrouded in blue-grey mist; but at eleven o'clock, the time of service, the weather-worn old sanctuary commenced to gleam in pale sunshine, as if it were a halo from the glorious dead to lighten the gloom of the sorrowing multitude.
St. Paul's Cathedral has witnessed many moving ceremonies, sad and joyful, pathetic and glorious, but never in its history had it witnessed a spectacle quite like the present occasion, which had its origin in a brutal act of tyranny that had given rise to a cry of horror to agitate the civilized world.
Under Wren's great dome were gathered representatives of every department of the national life. Mr. E. W. Wallington attended on behalf of the King and Queen. It had been expected that Queen Alexandra would be similarly represented, but Her Majesty preferred to attend in person in strictest privacy, typical of that gracious tact that has made her universally beloved, and one more proof of her special friendship for nurses.
The family of the martyred nurse was represented by two married sisters, Miss Scott Cavell, matron of the Hull and East Riding Convalescent Home, and other relatives. The aged mother was not present; she was too weighed down by weight of years and sorrow to face a public ordeal whose pathos would have been too poignant to bear. In imagination could be conjured up a white-haired stately dame in her quiet Norwich home, engaging in a simultaneous service all her own in the silence of her saddened heart.
Among the more distinguished members of the congregation were the Prime Minister and not a few members of the Cabinet; members of both Houses of Parliament; Sir A. Keogh (representing Lord Kitchener); Lord Charles Beresford, a popular representative of the Navy; the Diplomatic Corps; the High Commissioners of Canada and Australia; the Deputy Lord Mayor and Sheriffs in state; and notable representatives of the arts, sciences, commerce, &c. For the rest there was a vast concourse, all bent upon the one single purpose of taking advantage of the grave and beautiful Anglican ritual to place on record, without bitterness, hate, or venom, their deep sense of the foul crime that had sent Edith Cavell to her death.
But the outstanding feature of the multitude was the nurses. Six hundred of them were in reserved seats, but there must have been at least two thousand in the building. First and foremost were various members of Miss Cavell's training school in Belgium; and, of course, the 'London,' in their dark rifle green, had a prominent place in the great company of nurses of all grades, ambassadors and delegates of their noble profession. Many of them were simply in caps and aprons with a cloak around their shoulders, suggesting that they had come straight from their duties in the city's palaces of pain to engage in a service that was a fresh consecration of their merciful calling.