"But dominating, penetrating them all, purifying what in them was too personal and restricted, was the thought that in doing all this they were going to fight with heroic brothers and employ their strength to defend what is most venerable on earth: outraged justice.
"Perhaps they ignored historical secrets and diplomatic complications, but they knew the war brutally declared, the treaties torn away, Belgium violated, and agonizing, France mutilated and invaded, England, herself, chased over the moving frontier of her oceans invaded; they knew the destroyed homes, the profanated Cathedrals, the brutally murdered old men, women and children, and the flood of barbarians rushing in tumultuous waves over the fields of the sweetest country. They knew that, over there, two nations to whom we are attached by our political, or by our national, life, wanted the support of their sons far away, that they had to battle for sacred interests in a war requiring an endurance commanding an incessant renewal of our energies; and then, without halting to consider if they were obliged to it by laws, they have answered the most pressing call of their souls, and have freely made the devoted sacrifice."
What other edifying contrast between the appreciation of the part played by the Canadian army by three intellects, one overpowered by an inexplicable hostile passion, the two others, inspired by the noblest sentiments, rising to the sublime conception of the great sacrifice accepted by our brave volunteers, which they express by eloquent words who moved the hearts and brought abundant and warm tears to the eyes of those who heard or read them.
Where one only sees depraved beings more contemptible than all those which any other country could produce or forge, the two others, so much superior in every way, admire, the first, those who went to defend the most just of all causes, that of Civilization, of Right, of Humanity; the second, the supernatural beauty of sacrifice that their brothers in arms have made of their lives to the justice of God.
The pamphleteer cruelly attacks those who, to-morrow, will face with unfaltering courage the guns of the enemy to defend Civilization and avenge the martyrs of barbarity.
The sacred orator blesses the mortal remains of our sons who have fallen on the field of honour, on the soil of France, where our forefathers were born and bred, with the fervent prayer of their grateful country that knows they died heroically "for a great cause" to defend what is most venerable on earth: "outraged Justice."
The following pages from a very eloquent Pastoral Letter by Bishop Emard, of the diocese of Valleyfield, will, I am sure, be read with most respectful interest by all. They are as follows:—
"Dear Brethren, we certainly have the right, and we even consider that it is for us all, citizens of Canada, loyal subjects of England, a duty to demand from God the success of the arms of our Mother-country and of her Allies in the present war. If we are not called upon, as a matter of faith, to pass judgment on the true causes of the war, and to divide the responsibilities respecting the calamity which covers Europe with blood, we are surely allowed to think and to say that all the circumstances actually known sufficiently prove that right is on the side of the peoples who have checked the invasion, and discouraged the overflowing of the enemy from his territory, in order that the sentiment of justice may serve to support the devotion of our soldiers, in this great conflict, called the struggle of Civilization against barbarism.
"The Church of Christ, always the same by her doctrine, has been marvellously constituted by the Divine Wisdom, to adapt her externally everywhere and always, to the infinitely varied circumstances consequent on the diversity of peoples, of governments, of social relations. She has never ceased to practice, by Her Pastors and her faithful children, the great lesson given by Christ: "Render therefore to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's and to God the things that are God's," and to claim with the Apostle all the rights as well as accept all the duties of citizens and subjects."
After recalling that from the day Divine Providence, in Her mysterious designs, allowed Canada to pass from the French to the English Sovereignty, the Church, by Her Bishops, has declared that, henceforth, it was the duty of the French Canadians to transfer to the British Crown, without reserve, the cordial allegiance which the King of France had hitherto received from them, and that since then until the present days, the Canadian Episcopate has remained true to his course, Bishop Emard proceeds as follows:—