Praying with all the powers of His heart and soul for the orderly future of the world, the Sovereign Pontiff implored, in the most touching terms, the belligerent nations to agree to a "Just and Durable Peace."
As it was certain, even if He had not said so with such pathetic expressions, His Holiness drew the saddest possible picture of the untold misfortunes war, carried on in such vast proportions, was inflicting upon the peoples waging the struggle.
I will only quote the few following words from the first letter of His Holiness, dated July 28, 1915:—
"It cannot be said that the immense conflict cannot be terminated without armed violence."
No one can take exception to this truism, authoritatively expressed under circumstances greatly adding to its importance and to its solemn announcement. It is just as true to-day as it was,—and has been ever since,—when the whole world was passing through the crucial ordeal of the days during which England and France were almost imploring Germany not to plunge the earth into the horrors of the war she was determined to bring on.
The questions at stake could then have been easily settled without "ARMED VIOLENCE," if the Imperial Government of Berlin had listened to the pressing demand of Great Britain in favour of the maintenance of peace.
It is scarcely believable that the Nationalist leader has abused of those weighty words to the point of attempting to persuade the French-Canadians that the Allies, even more than the Rulers of the Central Empires, have refused to listen to the prayers of the Pope. In January last, he published a new pamphlet, entitled "The Pope, Arbiter of Peace," in which he reproduced from "Le Devoir" his numerous articles, from August 1914, on the intervention of the Sovereign Pontiff in favour of the cessation of the hostilities, and on the current events of the times.
The oft-repeated diatribes of Mr. Bourassa against England were bound to be once more edited in the above pamphlet. Their author, in a true fatherly way, not willing to allow them to die under the contempt they deserve, would not lose the chance to have them to survive in tackling them with his comments on His Holiness' letters.
This pamphlet, the worthy sequel of its predecessors which, for the good of Mr. Bourassa's compatriots, should never have seen the light of day, would call for many more refutable quotations than I can undertake to make in this work. A few will suffice to show the deplorable purport of the whole book.
In his letter dated, July 28, 1915, the Pope wrote:—