In a little barrack in the hollow of one of the depressions at Verdun lived together a priest, a minister and a rabbi. We often saw the place. On the evening after a frightful battle, they were all three in the charnel house where the dead bodies are brought. They were surrounded by stretcher-bearers, who said to them:
"We do not dare throw earth on the bodies of our comrades without a prayer being said over them."
The Catholic priest asked to what faith they belonged.
"We do not know. How can we find out? But can't you arrange among yourselves?"
"Well, we shall bless them one after the other."
And there in the bleeding night was seen the incomparable sight of the three men side by side, the Catholic, the Protestant and the Jew, reciting the last prayer and disappearing....
M. Maurice Barrès, the celebrated French writer, from whose magnificent book, "The Spiritual Families of France," I have borrowed a great number of the letters I have quoted, has pointed out that all French churches are fighting in this hour, forming one great church. Yes, every church and every saint is fighting! These saints belong to all beliefs, some of them to no belief. But one religion has united and solidified them all—the religion of their country, the religion of Liberty, the religion of civilization. All speak the same prayer, all have the same faith in their hearts, all fall martyrs in the same cause.
The old walls which, in times of peace, separated parties and men, have crumbled into dust at the same time when the German shells crumbled into dust the little village churches. An infinite cathedral, a cathedral that is invisible and great has risen on high. It is the cathedral of the faith of France, in which all faiths commune in the same hope—a cathedral which time and suffering and death itself shall not destroy.