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.