"Yes, Sister, I am a priest. Take me to him."
There he lay at the point of death, wounded and wounded sorely. It was a strange sight—his dirty ragged uniform not yet removed, the stains of war and of awful travel from the front upon his face, and he a priest!
"Take me to him," he repeated.
She said: "You are not fit to be moved, I dare not do it." And then insistently he whispered:
"Sister, you are of the faith. You know what it means to the dying lad. I must go."
He tried to rise from the straw on which he lay, and seeing his determination the nurse had him moved to the dying soldier's side. A few whispered words of confession, and the priest motioned to the Sister.
"I cannot raise my arm. Help me to make the sign," he said.
The Sister lifted his arm and together they made the sign of the cross. And then, exhausted, the soldier priest fell back. His comrade felt for his hand, clasped it in his dying grasp, and together priest and penitent passed away.
Thus heroically are many French priests doing a double work, at once fighting for their country and for their faith.
It is the same with French Protestant ministers. All of military age have had to go. The President of the French Wesleyan Conference, the Rev. Emile Ullern, is fighting as a private soldier in the French Army, and many another. Two-fifths of the pastors of the Reformed Church of France are also in the ranks. Already three of them, plus a missionary and a most promising theological student, one of the Monod's, have fallen on the battle-field. Our French churches are without pastors, and the work of many years is seemingly being ruined. But their members are at the front too, and it is a joy if, now and then, they meet and are able to comfort one another in the firing line.