Better than any other man, perhaps, do I know what our country has undergone. These four last months have seemed to me age-long. By thousands have our brave ones been mown down; wives, mothers, are weeping for those they shall never see again; hearths are desolate; dire poverty spreads; anguish increases. I have traversed the greater part of the districts most terribly devastated in my diocese, and the ruins I beheld were more dreadful than I, prepared by the saddest of forebodings, could have imagined. Churches, schools, asylums, hospitals, convents, in great numbers, are in ruins. Entire villages have all but disappeared.

In the dear city of Louvain, perpetually in my thoughts, the magnificent church of St. Peter will never recover its former splendor. The ancient college of St. Ives, the art schools, the consular and commercial schools of the University, the old markets, our rich library with its collections, its unique and unpublished manuscripts, its archives, its galleries-all this accumulation of intellectual, of historic, of artistic riches, the fruits of the labor of five centuries-all is in the dust.

Many a parish has lost its pastor. In my diocese alone I know that thirteen priests were put to death. Thousands of Belgian citizens have been deported to the prisons of Germany. Hundreds of innocent men have been shot or burned. We can neither number our dead nor complete the measure of our ruins.

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 case, now in bitter want; all commerce at an end; all careers ruined; industry at a standstill; thousands upon thousands of workingmen without employment; workingwomen, shop girls, 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. my brethren, we will adore Him in the integrity of our souls. we see, in all its magnificence, the revelation of His wisdom, but our faith trusts Him with it all. Before His justice we are humble, and in His mercy hopeful.

As for us,

Not yet do

God will save Belgium, my brethren, you cannot doubt it. Nay, rather, He is saving her. Across the smoke of conflagration, across the stream of blood, have you not glimpses, do you not perceive, signs of His love for us? Is there a patriot among us who does not know that Belgium has grown great? Nay, which of us would have the heart to cancel this last page in the national history? Which of us does not exult in the brightness of the glory of this shattered nation? When a mighty foreign power, confident in its own strength and defiant of the faith of treaties, dared to threaten us in our independence, then did all Belgians rise as one man. Belgium gave her word of honor to defend her independence. She

kept her word. The other Powers had agreed to protect and to respect Belgian neutrality. Germany has broken her word; England has been faithful to it. These are the facts. We should have acted unworthily had we evaded our obligation. And now we would not rescind our first resolution; we exult in it. Being called upon to write a most solemn page in the history of our country, we resolved that it should be also a sincere, also a glorious page. And as long as we are compelled to give proof of endurance, so long we shall endure.

Truce then, my brethren, to all murmurs of complaint. Not only to the Redeemer's example shall you look, but also to that of the thirty thousand, perhaps forty thousand, men who have already shed their he blood for their country. In comparison with them what have you endured who are deprived of the daily comforts of your lives? Let the patriotism of our army, the heroism of our King and our beloved Queen, serve to stimulate us and support us. Let us bemoan ourselves no more. Let us deserve the coming deliverance. Let us hasten it by our prayers. Courage, brethren. Suffering passes away; the crown of life for our souls, the crown of glory for our nation, shall not pass.

SOME EXAMPLES OF MISCELLANEOUS PROSE

The Bible. King James's version (1611) The Bible contains many types of

The works of Jacob Riis, Edward A. Steiner, Jane Addams, Helen Keller, Mary Austin, David Starr Jordan, Booker Washington.

SOME FAMOUS CHARACTERS FROM LITERATURE

In what work found? By whom written?