the second anniversary of
their Independence (July 21st, 1916), which the Belgians celebrated in
exile and captivity? It was in the great Gothic church, in Brussels,
under the arches of Ste. Gudule, at the close of a service for the
soldiers fallen during the war, the very last patriotic ceremony
tolerated by the Germans. Socialists, Liberals, Catholics crowded the
nave, forgetting their old quarrels, united in a common worship, the
worship of their threatened country, of their oppressed liberties.

"How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?" His audience
imagined that the preacher alluded only to a spiritual captivity, that
he meant: "How shall we celebrate our freedom in this German prison?"
And they listened, like the first Christians in the catacombs, dreading
to hear the tramp of the soldiers before the door. The Cardinal pursued
his fearless address: "The psalm ends with curses and maledictions. We
will not utter them against our enemies. We are not of the Old but of
the New Testament. We do not follow the old law: an eye for an eye, a
tooth for a tooth, but the new law of Love and Christian brotherhood.
But we do not forget that even above Love stands Justice. If our brother
sins, how can we pretend to love him if we do not wish that his sins
should be punished...."

Such was the tenor of the Cardinal's address, the greatest Christian
address inspired by the war, uttered under the most tragic and moving
circumstances. For the people knew by then the danger of speaking out
their minds in conquered Belgium; they knew that some German spies were
in the church taking note of every word, of every gesture. Still, they
could not restrain their feelings, and, at the close of the sermon, when
the organ struck up the _Brabanconne_, they cheered and cheered again,
thankful to feel, for an instant, the dull weight of oppression lifted
from their shoulders by the indomitable spirit of their old leader.

What strikes us now, when recalling this memorable ceremony, is not so
much the address itself as the choice of its text: "For they that
carried us away captive required of us a song."

Many of those who listened to Cardinal Mercier on July 21st, 1916, have
no doubt been "carried away" by now, and they have sung. They have sung
the Brabanconne and the "Lion de Flandres" as a last defiance to their
oppressors whilst those long cattle trains, packed with human cattle,
rolled in wind and rain towards the German fro