d and the new
forms of slavery: The average slave driver of past days was only a
trader who sold human beings instead of selling oxen or sheep. When his
trade was prohibited, he took heavy risks and ran great danger of losing
his fortune and his life. But the German rulers of Belgium, whether they
be in Brussels or in Berlin, whether we call them von Bissing or
Helfferich, live in the comfort of their homes, surrounded by their
families, and when assailed by protests, can still play hide and seek
around the broken pillars of the Temple of Peace and wave arrogantly,
like so many flags, the torn articles of international law: "I assert,"
said Dr. Helfferich in the Reichstag (December 2nd)--"I assert that
setting the Belgian unemployed to work is thoroughly consonant with
international law. We therefore _take our stand, formally and in
practice, on international law, making use of our undoubted rights_."

Let Dr. Helfferich beware. He is not the only judge on international
law. His stand may come crashing down.

[Footnote 5: I should ask the reader to confront this declaration with
the statement made by the Belgian workmen in their appeal to the working
classes of the world. "On the Western Front they force them, by the most
brutal means, _to dig trenches_, construct aviation grounds...."

In his letter sent to the Belgian Ministers to the Vatican and to Spain,
Baron Beyens, the Belgian Minister for Foreign Affairs, says: "The men
are sent to occupied France _to construct sets of trenches and a
strategic railway, Lille-Aulnaye-Givet."_

Among many trustworthy reports, we hear that the 5th
Zivilisten-Bataillon, including some men of Ghent and Alost, has been
forced to work, under threat of death, on the construction of a
strategic railway between Laon and Soissons. Some of the men, exhausted
by the bad treatment inflicted upon them, have been sent back to Belgium
in a critical condition, and have written a full statement relating
their experiences, signed by twenty of them. On the other hand, the
Belgian General Headquarters report that Belgian civilians, obliged to
dig trenches and dug-outs near Becelaere (West Flanders), were exposed
to the fire of the English guns.]

II. BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON ...

"By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we
remembered Zion."

What prophetic spirit inspired Cardinal Mercier when he chose this psalm
for the text of his sermon, on the occasion of