e done by the score
and the hundred which will never be recorded, and every one of which is
noble enough to make an immortal song. All over the broken map of
Europe, through stricken thousands of square miles, such deeds are being
done by Servians, Russians, Poles, Belgians, French and English,--yes,
and Germans too,--the souls of men and women rising above their bodies,
flinging them away for the sake of a cause. Think of one incident only,
only one of the white-hot gleams of the Spirit that have reached us from
the raging furnace. Out from the burning cathedral of Rheims they were
dragging the wounded German prisoners lying helpless inside on straw
that had begun to burn. In front of the church the French mob was about
to shoot or tear to pieces those crippled, defenseless enemies. You and
I might well want to kill an enemy who had set fire to Mount Vernon, the
house of the Father of our Country.

For more than seven hundred years that great church of Rheims had been
the sacred shrine of France. One minute more and those Germans lying
or crawling outside the church door would have been destroyed by the
furious people. But above the crash of rafters and glass, the fall of
statues, the thunder of bombarding cannon, and the cries of French
execration, rose one man's voice. There on the steps of the ruined
church stood a priest. He lifted his arms and said:

"Stop; remember the ancient ways and chivalry of France. It is not
Frenchmen who trample on a maimed and fallen foe. Let us not descend
to the level of our enemies."

It was enough. The French remembered France. Those Germans were
conveyed in safety to their appointed shelter--and far away, across
the lands and oceans, hearts throbbed and eyes grew wet that had never
looked on Rheims.

These are the tongues of fire; this is the Pentecost of Calamity. Often
it must have made brothers again of those who found themselves prone on
the battlefield, neighbors awaiting the grave. In Flanders a French
officer of cavalry, shot through the chest, lay dying, but with life
enough still to write his story to the lady of his heart. He wrote thus:

"There are two other men lying near me, and I do not think there is
much hope for them either. One is an officer of a Scottish regiment
and the other a private in the uhlans. They were struck down after me,
and when I came to myself I found them bending over me, rendering
first aid. The Britisher was pouring water down my throat from