ey shall not doubt of their country. The foremost duty of every
Belgian citizen at this hour is gratitude to the army.

If any man had rescued you from shipwreck or from a fire, you would
assuredly hold yourselves bound to him by a debt of everlasting
thankfulness. But it is not one man, it is 250,000 men who fought, who
suffered, who fell for you so that you might be free, so that Belgium
might keep her independence, her dynasty, her patriotic unity; so that
after the vicissitudes of battle she might rise nobler, purer, more
erect, and more glorious than before.

Pray daily, my brethren, for these 250,000 and for their leaders to
victory; pray for our brothers in arms; pray for the fallen; pray for
those who are still engaged; pray for the recruits who are making ready
for the fight to come.

In your name I send them the greeting of our fraternal sympathy and our
assurance that not only do we pray for the success of their arms and for
the eternal welfare of their souls, but that we also accept for their
sake all the distress, whether physical or moral, that falls to our own
share in the oppression that hourly besets us, and all that the future
may have in store for us, in humiliation for a time, in anxiety, and in
sorrow. In the day of final victory we shall all be in honor; it is just
that today we should all be in grief.

To judge by certain rumors that have reached me, I gather that from
districts that have had least to suffer some bitter words have arisen
toward our God, words which, if spoken with cold calculation, would not
be far from blasphemous.

Oh, all too easily do I understand how natural instinct rebels against
the evils that have fallen upon Catholic Belgium. The spontaneous
thought of mankind is ever that virtue should have its instantaneous
crown and injustice its immediate retribution.

But the ways of God are not our ways, the Scripture tells us. Providence
gives free course, for a time measured by Divine wisdom, to human
passions and the conflict of desires. God, being eternal, is patient.
The last word is the word of mercy, and it belongs to those who believe
in love. "Why art thou sad, O my soul? and why dost thou disquiet me?
_Quare tristis es anima, et quare conturbas me?_" Hope in God. Bless Him
always. Is He not thy Saviour and thy God? _Spera in Deo quoniam adhuc
confitebor illi, salutare vultus mei et Deus meus._

When holy Job, whom God presented as an example of constancy to the
ge