Others, like the priests who stood firm in
the midst of Jordan, have carried their message of hope to the dying
into the trenches.
No article on the work of the Red Cross can be complete without a
reference to the work of these priests, not perhaps affiliated with
the society, but doing yeoman work of service among the wounded. They
are everywhere, in the trenches or at the outposts, in the hospitals
and hospital trains, in hundreds of small villages, where the entire
community plus its burden of wounded turns to the _cure_ for
everything, from advice to the sacrament.
In prostrate Belgium the demands on the priests have been extremely
heavy. Subjected to insult, injury and even death during the German
invasion, where in one diocese alone thirteen were put to death--their
churches destroyed, or used as barracks by the enemy--that which was
their world has turned to chaos about them. Those who remained with
their conquered people have done their best to keep their small
communities together and to look after their material needs--which
has, indeed, been the lot of the priests of battle-scarred Flanders
for many generations.
Others have attached themselves to the hospital service. All the
Belgian trains of wounded are cared for solely by these priests, who
perform every necessary service for their men, and who, as I have said
before, administer the sacrament and make coffee to cheer the flagging
spirits of the wounded, with equal courage and resource.
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