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 the second anniversary of
their Independence (July 21st, 1916), which the Belgians celebrated in