They buried him up there, and that night his loss was mourned, not
without tears, by many rough soldiers who had loved the man for his
cheeriness, and honoured him for the simple faith, which seemed to
put a glamour about the mud-stained uniform of a soldier of France.
There were scores of stories like that, and the army lists contained
the names of hundreds of these priest-soldiers decorated with the
Legion of Honour or mentioned in dispatches for gallant acts.
The character of these men was filled with the spirit of Christian faith,
though the war in which they sacrificed their lives was an outrage
against Christianity itself. The riddle of it all bewilders one's soul, and
one can only go groping in the dark of despair, glad of the little light
which comes to the trench of the battlefield, because men like these
still promise something better than hatred and blood, and look
beyond the gates of death, to peace.
10
Not all French soldiers are like these priests who were valiant with the
spirit of Christian faith. Side by side with the priest was the apache, or
the slum-dweller, or the peasant from the fields, who in conversation
was habitually and unconsciously foul. Not even the mild protest of
one of these priests could check the flow of richly imagined
blasphemies which are learnt in the barracks during the three years'
service, and in the bistros of the back streets of France from
Cherbourg to Marseilles.
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