VICTORY!

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2612, 6 November 1915, Page 13

VICTORY!

ONLY ONE OPINION IN FRANCE. "France believes only one thing will bo tho outoome of the war —victory. Sho believes this with an. ardour and confidence that makes it easy for the visitor there to understand why tho valour of the French soldier 'has captured the admiration of the world," said the Rev. Andrew L. Levatois, treasurer of St. Mary's Seminary, to the "New York Herald" on his arrival from Europe on August 29.

Father Levatois. who went to France last summer to spend his vacation, practically was marooned when the war began, and for tho last year taught in a seminary at Constates, the diocese from whidh lie comes. He finally got permission from the French. Government to return to America to resume his work at St. Mary's Seminary. "There are 30,000 priests fighting the battles of France to-day," h© continued. "Many of them have been killed. Two numbers of my diocese in France gave up their lives, while in a neighbouring diocese thero were fifteen. Thus it has been throughout all Franoe. These priests aTe in the trenches,; fighting shoulder to shoulder with their fellow countrymen, and asking only one thing—the chance to defend the honour of their native land. At the seminary at which I taught last year fifty or tho eighty-five students went to the war. The other thirty-five remained at home because their Government deemed them too young or because they >ere physically incapacitated.

"Many priests and students have been taken prisoners of war. In this connection there is one bright incident which shows that even war cannot make man uninterested in the work of his fellow man. no matter what his nationality. Many of the students who have been taken prisoners have determined that they cannot make better use of their enforced detention than to continue their philosophical and theokirical studies. The German priests in the villages near which they are detained liavo thrown, open their libraries for these students."