PRIEST AND RABBI.

Taihape Daily Times, 17 August 1918, Page 7

PRIEST AND RABBI.

The following is an extract from a speech delivered by the Abbe Flynn, United States army chaplain at Buffalo New York:—

"Out there in the trenches we are neither Catholic nor Jew; we are all fighting the same fight, fighting for the same God; we respect the faith and tho belief of others. I work with the Protestant chaplain and 1a Jewish rabbi; we work together for our soldiers.

"I must tell you the story of a Jewish rabbi I knew who served at the Marne. Out on the bloody field a Catholic soldier was dying. In the mud a Catholic priest lay beside him, giving the last rites of the Church. In the hands of the priest was the silver crucifix, and to it the dying man yearned to press his lips. A shell exploded. It killed the priest. Under the bursting of the shells the rabbi crawled forward; he picked up the crucifix; he put it into the hands of the dead priest, and he pressed the symbol of Christ with the dead priest's hands to the lips of the dying man. This rabbi sacrificed his life that this Catholic soldier might die in his mother's faith." '