CARDINAL'S CRIME.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 232, 10 March 1915, Page 2

CARDINAL'S CRIME.

THE OFFEXDTXG PASTORAL LETTER. AN ELOQUENT EXHORTATION.

The following are extracts from the pastoral letter of Cardinal Mereier, Archibshop of Malines, the issue of which resulted in his being placed under arrest l>y the Germans. Early in his letter the Cardinal pays a moving tribute to the Belgian Army and to King Albert. "IThe foremost duty of every Belgian citizen at this hour," writes the Cardinal, ! "is gratitude to. the Army. . . . Pray | daily, my brethren, for those two hundred and fifty thousand, and for their loaders to vTctory. In your name I send I them the greeting o" our fraternal sym- | pathy aTul our assurance that not only do we pray 'for the success of their arms and for the eternal welfare of their souls, hut that we also accept for their sake all tlie distress, whether physical or moral, that falls to our own share in the oppression that hourly be. sets us, and all that the future may have in store for us, in humiliation for a time, in anxiety, and in sorrow. In the day of final victory we shall all be in honor; it is just that to-day we should all be in grief."

AT LOUVAIN. "Better than any other man, perhaps, do I know what our unhappy country has undergone. Churches, schools, asylums, hospitals, convents in great numbers are in ruins. Entire villages have all disappeared. At Louvain a third part of the buildings are down; one thousand and seventy .four dwellings have disappeared; on the town land and in the suburbs one thousand eight hundred and twenty-three houses have been burnt.

'•ln this dear city of Louvain, per- [ petually in my thoughts, all the accu- | mulation of intellectual, of historic, auA I of artistic riches, the fruits of the labors of five centuries—all is in the dust. ".Many a parish lost its pastor. Millions of Belgian citizens have in like manner been deported to the prisons of <i will any, to Muiisterlagen, to Celle, to Magdeburg. (History will tell of the physical and moral torments of their long martyrdom. Hundreds of innocent men were shot. In the Louvain group of communes one hundred and seventy, (six persons, men "and wpmen, old men anil sucklings, rich and poor, in health and sickness, were shot or burnt. "In my diocese alone I know that thirteen priests or religietises were put to death. One of these, the parish priest of Gelrode, suffered, I Helieve, a veritable martrydom. ITo my own actual personal knowledge more than thirty ecclesiastics were shot in the dioceses of Namur, Tournai, and Liege. "HOW LONG?" "And there where lives were not taken, and there where the stones of the buildings were not thrown down, what anguish unrevcaled! Families hitherto living at ease, now in bitter want; all commerce at an end, all careers ruined; hulustry at a standstill: thousands upon thousands of working men without employment; working women, shop-girls, humble servant-girls, without""the means of earning their bread; and poor souls forlorn on the bed of sickiTess and fever, crying, "O Lord, Iliow long, how long?" "There is nothing to reply. The reply remains the secret of God. . . God will • save Belgium, my brethren, you cannot doubt it. Nay, rather, He is saving her. "Acj'oss the smoke of conflagration, across the stream of blood, have you not glimpses, do you not perceive signs of His love for us? Is there a patriot among us who does not know that Belgium has grown great? Nay, which of us would have the heart to cancel this last page 67 our national history? Which of us does not exult in the brightness of the glory of this shattered nation? BELGIUM'S DEFIANCE. "When a mighty foreign power, con. fident in its own strength and defiant of the faith of treaties, dared to threaten us in our independence, then did all Belgians, without difference of 'party, or of condition, or of origin, rise up as one man, close-rangeu about their own king, and their own Government, and cry to the invader: 'Thou shalt not go through!' "At once, instantly, we were conscious of our own patriotism. For down within us all is something deeper than personal interests, than personal kinships, than party feeling, ancl this is the need and the will to devote ourselves to that more general interest, which Rome termed the proper thing, Res pub. lica. And this profound will within us is Patriotism. "We may now say, my Brethren, without unworthy pride, that our little Belgium has taken the foremost place in the esteem of nations. I am aware that certain onlookers, notably in Ital_v and in Holland, have asked how it could jhe necessary to expose this country to so immense a loss of wealth and of life, and whether a verbal manifesto against hostile aggression, or a single cannonshot on the frontie?, would have served the purpose of protest. But assuredly all men of good feeling will be with us in the rejection of these paltry counsels. Mere utilitarianism is not sufficient rule of Christian citizenship. THE SCRAP OF PAPER. "On the 19th April, 1539, a treaty was signed in London, by King Leopold, in the name of Belgium, on the one part, and by the Emperor of Austria, the King of France, the Queen of England, the King of Prussia, and the Emperor of Russia, on the other; and its seventh article decreed that Belgium should form a separate and perpetual, ly neutral state, and should be held to the observance of this neutrality in regard to all other States. The consignatories promised, for themselves and for their successors, upon their oath, to fulfil and observe that treaty in every point and eveiy article without contravention, or tolerance of contravention. Belgium was thus hound in honor to defend her own independence. She Fept her oath. The other powers were bound to respect and to protect her neutrality. Germany violated her oath; England kept hers These are the facts. "The laws of conscience are sovereign laws. We should have acted unworthily had we evaded our obligation by a mere feint of resistance. And now "we would not rescind our first resolution; we exult in it. Being called upon to write a most solemn page in the history of our country, Ave resolved tliat it should also he a sincere, also a glorious page. And as long as tve are required to give nroof of endurance, so long we shall endure." ATTITUDE TO THE INVADER. "I do not require of you to renounce any of your national desires. On the contrary, I hold" it as a part of the obligations of my episcopal office to in. struct you n s to your duty in face of the Power that has invaded our soil and now occupies the greater part of our country. The authority of that Power is no lawful authority. Therefore, in

soul and conscience you owe'it neither respect, not attachment, nor obedience. "The sole lawful authority in Belgium is that of our Xing, of our Government, of the elected representativse of the nation. This authority alone has the right to our affection, our suamlsslon. "Thus the invader's acts of public administration have in themselves no authority, but legitimate,. authority li.is tacitly ratified such of those acts as affect the general interests, and this rat. ification, and this only, gives them juridic value. "Occupied provinces are not conquered provinces. Belgium is no more a tierman province than Gallcia is' Russian province. Nevertheless, the occupied portion of our country is in a position it is compelled to endure. The greater part of our towns, having surrendered to j the enemy on conditions, are bound to observe those conditions. From the outset of military operations, the civil authorities of the country urged upon all private persons the necessity of abstention from hostile aets against the enemy's army. That instruction remains in force. It is our army, and our army solely, in league, with the valiant troops of our allies, that has the honor and the d'uty of national defence. Let us en. ■ trust the army with our fina deliverance.

COUNSEL OF FORBEARANCE. "Towards' the persons of those who are holding dominion among us by military force, and who assuredly cannot but be sensible of the chivalrous energy with which we hav.e defended, and are s'till defending, our independence, let us conduct ourselves with all needful forbearance. Some among them have declared themselves willing to mitigate as far as possible, the severity of our situation and to help -us to recover some minimum of regular civic life. Let us observe the rules they have laid upon us so long as those rules do not violate our personal liberty, or our con. sciences as Christians, or our duty to our country. Let us not take bravado for courage, nor tumult for liravery,"