They are going in strong for education in the A. E. F. and we have lost temporarily the services of many of our best officers. Lieutenant Colonel Reed has gone off to school and also the three Majors and half the Captains. I hope they are getting something out of their schooling for nobody here is learning anything except how to lead the life of a tramp. The men have no place to drill or to shoot or to manœuvre. I hear we are moving soon to fresh fields further south—Heaven grant it, for we waste time here. GRAND _December_ 23rd, 1917 I think it was Horace who said something to the effect that far-faring men change the skies above them but not the hearts within them. That occurs to me when I see our lads along the streets of this ancient Roman town. It is old, old, old. You have to go down steps to get to the floor of the 700-year-old Gothic nave of the church because the detritus of years has gradually raised the level of the square; and the tower of the church, a huge square donjon with walls seven feet thick slitted for defensive bowmen, is twice as old as the nave. And it has the ruins of an amphitheatre and a well preserved mosaic pavement that date back to the third century, when the Caesars had a big camp here to keep the Gauls in order. I shan’t say that the men are not interested in these antiquities. They are an intelligent lot, and unsated by sight-seeing, and they give more attention to what they see than most tourists would. When I worked the history of the place into my Sunday sermon I could see that everybody was wide awake to what I had to say. But in their hearts they are still in good little old New York. The quips and slang of New York play houses are heard on the streets where Caesar’s legionaries chaffed each other in Low Latin. Under the fifteen centuries old tower Phil Brady maintains the worth of Flushing because Major Lawrence hails from there. Paul Haerting and Dryer exchange repartee outside the shrine of St. Libaire, Virgin and Martyr, after their soldiers orisons at his tomb. Charles Dietrich and Jim Gormley interrupt my broodings over the past in the ruins of the amphitheater to ask me news about our parish in the Bronx.