As for the general plea that they had encouraged the civil population to resist, far from justifying the German conduct, it only makes it more odious, for what finer praise could be given to a priest in time of war than to say that he tried to stimulate the love of country among the faithful, especially when it is traitorously attacked by people who violate their pledged word? Besides, the very accounts of the outrages in question show that the plea of reprisals has no validity. In these stories the immorality and blasphemy of the torturers reveals itself without any disguise. The worst criminal feels a kind of fear and remorse as he stands in the presence of God’s representative. This fear is unknown to the German soldier. The German invaders have even shown that they are devoid of respect for the sacred or charitable occupations in the midst of which they almost everywhere found the priests whom they have been known to massacre. With them everything has given way to the deliberate desire to sow terror among the civil population. In many places it is certain that this end could not be better attained than by ill-treating and massacring their spiritual heads. ILL-TREATMENT M. Auguste Mélot, deputy of Namur, published a book, _Martyre du Clergé Belge_, which throws light upon this conduct so far as Belgium is concerned. The curés of Wygmael and Wesemael were forced to march, on the 29th August, before the army with their elbows bound together. A curé of Rotselaer and a curé of Wackerzeel, aged seventy years, were shut up for whole days in a church, almost without food and under dreadful conditions. They were finally brought away to Germany, where insults were heaped upon them. A German officer at Aix-la-Chapelle spat in the face of the curé of Rotselaer. Tainted bread was given them to eat. At last they were brought back to Belgium, by forced marches, from Brussels to Haeren, from Haeren to Vilvorde, from Vilvorde to Malines.