When we look at this sad picture we can realize in some degree the sufferings of the poor Belgians. Their houses have been destroyed, their cherished belongings have been given to the flames; tens of thousands of their bravest and best have been slain, in some cases with the foulest cruelty, and hundreds of thousands of those who survive are homeless and ruined. All over the land ancient monuments of art and learning are in shapeless ruin. The love and labour and pride of centuries have been swept away, and a prosperous land has been reduced to beggary. And what have the Belgians done to deserve this hideous treatment? They have dared to defend their own country; they have dared to stand in the way of a ruthless nation that had sworn not to trespass on their soil; they have refused to sell that which was dearer to them than life itself--the independence of their land; and for this they have suffered martyrdom. Let us never forget that the Belgians have fought and suffered for us. Had they given the Germans free passage through their country, or had they feebly resisted them, a great and sudden swoop would have been made upon France at the very moment when she was unprepared to meet it. Not only might France have gone down, and the work of the Allies in overcoming the enemy been made doubly difficult, but the Germans might have established themselves on the north coast of France, from which they could have seriously threatened our shores. By her splendid courage and staunchness Belgium has saved Europe, and the civilization of the world is her debtor. "They gave their homes for the Huns to tread, Their homes for the Huns to burn; For our very lives they gave their dead, _And what shall we give in turn?_" [Illustration: Termonde. _Photo, Central News._] [Footnote 206: Ruled over Hungary, with his capital at Budapest. Became King of the Huns, 434 A.D.; died of intemperance, 453.] [Footnote 207: An idyll is a story poem. The king is Arthur, who "in twelve great battles overcame the heathen hordes, and made a realm and reigned."] [Footnote 208: Born 1478, died 1535; became Lord Chancellor of England. Was beheaded by Henry VIII.] [Footnote 209: Means "Nowhere" (written 1516).] [Footnote 210: Born 1466, died 1536; a native of Antwerp, and the greatest scholar and critic of his age.] [Footnote 211: Born 1466, died 1530. His best pictures are in Antwerp.] [Footnote 212: Fought in Germany between 1618 and 1648.] [Footnote 213: The chief officer of a Dutch or Belgian town; the mayor.] [Footnote 214: _Go-b'lan´_, so called from Gilles Gobelin, a famous tapestry maker of Paris in the fifteenth century.] [Footnote 215: Sir Anthony Van Dyck, born 1599, died 1641. Many of his best portraits are to be found in private galleries in England.] [Footnote 216: Peter Paul Rubens, born 1577, died 1640; the greatest painter of the Flemish school.] CHAPTER XXVI. THE RALLY OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE.