O blessed vision! After all the years, Thou'rt with us yet. To-day, as heretofore, Men see Thee still and they cast off their fears, And take fresh courage to press on once more. The soldiers, bearing from the desperate fight A wounded brother, see Thee, in the way, And know Thee for the Saviour, Healer, Friend, For once again, Thy loved ones hear Thee say (O Christ! White Comrade, in their stand for right!) "Lo, I am with you alway, to the end." _Fidei Defensor_. CONTENTS I. IN THE TRENCHES II. THE MESSENGER III. MAIMED OR PERFECTED? IV. THE PRAYER CIRCLE I. IN THE TRENCHES "And immediately He talked with them, and saith unto them, 'Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid.'" --THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MAKK, chap, vi: 50. "And His raiment was white as snow." --THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW, chap. xvii: 2. "The Battle of Mons, which saved the British Army from annihilation, was, for the most of those who fought with the angels, a sepulchre. They saved the British Army, but they saved it at fearful cost. No 'great host' withdrew from that field of destruction; the great host strewed the ground with their bodies. Only a remnant of those who stood in the actual furnace of Mons escaped with their lives ... Let those who mourn, take encouragement from these stories of visions on the battlefield, quietly and with a child's confidence, cultivate within themselves a waiting, receptive and desiring spirit. Let them empty themselves of prejudice and self.... Let them detach themselves more and more from the obsessions of worldly life. Serenity is the path by which the thoughts of God travel to us; and Faith is the invitation which brings them to the table of our souls." --ON THE SIDE OF THE ANGELS. IN THE TRENCHES Strange tales reached us in the trenches. Rumours raced up and down that three-hundred-mile line from Switzerland to the sea. We knew neither the source of them nor the truth of them. They came quickly, and they went quickly. Yet somehow I remember the very hour when George Casey turned to me with a queer look in his blue eyes, and asked if I had seen the Friend of the Wounded. And then he told me all he knew. After many a hot engagement a man in white had been seen bending over the wounded. Snipers sniped at him. Shells fell all around. Nothing had power to touch him. He was either heroic beyond all heroes, or he was something greater still. This mysterious one, whom the French called _The Comrade in White_, seemed to be everywhere at once. At Nancy, in the Argonne, at Soissons and Ypres, everywhere men were talking of him with hushed voices. But some laughed and said the trenches were telling on men's nerves. I, who was often reckless enough in my talk, exclaimed that for me seeing was believing, and that I didn't expect any help but an enemy's knife if I was found lying out there wounded.