While a world of mourners is plaintively asking, “What has become of our brave dead, where are they? Alas! how dark is the world without them, how silent the home, how sad the heart”; whilst the mourner is groping like the blind woman for her lost treasure, the Belgian mother, and the Belgian widow, and the Belgian orphan are on their knees, praying, “Eternal rest give to them, O Lord; let a perpetual light shine upon them,” the Christian plea that has echoed down the ages from the day of the Maccabees till now, exhorting us to pray for the dead that they may be loosed from their sins. I would remind the broken-hearted mother beseeching me to tell her where can her brave boy be gone, adding, “His was such a lonely journey; did he find his way to God?” of the words of the poet, who finds his answer to her question in the flight of a sea bird sailing sunward from the winter snows: There is a Power whose care Teaches thy way along the pathless coast, The desert and illimitable air, Lone, wandering but not lost: He who from zone to zone Guides, through the boundless sky, thy certain flight, In the lone way which thou must tread alone Will lead thy steps aright. The brave soldier, who in the discharge of high duty has been suddenly shot into eternity by the fire of the enemy, will surely, far more easily than the migrating bird, wing his flight to God, Who, let us pray, will not long withhold him the happy-making vision of Heaven. Pilgrims homeward-bound, as you readily understand, at different stages of their journey will picture Heaven to themselves differently, according as light or darkness, joy or sorrow encompass them. Some will picture Heaven as the Everlasting Holiday after the drudgery of school life, others as Eternal Happiness after a life of suffering and sorrow, others again as Home after exile, and some others as never-ending Rapture in the sight of God. But to-day, when “frightfulness” is the creed of the enemy, and warfare with atrocities is his gospel, very many amongst us, weary with the long-drawn battle, sick with its ever-recurring horrors, and broken by its ghastly revelations, will lift up their eyes to a land beyond the stars. FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN [Illustration: THE WIDOWS OF BELGIUM] Military Necessity It may be asserted that the plea of “Frightfulness” will not be recognised a “military necessity” when Germany is judged, and that this enemy of civilisation, even as the enemy of society, will be held responsible for its crimes, though they stand as far above the imagination as beyond the power of a common felon. Bill Sikes may justly claim “military necessity” for his thefts and murders, if Germany can do so for hers.