One of the tragic ironies of the war was that men whose lives had been dedicated to the service of Christ, and whose hands should be clean of blood, found themselves compelled by the law of France (and in many cases urged by their own instincts of nationality) to serve as soldiers in the fighting ranks. Instead of denouncing from every pulpit the shamefulness of this butchery, which has made a mockery of our so-called civilization and involved all humanity in its crime, those priests and monks put themselves under discipline which sent them into the shambles in which they must kill or be killed. When the mobilization orders were issued, the call to the colours was sent to young curés and abbés throughout the country, and to monks belonging to religious orders banished by its politicians. Jesuits and Dominicans, Franciscans and Carmelites, who had been exiled from France for conscience' sake, hurried back at the first summons, dispensed from that Canon Law which forbids them to shed blood, and as Frenchmen, loving their country though it expelled them, rallied to the flag in the hour of peril. They were Christian priests, but they were also patriots, and Christianity is not so instinctive in its emotion as the spirit of nationality which, by some natural law, makes men on one side of a frontier eager to fight till death when they are challenged by men across the boundary line, forgetting their principles of peace and the command, "Thou shalt not kill," in their loyalty to their own soil, crown, or national ideas. There were twenty thousand priests in the French army, and although many of them were acting according to their religious vocations as chaplains, or stretcher-bearers, the great majority were serving as simple soldiers in the ranks or as officers who had gained promotion by merit.