Every day the number of refugees increased, and members of the committee worked almost without rest day and night. In the first week of September a Government invitation was published offering refuge in England to the Belgian civilian population. The magnitude of the task thus became beyond the management of a group of private individuals, and the committee was relieved of a certain amount of anxiety by the provision of refuges on a big scale in London at Government expense. Though the work was now extended and receiving Government assistance, it was to the War Refugees Committee, which about this time was placed by mutual consent under the general direction of Lord Gladstone, that the authorities turned to carry on the great task. The committee has continued to work throughout in close co-operation with the Government Departments, particularly the Local Government Board. Large buildings, such as the Alexandra Palace and the Earl’s Court Exhibition Buildings, were taken over and prepared for the reception of the refugees, serving as clearing-houses whence they could be sent on to the provinces, where arrangements for hospitality were made both by local communities and by private individuals. The staff of voluntary helpers in London soon reached 500, who threw themselves with undaunted energy and devotion into the task which Lady Lugard herself has described as “the consolation of a nation by a nation.” In all her personal intercourse with the Belgian refugees, especially of the working class, Lady Lugard has said that what struck her most was their pathetic fortitude and the way in which in their hour of desperate need they clung to their religion. Chapels and oratories were rapidly established wherever Belgians were received, and the Roman Catholic Church and community worked unremittingly to comfort and console them. “I don’t know how many thousand rosaries I distributed in those days,” said Lady Lugard afterwards; “wherever I went the Belgians seemed to clamour for them above everything.” It should also be mentioned that the Jewish community in London took a very active part in helping their co-religionists among the refugees. From September till Christmas, 1914, the flow of refugees continued--the fall of Antwerp in October bringing a tremendous rush of work amid surging crowds. On one day in October the number of refugees handled by the Committee amounted to 6621. By February, 1915, their arrival in anything like large numbers had practically ceased; but other problems sprang up. It became obvious that the war was to last longer than the few months which optimists of the early days prophesied. It was therefore decided, after considerable hesitation, that it was better, both in their own interests and in those of the community at large, that the Belgians, who had lived almost entirely as guests, should be allowed to work and to become gradually self-supporting.