their utterances have had recourse, sheltering themselves behind the 'notwer' for the purpose of justifying the invasion of our country. It is no use to argue; it is no use to twist and turn; Germany has violated an oath, and it would be simpler to confess and to regret it than to strive by might and main to hide the truth."

The Germans were amazed by the Cardinal's attitude. They had not for a moment reckoned on such stubborn opposition at the hands of a helpless Churchman. They had never dreamed that men would gladly choose death rather than the dishonor of betraying their country in the least detail.

In his courage the Cardinal was lion-like. When those around him were fearful of the future, he never ceased to pour into them the red blood of valor. He challenged the Germans at every step. He fired the people with courage to give blow for blow for the sake of home and fatherland, even if it meant martyrdom. At least it could not mean dishonor! He refused to be put off with vague words about the murder of the Belgian clergy of the Diocese of Malines; he insisted upon knowing the truth regarding the detention of Belgian doctors and chemists by the Germans in Heidelberg; he vindicated the right of young men to attend religious services on Sundays; he was solicitous regarding the prisoners

awaiting trial in the military prisons of Malines and Louvain; he did not rest until he had the truth regarding the assaults committed by German soldiers upon the women, and even the nuns, of Belgium; he demanded that his clergy be allowed to preach the Gospel without secular dictation; he stopped the interference of the Germans in normal school teaching; he raised his voice until it rang around the world against the deportation of the Belgian unemployed; he laid at the door of the invader, when they tried to fasten the blame upon the Belgian farmers, the scarcity of food-stuffs; he spoke with all the vehemence of his nature against the partition of his native land; he multiplied himself in a thousand ways to ameliorate the condition of those Belgians who had been deported beyond the frontier. Finally, as the lengthening shadow of the retreating Germans fell across Belgium, the Cardinal did not hesitate to proclaim to all the world their last dastardly acts of inhumanity and impiety. As can be seen at a glance, there was not a single misdemeanor committed by the Germans in Belgium which was not held up ruthlessly to the moral condemnation of the world in words of such majestic calmness but damning truth, that Cardinal Mercier, more than any other individual, may be said to have turned the scales of the world's opinion in favor of Belgium.

It was a part of the inept war philosophy of Prussianism to lay the mailed fist upon Cardinal Mercier. It was a fatal blunder, politically, not only because he was entitled by reason of his exalted position to the greatest consideration, but also because of the peculiarly close relations existing between him and his people. From the moment when he ascended the archiepiscopal throne of Malines, February 21, 1906, he had endeared himself to their hearts devoting himself exclusively to everything that would promote the good of the fatherland. He was especially interested in the work of social reform, and in him the laboring man found his best friend. When Fr. Ceslaus Rutten, the Dominican, laid aside his monk's habit to work for six months in the mines, so as to learn at first-hand the real condition of the workingman, Cardinal Mercier became his warm friend and supporter, assisting him subsequently in the foundation of the Christian labor labor unions, called 'Syndicats Chretiennes", numbering today more than 100,000 members. Early in the history of this movement the Cardinal had levied a tax upon all of his clergy for the purpose of alleviating the condition of the toilers. He had been an ardent champion of Christian teaching in the schools; he had set his face resolutely against the Socialists, whose golden promises he showed forth in their true colors; he

fostered in every way-though for a time men doubted it-the cultivation of the native, or Walloon language, believing that every nation should express itself in its own tongue; he was ever an ardent advocate of a sane and healthy press, and was one of the first modern Churchmen to distribute pamphlets as a means of enlightening the minds of the people on questions of actuality. To touch Cardinal Mercier, therefore, was to touch the sensitive heart of Belgium!

If the great Cardinal was practically unknown, outside of academic circles, to the Belgians when he was called to a position of trust in the Church, it was because most of his life had been spent behind college walls. Born November 22, 1851, in a small town called Braine l'Alleud, a few miles from the battlefield of Waterloo, he began to teach philosophy in the Petit Seminaire of Malines after his ordination in 1874, continuing there until 1882. During these years he gained a perfect mastery of the Flemish tongue and a working knowledge of English, Italian and Spanish. It was during these years, too, that he became enamoured of the philosophical teaching of that great prince of medieval thinkers, St. Thomas Aquinas. He was probably led to this by that ringing appeal of Pope Leo XIII in 1879 for all men to follow in the footsteps of the Angel of the Schools.

When this great Pope in the following year established a special chair of Thomistic philosophy in the Louvain University, it was to the Abbe Mercierwho even then had won his spurs as a thinker that it was assigned in October, 1882. He soon made his mark in the literary world by his numerous writings, which appeared in many learned magazines -articles in which he gave every evidence of subtlety and profundity and absolute mastery of the systems of all thinkers from Aristotle down to Bergson and William James. He never dodged a difficulty; he never belabored an opponent, or misrepresented him. Those who have been most bitterly arrayed against him have always acknowledged his uniform fairness in argument. He was so convinced of the unshakable positions of Thomas Aquinas that he felt he could afford his opponents the advantage of stating their systems in the best possible terms. Many a time and oft, as the tall, gaunt professor, with the iron-gray hair, walked the tortuous streets of the city on the Dyle did he dream the dream of bringing Thomism more and more in touch with modern progress and scientific research. That he might have an organ for the expression of his views, he founded in 1892 the Revue Neo Scolastique, a bulky quarterly. which has given forth the best and most original Catholic thought of a philosophical kind in the last