Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1918-08-06
:: The Truth About Belgium ::
BY BRAND WHTTLOCK


personalities. those moral heroes
that somehow miraculously appear
upon the earth in times of great
stress and trial. and sum up and
express their people and their times.
Belgium, for so small a nation, was
rich in two such transcendent char
acters; King Albert was one, then
at that moment on the flooded
reaches Of the User, the symbol of
his own peoples force and resist
ance: and now. suddenly. a second
was revealed who resumed in his
great character the moral courage
and resistance of his race.
On Christmas day he had sat in
his austere study in the gray old &c
clesiastical palace in Malines, its
roof fallen in from the shells that
had rained upon it during the fierce
battles of August and September,
penning in sorrow, but in the lofty
courage of an indomitable will. a
pastoral letter to his bruised and
scattered and tortured flock. It was
that great prince of the church, the
power and clarity OF whose intellect,
like the rigid austerity of his al
most monastic life. recalled the ear
James. Cardinal Mercier, archbishop
of Malines. He was proud of being
a walloon: he had been born in
Braine TAlleud there near the field
of Waterloo in 1851; he had been
educated at Louvain in the same
university that had given Father
Damien TO history. and now he was
the primate of Belgium. He was
L Of
the war to render the last hon.
images to the late Plus X. and to
participate in the election of the
new pope: he had returned to Bel
GUM to find his land laid waste by
the sword. his alma mater de-
stroyed, his see city in ruins and the
roof Of his own palace open to the
sky. And during the months of that
autumn and early winter he had
been quietly visiting the devastated
pastures of his flock.
1 had not seen him at that time.
it was not until weeks after that
New Years day that had the privi-
lege of making HIS acquaintance,
and the ultimate honor of claiming
him among my friends. He came in
the simplicity that was so implicit
an element Of his greatness, one
February morning, to express his
gratitude for what America had
done for his nation, and to give me
an autographed copy of the pastoral,
which at that moment had somehow
got out of Belgium and gone around
the world and made him famous.
He entered, advanced, tall and
strong and spare. in the long black
soutane with the red piping and the
sash, not with the stately, meas
ured pace that one associates with
the red hat. but with long, quick
strides, kicking out with impotence
the skirt of his soutane before him
as he walked, as though it impeded
his movements. He was impress
sive in his great height and he bent
slightly forward with an effect of
swooping on, like an avenging JUS
tice. But his hand was outheld and
in his mobile countenance and kind
" eyes there was smile, as of
sweetness and light, that illumined
the long, lean visage.
When he had laid off the low.
black beaver hat, with its cord and
tassels of red and cole, and seated
himself in one of the governments
ugly leather chairs, he adjusted the
little red calotte that covered the
poll wherein the grey hair had long
been thinning. drew off his red
gloves, and as he sat his long fin
gers, that played for an instant
with the COLO cross and chain that
hung before him, found a pair of
common steeI-rimmed eye glasses
and played with that instead. The
detail seemed to be expressive of
che utter simplicity of the man in
all that concerned him personally;
for if. in all that pertained to his
high office as a prince of the church,
ne was correct, punetilfous even,
in all purely personal ways he was
as simple, as unpretentious, as mod
est as one Of those rugged prime
val natures to which one instantly
compared him. His hands were
large and powerful and of the
weathered aspect Of his face. 1t
was a countenance full of serene
light with little of the typically &c
ciesiastical about it-a high brow.
a long nose, lean cheeks, strong
jaw and large mobile mouth, hu-
morous and sensitive, the mouth
Of the orator, but with thin lips that
could close in impenetrable silence.
The eyes were blue and they twin
killed. with a lively intelligence and
evident humor. Perhaps 1 could do
no better IN the effort to give some
impression of him than to say that,
had il not been for those touches
of red IN his black garb, he would
have recalled some tall, gaunt, sim
pie, affectionate Irish priest whose
life was passed in obscure toll
among the poor, in humble homes,
amid lowly lives, whose every care
and preoccupation he knew and
sympathized with, going about at
night alone, in all weathers, unspar-
ing Of himself, visiting the sick and
the imprisoned, forgetting 10 eat, ac-
customed to long. weary vigils, and
Of an Independence that needed none
of the reliances or approvals of this
earth