The Greater Love

aying Mass next

court,"

ndsome face of Colonel Cummings, who nevertheles

for doubt. Located but a single kilometer from the front line trench, its ruins were shelled by day, and air bom

go, were then bravely holding that death-swept point; and I was determined

nges boldly across the open plain. Our Batteries were firing constantly from every available angle of the hills, and the enemy's spirited reply made very heavy

however, things were different. The road through the open p

a bag of oats; and behind, my Mass kit. Tightly I stra

Right bravely he responded. With ears back, and raven mane and tail streaming to the breeze, he fairly

the right of us burst a huge shell. To just the slightest degree "Jip" trembled, but with never a break o

" deep into the rear of a buil

rubbed his nose against my side I felt he fairly thrilled with the pride of his race with dea

of oats, and leaving him secure fro

its sharp, sizzling echo, against wal

te the Hotel de Ville in time to see the front of a building one hundred yards to the l

arters of the German staff, I was welcomed by boys of the 55th Infantry

against terrible odds when the platoon on his right had fallen back under heavy gas attack with its commander mortally wounded. In this encounter Coughlan was

oodly number had gone to Confession, a crowd of some two hundred assembled for the Mass. At t

cassock. Helmet and mask lay easily within reach at one side. The firing, meanwhile, was terrific-high explosive shells shrieking o

the possibility and even propriety of delivering it. I decided in the a

ave been in the sight of Him who feared not Death of old, and who said on the hills of

reatly pleased with it all, remarking, "As soon as you began Mass, Chaplain, the gun fir

a zone of quiet!" Permit me to add here, however that the good Colonel needed no urging to attend

orms, ever impending, ever threatening, impressed with serious religious thought the consciousness of even the most careless. In direct proportion to the coming and going of danger was the ebb and flow of the tide spiritual. "Haven't you n

ious;" and the admonition of Ecclesiastes 7:40, "Remember thy last end and thou shalt never sin." Far into that All S

ly assembling in Musette bags their belongings, which we would forward to the Prisoner of War Department. One day, while so assembling the scattered remains of four dead Germans, evidently killed by the same shell, one of our boys of the 34th Infantry, Sam Volkel by name, who before the

r desecrate its resting place. The fact that in life it was tenanted by the soul of an enemy is no justification for dishonoring it; for He who is Infinite Truth and Justice declares "Love thy enemy; do good to those who hate

. Water was but a word, a memory, cherished dream of him who wrote "The Old Oaken Bucket." If we could but find enough of the

elty, and it became the most frequented of watering places. It was a thoroughly democratic affair, officers and enlisted men freely approving and patronizing it, under the undenying impulse, no doubt, of a common human need. It little mattered that its location was usually the wreckage of some wind-swe

t "unwept, unhonored and unsung." That it was inspirational might be shown from the case of a boy of the 64th Infantry

nd but gun fire was ever to be heard. No matin bugle call of Reveille to rouse, nor plaintive note of Taps to "mend the ravelled slee

along treacherous roads and trails. If mess and water carts could be kept in tou

or word from the rear of any kind. Such times were like living in the bottom of a

retched from horizon to horizon, in panoramic splendor. Whether it was the hour of the "powerful king of day rejoicing in the east," the mid-day brooding c

on the sp

yelids upon

lue became an ocean, with ships of the air scudding in and out of cloudy coves, around billowy h

a splash of white against the blue above the German lines. Faintly, then with steadily increased

Carried to the

over to deal death or destruction of some sort, possibly t

fy balls of white appear above, below and all around on the on-rushing Foker; they are the shrapnel

finding their range. Boom! boom! rat-ta-tat-boom-rat-ta-tat is the music that greet

motionless: we will not be seen unless we move about. We must not

is where our steel helmets prove so serviceable, protecting the head not only from falling spl

e all-American made-which, though arriving in quantity late in the war, proved at once its superiority to all others. Our ground guns have driv

he work of a burial detail. As the Foker reached a point directly over us he dove full in our directio

might betray his presence, and thus defeat his main purpose, which was to destroy the balloon anchored in the neighboring valley, I will never know;

, he dashed away to the north, escaping over his own lines amid a shower of leaden hail! "Ill blows the wind that profits no one"-the position

, were always watched with keen delight. Our fliers were chiefly o

and gallant Lufberry fell, fighting, to his death. He is buried

rnard Granville, Douglas Campbell, these and others were the ga

metery of the old church there he is buried. It was with special interest we ca

ly hazardous. It meant flying at an e

ion; and often indulged, in their own grim humorous way, of reminding him of the fact! The man next to him at the table would softly and

ntle, that made him the most intelligent, cool, and resourceful of all fighting men. His buoyancy of disposition and resiliency of spirit gav

orite rendezvous of mine. The nature of work of these Signal men appealed to me; and their nomadic habits co-ordinated happ

enance of War work, and constituted the axes of

e living runner. The duty of the latter consisted in carrying messages to or from exposed positions when no other means would do. Usually a volunteer from any branch, he was selected because of courage, agility and ability to get through somehow, no matter how great the opp

last in exposed positions like the wireless heroes of a sinking ship. I have known lines to be shel

aptain Cash, of Abilene, Texas; Captain Jim Williams, of Troy, Alabama; and Lieutenant Phillips of Brooklyn, New York-

t D'Orleans, French Army. He was from Brittany, had won the Croix de