And as we stood there on that Calvary, built in memory of the crucifixion and resurrection and ascension of their Master by the peasants, and looked down over the earth, bright with crimson poppies everywhere in field and hill, brilliant with the old-gold blossom of the broom flower, as we stood there, our hearts subdued to awe and wonder, looking down, suddenly the rain ceased and the sun shone in its full glory and lighted anew the white marble of the figures of the ascension far below us in the field.

As we stood there the thought came to me: 

“So is the Christian world standing today on the hill of ‘Calvaire.’  The storms have been black about the Christian world.  The clouds have seemed impenetrable.  The earth has been desolate.  We have walked on our hands and knees and in our bare feet up the flinty road of Baupaume, ‘the saddest road in Christendom,’ and along this road we have borne the cross.  We, the Christian world, the mothers, the fathers, the little children, have bled.  We have stumbled and fallen along the way.  And when we climbed the hill of Calvary, as we have been doing for these years of war, the clouds darkened and we saw only the ominous silhouettes of the three crosses.

“But the sun is now breaking the clouds, and it shall burn its way to a glorious day.  Across the fields we see the open tomb and the resurrection is about to dawn; the day of brotherhood, democracy, justice, love, and peace forever.

“Hope is in the world, hope brooding, hope dominant, hope triumphant, hope in its supreme ascension.”

One could not see this Silhouette of Silence, this “Calvaire” of the French nation, and not come away knowing the full meaning of the war.  It is “The New Calvary” of the world.

VII

SILHOUETTES OF SERVICE

A newspaper paragraph in a Paris paper said:  “Dale was last seen in a village just before the Germans entered it, gathering together a crowd of little French children, trying to get them to a place of safety.”

Dale has never been seen since, and that was two months ago.  Whether he is dead or alive we do not know, but those who knew this manly American lad best, say unanimously:  “That was just like Dale; he loved kids, and he was always talking about his own and showing us their pictures.”

No monument will ever be erected to Dale, for he was just a common soldier; but I for one would rather have had the monument of that simple paragraph in the press despatches; I for one would rather have it said of me, “The last seen of Dale he was gathering together a crowd of little children”; I would rather have died in such a service than to have lived to be a part of the marching army that is one day to enter the streets of Berlin.  That was a man’s way to die; dying while trying to save a crowd of little children from the cowardly Hun.

[Illustration:  “The last seen of Dale he was gathering together a crowd of little children.”]