For hundreds of years the French peasants have loved the crucifix. Many
a beautiful woman carries a little gold cross with the figure of Jesus
fastened thereto, and from time to time draws it out to press the
crucifix to her lips. Even in the harvest fields and beside the road,
travellers find the carved figure of the Saviour lifted up to draw poor,
ignorant and sinful men to His own level.
One of the most glorious pieces of carving in France was wrought in
walnut by a great sculptor and lifted up on a tree in the midst of an
estate, where the peasants, resting from their work, could refresh their
souls by love and faith and prayer.
One day last summer, during the Teuton advance, a German officer stood
beneath that divine figure. Mentally he marked the place. That night
when the darkness fell a company of German officers returned to that
spot. One of them climbed up on the tree. He found that the carved
figure of Jesus was life size.
With the end of a rope a little platform was drawn up level with the
foot of the crucifix. Two ropes were fastened to the outstretched arms
of the Saviour. Another rope was fastened around the neck of Jesus,
until the platform was made safe. Then a German sniper with his gun
climbed up on the platform. He laid his rifle upon the shoulders of the
Divine Figure, hiding his body behind that of Jesus. The German officer
must have chuckled with satisfaction, for he knew that he had found a
screen behind which a murderer might hide, and the German villain was
quite right in his psychology.
It was true that the French soldiers loved that beautiful figure. To
them the crucifix was sacred. So beautiful were their ideals, so lofty
their spirit, so pure and high their imagination, that they were
incapable of conceiving that a German could use the sacred crucifix as a
screen from which to send forth his murderous hail.
The green boughs of that tree hid the little puff of smoke. From time to
time a French soldier would fall dead with a hole through his forehead.
Once a French officer threw up his hands while the blood streamed from
his mouth and he pitched forward dead.
At last the French soldiers understood. There was a sniper behind
Christ's cross. The French could have turned their cannon against that
tree, but instead they simply kept below the trench until the night
fell. Then in the darkness some French boys took their lives in their
hands and crawled on hands and knees across No Man's Land. Lying on
their backs they cut the wires above their heads.
By some strange providence they dropped safely into the German trench
and crawled ten yards beyond. Then they climbed into the tree, removed
that glorious crucifix with the carved figure, brought it back in
safety and at daybreak turned their cannon on the tree and blew the
platform to pieces.
Foul Huns had made a screen of that sacred figure, but the French were
not willing to injure their ideals by shooting the crucifix to pieces.
To-day all the world despises the Germans. Nothing is sacred to them.
Their souls are dead within them and when the soul dies, everything
dies.
The German's body may live on for twenty years, but you might as well
pronounce the funeral address to-day, for the soul of Germany is dead.
Nothing but a physical fighting machine now remains.
Meanwhile, France lives. Never were her ideals so lofty and pure. That
is why the world loves France. She has kept faith with her ideals.