One raw, December day, in 1914, an American gentleman, widely known as
traveller and correspondent, was in a hospital in London, recovering
from his wound, received in Belgium. He was startled by the appearance
of an old Belgian priest, and a young Belgian woman. The American author
was travelling in Belgium at the time of the German invasion. Quite
unexpectedly he was caught behind the lines, near Louvain. Having heard
his statement, the German officer recognized its truthfulness and
sincerity, and insisted that this American scholar should be his guest
at the Belgian chateau of which he had just taken possession. The German
had already shot the Belgian owner, and one or two of the servants, who
defended their master. To the horror and righteous anger of the
American, the German officer took his place at the head of the table,
waved the American to his seat, and ordered the young Belgian woman to
perform her duties as hostess. In that tense moment, it was a matter of
life and death to disobey. That German officer had his way, not only
with the young Belgian wife, half dazed, half crazed, wholly broken in
spirit, but with the American whom he sent forward to Brussels.
Plunged into the midst of many duties in connection with Americans and
refugees who had to be gotten out of Belgium into England, this American
author had to put aside temporarily any plan for the release of that
young Belgian woman held in bondage. Later, when he was wounded, the
American crossed to London for medical help. When the old Belgian priest
and that young woman stood at the foot of his bed in the hospital in
London, all the events of that terrible hour in the dining-room of the
Belgian chateau returned, and once more he lived through that frightful
scene. The purpose of the visit soon became evident. The old Belgian
priest stated the problem. He began by saying that God alone could take
human life since God alone could give it. He urged that the sorrow of
the young woman's present was as nothing in comparison to the loss of
her soul should she be guilty of infanticide. It was the plea of a man
who lived for the old ideals. His white hair, his gentle face, his pure
disinterested spirit lent weight to his words. Then came the statement
of the young Belgian woman. She told the American author of the dreadful
days and weeks that followed after his departure, that every conceivable
agony was wrought upon her, and that now within a few months, she must
have a child by that wicked German officer. She cried out that the very
babe would be unclean, that it would be born a monster, that it was as
if she was bringing into the world an evil thing, doomed in advance to
direst hell. That every day and every hour she felt that poison was
running through her veins. She turned upon the old priest, saying, "You
insist that God alone gives life! Nay, no, no, no! It was a German devil
that gave me this life that now throbs within my body! And every moment
I feel that that life is pollution. German blood is poisoned blood.
German blood is like putrefaction and decay, soiling my innermost life."
The young woman wept, prayed, plead, and finally in her desperation
cried out, "Then I decide for myself! The responsibility is mine. I
alone will bear it." And out of the hospital she swept with the dignity
and beauty of the Lady of Sorrows.
A year later, in Paris, the French judge and court cleared the young
girl who choked to death with a string the babe of the German officer
who had attacked her. But since that time, all France and Belgium and
the lands where there are refugees are discussing the question--Where
does the right lie? Has the French mother, cruelly wounded, no right?
And this foul thing forced upon her a superior right? Which path for the
bewildered girl leads to peace? Where does the Lord of Right stand? What
chance has a babe born of a beast, abhorred and despised, when it comes
into the world? The women of the world alone can answer this question.