THE PANEL OF SILK
The following Sunday, when all my Catholic soldiers were assembled at
Mass in the church of the town where we were encamped, I spoke of what
had transpired during our journey from Valcartier. During the week
I had thought out a plan, and I had bought a few packages of blank
visiting cards and a number of lead pencils. I had cut the pencils in
two and had put a part in every pew, also a blank card for every person
that would sit in the pew. In the course of my little talk I spoke of
how fine a thing it would be if they could take the pledge, given in
such a way, however, that they might be free to take the rum served in
the trenches, which, under those circumstances, could be considered
medicine. Those who would take the pledge would write their names on
the blank cards; the cards would be gathered up after Mass; the names
would be typewritten on a panel of silk; the silk, bearing the names,
would be used as a lining for my little portable altar, and whenever
Mass would be said, a special remembrance would be made for the lads
who had taken the pledge.
When we gathered up the cards after Mass they numbered almost two
hundred. They were typed on the panel of silk, and the panel of silk,
with the names, still rests in the little altar. All through the war
they have been remembered. Many of those names appear elsewhere on
small white crosses “where poppies grow,” so that now they are no
longer mentioned in the memento of the living; but there is another
part of the Mass when they are remembered--with “those who have gone
before us, signed with the sign of faith, and who rest in the sleep of
peace.”