The subjoined letter, dedicated by the Belgian writer to
stricken Poland, was received on July 12, 1915, by the
Polish Relief Committee of New York, of which Mme. Marcella
Sembrich is President.
In the Name of Belgium I Bring the Homage of a Martyred Nation to the
Nation Crucified:
Of all the people engaged in this frightful war, Poland and Belgium
will have suffered most, and we must add (though all the horrors of
war are most revolting) they will have suffered most innocently. They
are two victims of their innocence and grandeur of soul.
In misfortune and in glory their fates are the same. One, in
sacrificing herself wholly to a cult, to an unparalleled passion for
honor, has by breaking the first blow of barbarous invasion probably
saved Europe, just as the other, the older sister, in grief and
heroism several centuries ago saved Europe many times.
They are now joined forever in the memory of men. Across the combats
and the sorrows which they are now enduring their hands meet in the
same sacrifice, in the same invincible hope. Today these countries are
but ruins. Nothing remains of them. They appear to be dead. But we,
who are their sons and who know them as we know our mother, we know,
we feel in our hearts, that they were never more alive, never purer,
never more beautiful.
After having offered to the world a great example of pride, of
abnegation, of heroism, they are again giving to it a deeper lesson, a
more valuable, a more efficacious one. They are proving that no
misfortune counts, that nothing is lost while the soul does not
abdicate. The powers of darkness will never prevail against the forces
of light and love that are leading humanity towards the heights which
victory is already making clear to us on the horizon.