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QUIET DAYS 191
one is young and strong, and has all one’s life before one.
But the honour of the country demands that its men be
sacrificed. Their memory shall live " per omnia seciila secu-
lorum." Coronas dccoris mernerunt.
The candelabra on the communion table are now lighted.
But they are no longer needed, daylight once more reigns
outside and Saint Helena’s features now look down clearly
on all beholders. Round her lips plays a smile full of gentleness
and goodness. She, the friend of the helpless and suffering,
seems to rejoice to see so many brethren and sisters devoting
their best energies to the relief and care of wounded and dying
soldiers.
But now the devotions are over and my Franciscan friar
leads me to the colonnade, where the sisters give us coffee
with beautiful white wheaten bread and marmalade. Here
we spend an agreeable hour together before parting.
The Protestant field service was held at half-past nine.
The worship took place at a quiet street corner under the
open sky, a safer place than the fields outside the town, where
a large gathering of people would make a welcome target for
a French airman’s bombs. A few hundred soldiers and some
fifty officers forgathered here. An octette from the regi-
mental band began playing a psalm—we Swedes know it well
—it has been sung before the blue and yellow standards of
Gustavus Adolphus, before the Carolins at Narva, on the
banks of Vabitj, on the plains of Ukraine, and has brought
solace and comfort to the poor forgotten prisoners in Siberian
thraldom : Ein feste Burg ist Unser Gott. The soldiers joined
in with their strong clear voices. Perhaps one ought to have
seen and heard this sort of thing to realise what Swedes and
Germans have in common. At one time we gave each other
the noblest and the best that we possessed. The Lutheran
faith preserved by the sword of Gustavus Adolphus was the
seed and life germ which has given birth to that Germanic
culture which to-day is fighting for its existence. None of us
can escape the responsibility for the inviolable preservation
of the common heritage. Our German brethren are now
shedding their hearts’ blood in a cause v^’hich in equal measure
concerns ourselves, and for which Sweden’s greatest Kings
gave their all and their lives.
Pastor Marguth of Hessen conducted the service from some
stone steps. He was attired in a black gown and, like all other
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