NEW JOAN OF ARC.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume II, Issue 586, 27 December 1915, Page 6

NEW JOAN OF ARC.

"BRITAIN HAS OWED t)S THIS RETURN."

Tin the following striking article in the "Hoirtme Enchaine" it is noticeable that M. Clemenccau adopts the Dutch version of Miss Cavell's last moments, although that version has been somewhat traversed by the statement of the German chaplain—the only eye-witness who has spoken publicly. The German chaplain says, "She died like a heroine."]

PARIS, October 20,

M. Clemenceau, in the "Jlomme Enchaine," to-day says: It was necessary that Miss Cavell, symbolising, in her heroic death and her simplicity, an incalculable mass of awful butchery, should rise from her tomb to show them that every soul of living humanity revolts with disgust against a cause which can only defend itself by a most cowardly assassination.

Yiie profound truth is that she ho'ioured her country in dying for thai which is the finest in the human sou?--the consciousness of a grandeur of which the greater part of us dreams, and which an'.v a few of the elect have a chance or realising. Woman, Purely Woman.

This was the lot of Miss Cavell, driven to a wall by a detachment of riflemen. She was walking without ;< complaint, without a regret, being al< < ady no longer of this earth, v hen a physical faintness made her falter.

To me, it only makes her appear greater, since, in the combination of strength and weakness, she thus showed herself woman, purely woman, to the end. "Eloi, Eloi, Lama Sabacthani!" ("My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?") said another on His cross in a moment of weakness and distress, by which the splendour of His sacrifice was increased.

Edith Cavell did not speak a word; she fell. Thereupon an oflieer—a representative gentleman of "Germany above everything"—a delegate of the Emperor, and, through the Emperor, of "the old German God" carrying out his de-

spicable task of butcher, calmly drew near, placed his revolver at the temple of his victim, pressed the trigger, and then, with his hand red with blood, sighed to his "men" (if such I may call them) that the work of Germania was done.

We shall not forget the name of Miss Cavell, but we do not know—we never shall know—the name of the other. He calls himself a German—that is enough. Every other German would have claimed the honour of carrying out the same task.

Since the day of Joan of Arc, to whose memory I know that the British will one day wish to erect a statue, Great Britain has owed us this return. She has given it nobly. Now that Eumenides are let loose,. Miss Edith Cavell, murdered by a coward, will live among the men of all ages and of all countries with a life which, for a time of which one cannot foresee the end, will bring / shame and torment on the people on whom her blood lies.

That the lesson may be lasting, I should like to see in Rome, Nish, Paris, London, Petrograd as an indestructible memorial of a community of sentiment, a statue of this noble woman and of the C»erman officer—Edith Cavell and a Boche without name, the latter representative of a people which, feeling that weight of universal opprobrium, has not found one spark of conscience from which to utter one word of protest.