A True Hero.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 37, 11 September 1902, Page 1

A True Hero.

The campaign against the religious houses in France and the expulsion of gentle nuns and helpless children from schools and convents is still going on though, thanks to the indignant protests from even secular journals and to the spontaneous and for the most part strictly legal demonstrations on the part of the public, the work is being carried out with less ferocity and brutality than was at first displayed. Of the many striking 1 incidents already chronicled there is none in which a finer spirit of heroism is shown than in that recorded in the latest cable just to hand from Paris. The message is as follows :—: — Paris, September 6. — The Council of War at Nantes tried Colonel De Saint Remy for refusing to expel the nuns in Brittany under the Religious Associations Act. He admitted that he was aware of the consequences of refusal, but preferred to confront an earthly court to offending God. The Court unanimously acquitted him of the charge of disobeying his general, but sentenced him to nominal imprisonment for disobeying the requisition of the civil authoritiej. Truly the spirit of martyrs is not dead. The man who faces without flinching the risk of death by shot and shell may

be indeed a hero but the man who in the eyes of all the world faces earthly shame and disgrace rather than offend God is an infinitely greater hero. To him it matters little what the verdict of any earthly court may be for above the din and noise of the contending parties he hears the approving voice of the Supreme Judge saying, ' Well done, thou good and faithful servant,' and he knows that that benediction is more to be prized than the highest honors that earthly monarch can bestow.