The French Prisoners of Norman Cross

very half-hour. Each soldier on guard was on the alert, and had need to be. Silence and slumber fell on all but the many watchers in that large assemblage of unhappy men.

There was, however, one prisoner who could not sleep that night. It was not the roughness of his accommodation that kept him awake. Mere hardship would have been welcome to him, for he was a true soldier. It was the thoughts of his heart that troubled him; and alas! he knew not the soothing power of prayer. Not a thought of prayer, not one paternoster entered his mind. For he had lost his faith in God. We do not mean that faith which no one has till he asks the Spirit of God to give it him, and which then makes him love God in spite of all difficulties; but we mean faith in the existence of God, which all have by nature, and which sin alone can extinguish; not only grosser sin, but sinful vanity of mind.

He thought of his much-loved home, of the mother that was so dear to him, what agony of mind she must be undergoing; of his d