Excerpt from Vexilla Regis: A Book of Devotions and Intercessions on Behalf of All Our Authorities, Our Soldiers and Sailors, Our Allies, the Mourners and Destitute, and All Affected by the WarI am greatly touched at being asked by the Publishers to give the final revise to this beautiful and deeply consoling little book for use in time of war, the "last message," as it truly is, of Robert Hugh Benson to his sorrowing countrymen. The last proofs were actually in his hands, when he was stricken with his fatal malady, and merely awaited his final passing for the press. It was one of those strange dispensations of an All-Wise Providence that I should be confined to my bed at my ordinary residence at the very moment when he was dying on my own bed in my room at Bishop's House, Salford, and that during those last hours, unable alas! to visit him, I should be reading his wonderfully realistic description of the death-bed of an English King, at the conclusion of his latest powerful novel.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.