There is no doubt that each of these men, if not when he enlisted, certainly as he went up to the front, realized that he would probably not return alive. Yet they went up with a willing heart, some of them with a gay and cheerful spirit, others serious and determined, but all of them responding to the call of King and country. They went because they felt that right had been outraged and must be restored, they went for God who is on the side of right—and they were confident of victory in that cause—they went for us who were too old or too young, too weak or too busy to 30, they went to preserve the safety of our firesides, to make the high seas secure for the commerce of the world, to restore to Belgium and to France their devastated towns and countryside. They went, they suffered, and they succeeded. They did not hate the enemy but they hated wrong, and they loved not their own lives if they could put it-right. Their strong manly love turned against themselves if only they could save mankind fro: tyranny.
But some will be thinking that the preacher is idealizing something that was much more prosaic than that. These men were not all so noble: they went with all sorts of mixed motives. No doubt Even so have you and I who have gathered here to-day to honour them come to this holy house with all sorts of admixture in our hearts. Have any of us here gathered no other thought as we enter this church than to glorify and worship God and celebrate the praises of our glorious dead? But God accepts our poor unworthy worship, and in worshipping we become purer. So did they, as they followed the gleam of duty the light became, clearer, as the sacrifice became © more inevitable became nobler, and as they waited for the awful moment when they should go over the top there was perhaps not a man but uttered a prayer for forgiveness and strength. And we leave it at that. God knows. But all I dare to say is they got nearer to" the supreme sacrifice of self than I ever expect ty get.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.