MEN WHO MADE THE SUPREME SACRIFICE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 96, 24 April 1931, Page 2 (Supplement)

MEN WHO MADE THE SUPREME SACRIFICE.

(By ,S.) We shall be recalling to-morrow the memories of the men who made the supreme sacrifice in the Great War, and have outsoared the shadows of our night. Their sacrifice was indeed supreme; it was the greatest they make. They went forth to the field of battle not knowing what was in store for them, but with the conviction that their lives were not their own, and offered themselves in the heat, of suffering, and, in many cases, in the days of their y«ung manhood. And, in giving their lives in sacrifice on the altar of their country's need, they helped to purchase victory and life for us. In one sense they finished their work; in another they left their work unfinished, and, in leaving it unfinished, they have put into our hands the unfulfilled programme of their lives. If we take this thought home to ourselves, and count our lives not wholly ours, even as they counted their lives not wholly theirs, but our country's too, and do our best to live usefully and well, and to be as serviceable to our country as we can, ■who knows how much we may do to heal the sprrows, and solve the problems that are so present with us today? We do well to remember these men, to think with gratitude and pride of their valour, endurance and suffering, and to let them speak to us. Properly speaking they are not dead, and we should never think of them as being dead. Those whom the Saviour takes, as we trust He took them, in the closer grasp of His redeeming love, never die. What to our poor vision death seems to destroy, He makes more alive. What they are doing now we cannot tell. They may be engaged in greater and happier service than would have been possible to them had they been spared. That is one of the deep things we must reverently leave with Him who works wonders with a grain of wheat. We may believe, and He knows how natural it is for us to believe it, that they have been transferred to a vastly better field of service, where death has no more dominion over them, and that, in His good time, we may be counted worthy through His infinite mercy to see them, and have fellowship with them. Meanwhile life 18 our duty, and we can try and be as faithful to our duty as they were to theirs, and, when occasion arises, try and be brave and resolute like them, if not on a field of battle, on fields of no less danger and difficulty, where such enemies a» temptation, and suffering, and adversity are ranged against us.