TABLET TO N.Z. SOLDIERS.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16361, 5 November 1918, Page 2

TABLET TO N.Z. SOLDIERS.

UN VEILING CEREMONY. (FROM OUR OWN" CORRESPONDENT.) LONDON, September 17, 1918. The first official visit of the Bishop of Exeter, to the parish of Bere Ferrers, South Devon, was in connexion with, the unveiling 'of a memorial tablet which had been placed in the church by the local residents to the memory of ten New Zealand soldiers who were killed about a year ago at the Bere Ferrers railway station. ft will be recalled that these men, with, others who were injured, stepped out of the train on the wrong side, and were cut down by a. passing express. The tragedy made a deep impression on the local people. A simple, but well-wrought, brass tablet, framed in oak, and bearing the arms of New Zealand, has been placed on the north wall of the chancel: "To the glory of God, and to .the memory and in honour of J. S. Jackson, C. C. Kirton, B. A. Mcßryde, 11. V. McKenna, W. S. Gillanders, J. E. Warden, W. F. Greaves, J. Judge, W. J. Trussell, and 8. E. West, privates ill the New Zealand Expeditionary Forces (28th Reinforcements), who were killed i in Bere Ferrers railway station while getting out of their troop train, September 24th, 1917. This tablet is erected in their honour and memory by the people of Bero Ferrers parish and other admirers, in appreciation of their loyalty and selr-sacriiico in coming from their far-off home to fight for England in the Great War for the freedom of the world."' Before the unveiling the tablet- was covered with the Union Jack, while another one was drapod about the pulpit, with laurels at the foot. The parish roll of honour was wreathed in laurel, and surmounted by Union Jacks and the Naval Ensign. The congregation included a number of men of the N.2.E.F., under Lieutenant A. It. Mclsaac, representing Briga-dicr-G'eneral G. S. Richardson, also a detachment of Australians. In his addrcEs the Bishop remarked that death at all times was sad, and it was surely sadder when it struck the young rather than the old. The men to whose memory the tablet was erected were comiug to do a noble action— io help to save the world from the greatest tyranny with which it had ever been threatened. It was with a joyful heart they thought of their selfsacrifice. To some, death came as the greatest enemy, tearing to hits a life which, perhaps, deserved to be torn up in bits. To others it might come as the greatest friend. With Christianity the thought of death would not darken us—it was merely the phadowy gate leading to the brightness beyond.