TOC H. IDEALS

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 265, 5 August 1929, Page 12

TOC H. IDEALS

LAMP OF REMEMBRANCE

LATE CAPTAIN W. H. D. BELL A Toe H. service of thanksgiving and remembrance of the late Captain W. H. Dillon Bell, who lost his life in the Great War, was held in the Taranaki Street Wesley Church yesterday afternoon. The service was attended by a large congregation, which included the Gov-ernor-General (Sir Charles Fergusson) and Lady Alice Fergusson, Sir Francis Bell and Lady Bell, the Leader of the Opposition (Right Hon. J. G. Coates), the Speaker of the House of Representatives (Sir Charles Statham), and other members of the Legislature. The sermon was preached by the Rev. E. D. Patchett, and the Rev. T. F. Taylor lit the Toe H. lamp. Other padres taking part in the service were the Revs. T. R. Richards, G. C. Blathwayt, R. J. Howie, and H. E. K. Fry. During the service the “Last Post” was sounded by Sergeant-Major E. M. Gill, and the Reveille by Corporal T. Carlson, of the Wellington College Band. Mr. H. Temple White was at the organ. The Call to Youth.

The Rev. E. D. Patchett said that there were many organisations which made a special appeal to the high heart of youth. Their platform was broad enough and adventurous enough to bring men to their feet in acceptance of its’challenge. “The latest of these to win world-wide prominence,” he said, “is Toe H. Both in its inception and in its programme it touches the imagination of young men. Its watchwords make an insistent and strong appeal to the latent idealism in all our hearts at life’s beginning. It makes life an adventure in service and sacrifice; it provides a moral equivalent for the absolute giving up of self that war demands; and it lays a heavy hand on the cold, cruel selfishness that lies at the root of many of our social ills.

“Toe H. is one of the fairest flowers that has grown out of the ashes of the Great War. The tiny seedling that first took root at Poperinghe in December, 1915, known as an “Everyman’s Club,-’ has been like a handful of corn shaken from the mountain tops. That tiny burning lamp symbolises the deathless spirit which the brotherhood of Toe H. have sworn shall shine on their lives. It means that the young men of to-day are not content to live upon the sacrifices of the past, however heroic they may have been, but are resolved at any cost to make their full contribution to the moral and spiritual warfare of to-day and to-morrow.” Comradeship of the Trenches. The speaker mentioned that at the annual meeting of the Central Council in London in April last the president had stated that the delegates represented 20,000 men in all parts of the Empire. At that meeting the Prince of “Wales was called upon to light no fewer than 56 lamps of remembrance for new oversea and Home branches. “.Onr lamp,” said Mr. Patchett, “is dedicated to the name of the late Captain Dillon Bell, who was the first member of Parliament to enlist and who laid down his life for his country. The comradeship for which Toe H. stands is a comradeship that can overleap all barriers, and is big enough to stretch out the right hand of fellowship to nil men.” “I wonder, sometimes,” be added, “whether we ever remember to-day the debt we owe to the men who went down into hell for ns. Do we sit where they sit; do we understand the legacy the war has left to them? Toe H. is not limited to ex-service men; but the younger men who join its ranks are committed to the task of carrying on the great tradition of comradeship born in the trenches. The Gr-'at War brought many things in its train that we gladly let die, but the spirit of unselfish service and deathless sacrifice we must maintain at all costs. It is for this we light the Lamps of Remembrance; it is for this we carry on the great tradition of the men whose names live for evermore: it is for this we still seek to sit where they sat—these elder brethren of Toe H. . . . The best way to show our gratitude to the elder brethren and to keep the lamp burning is to spend and be spent in His service. To this high task let us bring all our gifts of heart and head and hands.”