THE ANZAC SPIRIT IN A WORLD AT PEACE.

Evening Star, Issue 17034, 3 May 1919, Page 2

THE ANZAC SPIRIT IN A WORLD AT PEACE.

A week has passed since Anzac Day. Some of ns have been thinking over the celebrations which marked the occasion. What do they signify? What is their nltimate meaning? Why' do we seek to keep alive the memory of the Landing at Gaha Tepe and of those brave lads who died on the beach that 25th of April four years ago? There is but one answer: Because we see so clearly that they died for us. It was to preserve our liberties, to safeguard our homes, to secure the heritage of our children, that they adventured and yielded up their lives. They were not out for their own pleasure or profit. They sought no ends of their own. No selfish motive inspired them, but the noblest motive that can inspire any human breast. They suffered and bled and died in the service of their fellow-men. They are the representatives of all who perished in tho war; for the same spirit animated all. And we honor them because, in the service of their fellows, they laid aside every thought of, self and cheerfully embraced the utmost sacrifice. ******* There is but one answer, did we say? No, there is another. We honor those men because they feared not death. Say wbat we will, it is pleasant to be alive in this world, under the sun, among the flowers, with the familiar scenes of home around us and the voices of loved ones in our oars. Life is pleasant and the old familiar ways, the workshop and the mart by day, sweet companionship, the book, and the pipe by the fireside in the evening. And death is dark and cold and lonely. We have our faiths and our hopes, no doubt; but we cannot put them into words or picture them in imagination. Flesh and blood is homely-like, and to move about in this world of men is something. But what is it to take one’s place in that Dim-discerned train of sprites without mould. Frameless souls none might touch or might hold ? “ A living dog is better than a dead lion,” said a wise man of the olden time. It is an eerie thing to be dead. Those men who landed on Gallipoli, who breasted the Turkish trenches at Gaza, who climbed the slopes of Messines, had conquered the fear of death. As they moved forward it seemed as though death was the very experience they sought, the reward they coveted. Great was their victory over Turk and German ; but greater still their victory over death. Wo do well to honor them. *******

It is not for nothing that the poets have sung so much in praise of war. We hare learned the horror of it those last four years. We know something of the cruelty, the lust, the agony of it. Our returned soldiers could tell us, if they would, what it feels like to fire pointblank into a fellow-creature's face or to plunge 3' bayonet into his vitals. But that is not the side of it that poets dwell on. That is not The glory of war. They sing of its heroisms, of hardship endured with courage and cheerfulness, of death faced without shrinking, of life freely offered in a noble cause. The glory is not in the suffering inflicted, but in the sacrifice offered. It is the glory of self transcended, of life freely given for others’ sake. In one respect of it war is the expression of the loftiest ideals that men are capable of. A more complete exhibition of the nobler elements of manhood it were hard to find in the world as it is to-day. A soldier’s courage, fortitude, and daring seem to offer to character its crown. Shakespeare speaks of the cankers of a calm world and a long peace. It has seemed hitherto that the supreme test of courage, self-discipline, and loyalty has been found to lie amid the clash of arms and the din of battle. It is all summed up in Macaulay's familiar lines : Then cut spake brave Horatius, The captain of the gate: “ To every man upon this earth Death cometh soon or late. And how can man die better Than facing fearful odds. For the ashes of his fathers And the temples of his gods, And for the tender mother Who dandled him to rest, And for the wife who nurses His baby at her breast. And for the holy maidens Who feed the eternal flame, To save them from false Sextus, Who wrought this deed of shame?” ******* Well, then, are we doomed for all time to a series of successive wars, every one more awful in its scope and in its horror than the last? Is it indeed at the port! of the noblest instincts of human nature that we construct our League of Nations and seek to make an end of war? Does peace offer no opportunities for service and sacrifice comparable to those which war offers? To believe so were the deepest pessimism. For wax, despite its heroisms, is hell. It is hell to the tortured and riven on the battlefield, to the inhabitants of the zone of operations, to the women at home. But peace is as rich in opportunities of noble deeds—every whit as rich. It is only tradition and convention that blind our eyes to them. We must learn to recognise heroism in all its manifestations, and to appreciate sacrifice in all its form. When, we have dona that we shall be surprised to discover how universal is the opportunity. Even now we acknowledge the glory of certain great servants of mankind. We honor the explorer whose endurance and resource open up new tracts of territory for our use or penetrate the wildest regions of the earth in search of Nature’s secrets. We praise the bravery of lifeboat crews and rescue parties who risk all in efforts to save shipwrecked mariners and entombed miners. We recognise the heroism of scientific investigators who have willingly contracted disease in the hope of finding out a remedy or proving the efficacy of a treatment,, and of those consecrated men and women who have made their homes among the heathen that they might teach them the principles and hopes of the Christian faith. Courage, we own, is needed in. philanthropy, and so

are constancy, devotion, self-sacrifice. America will never cease to be proud of Samuel Gridley Howe, who turned from fighting for Greek independence to a crusade at home in defence of the blind and the feeble-minded. “He was equally a soldier,” says one of his eulogists, " ft when he fought against Turks and when he fought against Legislatures or released from its fleshly prison the soul of Laura Bridgman. He had found, not a substitute for war, but a new way of warfare, not less romantic or heroic than at Missolonghi or Athena.” The titles given him by contemporaries were military titles—“ The Happy Warrior,” “The Chevalier,” “The Good Knight ” ; and when Whittier wrote of him it was as “ The Hero, knight of a better era, without reproach or fear.” * * * «- * ■» -it But, though we may ‘recognise those exceptional opportunities which peace offers for heroism and do honor to the heroes who have seized them, there is something more wanted. It is not given to everyone to be an explorer, to experiment with mosquitoes or X-rays, or to head a crusade against prejudice and custom on behalf of the -weak and downtrodden. Does peace offer to the common man, as war does, the opportunity of serving his fellow-men? It does. Only, if we are to recognise and appreciate the opportunity, we must learn to look at life from a new point of view. We must overcome the influence of tradition and learn to. apply new standards to life. At present life, to most of us, is the opportunity of “getting on.” And by “getting on” we mean earning money, accumulating wealth, rising in the scale which is measured by fortune. Suppose we tried to look at life from another standpoint, and to regard it as the opportunity of service. How would that wort? The Army and Navy used to be known distinctively as “The Services,” because it was only in them that a man was expected to render service to his country at all costs, even at the cost of life itself. It was only in them that a man was expected to be willing to bear any hardship and endure any peril for the sake of his fellows. But why should not industry and commerce, the arts and professions, politics both of the city and of the State, be “ services,” too? We are tho slaves of custom and tradition. We acclaim a man as a hero who risks his life in war; we forget that it is equally heroic to risk one’s life in a mine, or an engine room, or at a dangerous trade. War calls for heroism and sacrifice ; peace, if we only recognised it, calls for heroism and sacrifice more noble by far. It is a great thing for a man to die for his fellows; but it is a greater thing for a ’man to live for his fellows. We scorn the soldier who considers himself first. Why do wo not scorn the civilian who thinks of himself first? And that is what most- of us do. ******* The world is in need, dire need, of a new spirit, a. new chivalry. The call is for the spirit of service through the whole community. We talk of a moral equivalent for war. The fact is that daily life affords a higher discipline if we were only able to face it. The world is full of unions, associations, combinations of men for the protection of their own interests. What is urgently demanded is a new spirit of association which will breed unions and federations and institutes whose members, free from all selfish aims, shall be united for the furtherance of the common good. A new spirit, a new point of view, on the part of all who are engaged in the activities of peace—therein lies the solution of all outoproblems, the real safeguard of our civilisation, the condition of peace, the hope of the future.