THE MEMORIAL SERVICE.

Manawatu Times, Volume LXV, Issue 1883, 31 March 1913, Page 3

THE MEMORIAL SERVICE.

A GREAT MOURNING.

THE KING'S PRAYER FOR THE

GALLANT FIVE,

The latest English files all contain references to the memorial service at St. Paul's to the Antarctic heroes. The following is fro;n the London Daily Mail: — The "dome of the Golden Cross," for the second time within a year, echoed at yesterday's requiem service to "the noise of the mourning of n mighty nation," and this noise of mourning will go the deeper that it is compressed into the silence of prayer, antiphonal to words and music which touch the very depths and heights of a human emotion. Many of us hare almost feared to read, much more to read aloud, the plain aud simple tale of the death of those five brave men. How would feeling be at all controlled when the people went to take their part in a requiem which might overcome a man or woman by its own force, in rehearsal for nothing bevond? From this grand and be;.'.iin 1 service the people gathered and separated with feelings as many as their charaters; but many, perhaps most, felt that the sting of sorrow was taken away and any bitterness for what seemed a needless loss sunk in a wider and deeper sense. It is true, as ever happens, that the Dead March in "Saul" overhelmed manv of the great congregation. As the muffled drums began, un the edge of those thrilling chords to come, one cor Id see the King, seated in the centre of the aisle, scarcely in isolation from the people, bow his In ad a little and then straighten his back, as if to brace himself against the onset of a great emotion. The unconscious gesture gave u lead. Standing there in his admiral's uniform, looking a true and simple sailor, the King imparted unwittingly to those abtut him "the Nelson touch.'' The sailor spirit was abroad. THE ROLL OF HONOUR.

But there was a harder thing to hear even than the Dead March in "Saul," played with the stern and reverent manner that belongs to the band of the Coldstream Guards. It was as much as most of us could do with proper manliness to join in uie special prayer, in which the congregation, all kneeling, were called upon to repeat in full the names of the five men who had died among the snows: We humbly leave in Thy Fatherly keeping the souis of our brothers, Robert Falcon Scott, Lawrence Edward Grace Gates, Edward Adrian Wilson, Henry Robertson Bowers, Edgar Evans. In such setting was the roll of honour, composed one might believe of names of purpose selected to mark the share of England, Scotland and Wales in a crowning achievement, a united self-sacrifice. As the first name was said, there to the mind in all reverence ! fine phrase of a modern English poet. The "falcon spirit" of Scott would soar no more in his nation's sight. St. Paul's was full of people at the beginning of the usual morning service, and numbers were already banked up outside on the steps at the west end. As the service finished the band of the Coldstream Guards, the one blare of colour in the cathedral, took up their places at the end of the nave on either side the entrance to the chancel. In a short while they were quite surrounded and the colour subdued by the press of the people, representatives of the Naval Reserve in sailor uniform next to them, and among them some members of other Polar expeditions. The few lines of reserved seats on either side of the King's chair were not long empty. In quick succession the foreign Ambassadors, the leading members of the Governmentand the Opposition, and representatives of all the great activities of the nation took their places in order as they came. The tale of the names is of no matter, but many eyes were especially bent on the two representatives of New Zealand. Has ever any outward part of an Empire been brought so close to another as New Zealand and Britain within the last few days? The sea is indeed "the cement of Empire." The King himself arrived as it were unannounced, simply as an equal sharer in the national tribute, and took

his place as the last notes of Handel's Largo died in the mystery of the mighty dome. CAPTAIN OATES'S MOTHER, The mother of Captain Oates, the gallant geutleman who gave his life to try to save the others, attended the service. The fith Inniskilling Dragoons, Captain Oates's regiment, were represented by Captain Moncrieff. Everything was very simple; from the gathering of the people without tickets, as any congregation might, the unaffected sharing in responses and hymns and prayers, till the organist walked down the chaucel at the close and asked the Cold streamers' band to give the three verses of the National Anthem. As we shared in the service, thinking all of us of the five men lost in t te eternal snows, the words of the twentythird and ninetieth Psalms—"The Lord i? my Shepherd" and "Lord, Thou hast "been our refuge"—came with a strange newness or richness as if we had never before understood

them. They seemed to have been in

spired by this very event among a thousand more, as if they were porous to all deep feeling whatever the occasion. "Thou shalt prepare a table before Me"; "I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever."

These and other words like them ! brought before one in deeper poig- ' nancy the hunger of death in the , house in the snow. Like the Psalms in this was the t misty dome itself, as if stone, too. ! had "language. The mind went i straight from the black cross on the leaf before us and the golden cross ; above out to the cross of red wood !by the South Pole; and one could j imagine tne organ notes losing < themselves in the arcs of rlie arches I to travel on as immortal vibrations ! to the white dome and rod cross in , the Antarctic, there to bear the : nation's message to immortal spirits. ; "Prosper Thou the work of our hands upon us, O prosper Thou our handywork." When the second ; Psalm so ended, came a new assur- ! ance, as if we now knew that the I fruit these men bad gathered, seem- ! iug perhaps little in return for the

; loss, were sure to living gain lin tJie end; as it' we were certain beyond proof that Scott's message

and Oates's last words would breed in our people an immortal manhood. What we felt was said when at the end of the lesson, following those marching phrases " in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. . . . we shall be changed," came the triumphant question. "O death, when 1 is thy sting? O grave where is thv victory?" W.B.T.