THE DARK HOURS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16372, 28 October 1916, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE DARK HOURS.

AND THE LIGHT BEYOND. BY ELSIE K. MOKTO.V. The thought of all who have thought 1 for anything at all outside the narrow sphere of their own lives turn? to-day in two directions : in pride and gratitude to the men at the front, in sympathy toward all those brother-men and sisterwomen on whose hearts sorrow and death are laying their chill hands. Darker even than days of Gallipoli is the time of stress through which New Zealand hearts and homes are passing, now that sons and brothers are enduring the final testing of war. Where one woman mourned a year ago a dozen aro mourning now, yet the very magnitude of the country's bereavement, as compared with losses of other days, holds in it a wonderful compensation, which slowly, through infinite pain and anguish of Spirit, is bringing consolation to those whose lives have been wrenched and broken by the cruel hand of war. When the pall of the dark hours lifts but a little the sorrowing ones get a glimpse of a light beyond, such as never before has shed its brightness over the track. [ It is a light that shines clear from the far end of the Dark Valley : its rays are clear and steadfast, but its brightness may bo seen only by those who have followed their beloved to the edge of the shadows, whoso feet already have touched the dividing waters of the river over which those valiant souls have passed. The Other Side. Never in all the ages that have passed have the mists between the life wo know and the greater life of the Beyond cleared as they have in the last two years of heart-break and woe. What was but a vague hope has become a, thing of absolute certainty in the minds of many of those who have loved and lost, and who, through the very strength of love have come to know .that in very truth there can be no such thing as ultimate loss where love still is. " I never believed in what is called ' Heaven,' or in any future life at all," said one woman whose lover's name that day had headed the list of the slain, "but I know now beyond all question I was wrong, that all the thousands of splendid young lives lost in battle could not possibly be blotted out eternally in one dark moment. They must be going on living and working somewhere." And in those words lie the seed of a great hope that is surely springing up even amid the agony of the darkest hours, the certain knowledge that on the " other side" an ever-growing army of the heroic dead—dead only in the sense of loss of their bodily presence —is waiting until we too have played our part, waiting with welcoming bands to lead us across the dark path they have I not feared to tread. ! Tha Fear of the Unknown. The ancient fear and dread of death, the cold terror of the passing from the sunshine, from the warmth and love of the living world to the vague and shadowy unknown, which has held souls in bondage from the beginning of time, is -now being shaken as it never has been since the promise of the first great Easter morn. Something greater than any plu'losophy has come to roll away the stone of doubt and fear, to remind ns that the eternal promise can never be broken. So many of our beloved, so many of the very bravest and best are on the " other side," that when we too reach the end of the path we shall truly feel we are but going Home. And in that great thought, that truer conception of " death" as but the passing into wider life, not the end, but the new beginning, lies the great compensation, the glimpsing of tho Light beyond. A thousand years of eihoftation and denunciation have been unable to do what ono brief hour of agony ha? dono, and from the welter of war, from all the worldsorrow, a faith not of creeds, but of revelation will finally arise to purge the heart of the nations. The Day of Peace. Where so many have trodden with bleeding feet many more must tread before the end comes. The hand of the Reaper cannot be stayed. With passionate intensity we long tor the day when peace will come to tho healing of the nations. Every day, every hour and minute adds its -quota in broken lives to the ultimate great cost. Even while the mother of the soldier offers up a trembling prayer of thanks for his safety amid the turmoil, the thought comes that even as she kneels he may be numbered among the fallen. Yet ask one of these women would she have it otherwise, have her boy again at her side, leaving some other mother's boy to suffer and die in his stead. You know her answer would be " No." In the first shock of overwhelming grief there is a time when the woman-heart is utterly desolate, when patriotism and all hope alike are crushed, and the world is I filled with a great darkness, rent by the I poignant cry of the mother for her son. Her loss is irreparable, yet when the pain of the blow has passed, even through her tears, she too may see the Light beyond, and find comfort in the thought that the parting is for but a very little while. Very beautifully has a well-known English poet voiced the sorrow of motherhood and the great consolation, in words that every woman will understand: i ' I know! I know! I Tho ceasoleas ache, the emptiness, the woe— The pang of loss— I The strength that sinks beneath so sore & cross. i —Heedless and careless, still the world wags I on, And leaves mo broken. ... Oh, my ion! My son! Yot—think of this! Yen, rather think on this!— He died as few men get the chance to die,— Fighting to save a world's morality, I He died the noblest death a man may die, I Fightins for God. »nd Right, and Liberty;' ■■ And such a death is Immortality. " He died unnoticed in the muddy trench." '•Nay, God was with him, and he did not blench; Filled him with holy fires ' that nought could Quench; And when He saw his work below was done. Ho gently called to him, 'My son! My son! I need theo for a greater work than this, Thy faith, thy zeal, thy fine activities Aro worthy of My larger liberties; '- Then drew him with the hand of welcoming grace, And. side by cluEhssLthe_lifia\eaJ? Wijfc"