THE LOAN

New Zealand Times, Volume XLII, Issue 9755, 3 September 1917, Page 4

THE LOAN

Where are you going. Great Heart? “To cleanse the earth of noisome things: To draw from life its poison sting--. To give free play to Freedom’s wings.” Then God go with you. Great Heart I A rising poet, cut off on the battlefield in his pnmo or days/ sang faerct-ly of the, wiuu taut b.ew out oi me Prussian plain, winch shook Diego ana sacked Douvam. tie snowed now this quickly lined all Belgium with noisome tamgs. The horrid crop of vnem extended to Northern trance, to Tniand, to Kerb, a, to Koumama. Poisoned stings rell then on life in many countries from the air. and struck wickedly upwards from wio depths of the sea. And in some or the fairest countries of the eartn Freedom is lying helpless wutn wings ground under the iron heel of armed despotism, deliberately blind to every law of nations and deaf to every one of the calls of humanity, which m former times were, by common agreement of mankind, made valid. in consequence the nations of our great Alliance have gone to war. They stood athwart tne path of the wind that blew out of that Prussian plain. They met tne forces careering berore that wind, arrogant, triumphant, cynical. Unprepared, they endured; enduring, they organised; organising and fighting, they raised the simple motto, ‘‘Win the War.” The war they wage will cleanse off the noisome tli.ngs, will draw the poison stings, will give play to Freedom’s winita. They iv r iH, as the poet says in another place, “make to-morrow sure and fast, nailing God’s colours to th« mast.” That is the meaning of “Win .the War.” The pacificist, -and the weakling, and the pessimist are >n » league which gives no value to the surety of to-morrow. But the surety of to-morrow, is impossible if the colours of God’s righteousness are not nailed to the mast. And nothing will nail tnem but the winning of the war. The loan is needed to win the war. The last day of opportunity has come, seize it with a rush.