THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 1922. SEVEN YEARS AGO.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18537, 24 April 1922, Page 6

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 1922. SEVEN YEARS AGO.

To-morrow will bp Anzac Day,—perennially sacred to the memory of superb valour and self-sacrificing love and the devotion to duty which is faithful unto death. Seven years ago! The most commonplace sayings, properly realised, are often the most significant, and the apparently trivial remark that “it seems but yesterday ” does not necessarily possess any element of banality. Great deeds are deathless things. The doer dies, but not the deed; , And when upon that fateful April day Our Anaaoii, throwing all but love away. Gave life and limb for Honour’s sake, With Freedom trembling at stake. They lit a boaoon-Hght, ' Imperishable, bright, That evermore the nation’s soul shall heed. And yet, while scouting the cynic’s notion that mdst men Willingly or carelessly forget things that ought to be steadily remembered, we must admit that the passage of the years does inevitably tend to blur the early brightness of remembrance and imaginative realisation. “We forget because we must, and not because we will.” And so, while year after year it becomes increasingly difficult to say anything new on the subject of Anzac Day, it also becomes increasingly necessary to say something, with a view to preserving the vividness and fidelity of retrospective thoughts. Moreover, there is a new generation coming aa, —boys and girls who were too young seven years ago to appreciate the import of the season of trial and valour, but who should not be allowed to grow up without gaining an adequate idea of the most momentous episode in the history of New Zealand and the British Em-pire,—-perhaps in th© history of the world. In short, the value of the annual commemoration will be enhanced, not diminished, as the years pass and “the first fine careless rapture” of the Anzao Day loses something of its force. It must always he borne in mind that we shkll celebrate to-morrow not merely the exploits of that terrible and glorious Sunday of the lauding at Anzac Cove, with the subsequent eight months’ tragedy and heroic endurance, but the whole of New Zealand’s martial, work in all the theatres of war. It was not only, perhaps not preeminently, at Gallipoli that our soldiers displayed the faultless bravery which won golden praise from groat commanders and expert observers, though it must he confessed that the choice of the term “ Anzac I)ay ” has had the effect of producing in many minds a too narrow conception of the purport of the commemorative occasion/ Many people may think, not unreasonably, that the living should share with the 'dead the honours of the festival; but it is the wish, the .generous wish,, of the returned soldiers, who won through the sterq ordeal, that the thoughts of a grateful nation should he mainly, if not entirely concentrated /on their fallen comrades who mode tlie unlimited sacrifice. i And of the gallant dead,' as we have repeatedly counselled,' it is right to think happily and hopefully, with affectionate pride and the quiet sentiment of a “sorrow not sorrowful.” Let us remember that in the face of peril “ all that they felt was a. gladness and exultation that their young courage was to be used.” “They‘ went like kings in pageant to the imminent death. . . All was beautiful in that gladness of men about to die, but the most moving thing was the greatness of their, generous hearts.” It were incongruous to regret the sacrifice of' souls of this heroic calibre, but shame on us if we become forgetful or indifferent and cease to give them the honour which is their eternal duo. Moreover, it is a great mistake to encourage the loose notion that they died iu vain. Even the Gallipoli enterprise was not wholly frustrate; and it is the merest cant to suggest, as some doctrinaires do. that the war as a whole was fought and won in vain, merely because some of the ideals of peace have not yet been fully realised. The world’s present state may be disappointingly backward, hut how would things be if the German menace had not been, averted ? New Zealand gallantry contributed nobly to the work of freeing civilisation from that unparalleled peril, and Anzao Day is the memorial of the achievement. All the glory and tribulation and high endeavour of the tremendous ordeal, all the sombre but ’ august tragedy of surrendered lives and maimed bodies and valiant conduct, all the spiritual glamour of lofty ideals destined to reach complete attainment, meet in solemn harmony in the sentiment of Anzac Day. Worthily observed, the occasion should possess a rich moral value,—purifying, ennobling, vitalising in the best sense. Let each of us see to it that the lesson does not pass unheeded, and that each recurring anniversary serves to strengthen our individual kinship with the heroic souls whom wa commemorate.