AN ELOQUENT TRIBUTE.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume II, Issue 491, 6 September 1915, Page 3

AN ELOQUENT TRIBUTE.

MILITARY MEMORIAL SERVICE.

FOR FIRST FALLEN KAIAPOI SOLDIER.

A memorial service in connection with the late Lance-Gorporal H. W. Joslen, the first Kaiapoi soldier killed at the Dardanelles, was held yesterday at the Methodist Church, Kaiapoi. The preacher was the Rev. P. W. Fairclough. There was a: big, muster of Territorials and Cadets, under Acting-Lieut. \V. Stark, Boy Scouts under Scoutmaster Blazey, and the Kaiapoi Band, under Bandmaster Hoskin. There Was also a fair muster of* the Citizens' Defence Corps. The Rev. Mr Fairclough chose as his text the thirteenth verse of the fifteenth chaper of John: "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."

We cease to possess when we cease to live. What is ours while breath is 4n us passes to others when the last breath is drawn. Life is therefore the purse that holds our gold, the casket that contains our jewels. It includes our all. Yet we forget this hold-all in its contents. Wc take

life for granted and think of our material good. We all have some, more or less, and how >ve clutch it and struggle for it and defend it! The idea of possession is the nucleus round which all our sense of right and/justice has crystalised. Our laws spring from it. Our fleets and armies are to make us secure in our

own. But life underlies even this' fundamental conception- of possession. When brought face to face! with the ultimate question, we all \ feel the truth of what is said iii Job, ] "Fleece for skin; yea, all that a man: hath will he give for his life." From the sinking steamer London, a young lady cried out to the departing boat, j "I have £60,000! I will give it all for j a place in the boat." Yes, life" is i easily more than all possession. The , live pauper is more, has more than. the dead king. So he that lays down his life does far more than he who surrenders th'e last farthing of his estate. He who gives his worldly goods may enjoy seeing others enjoy them; but he who gives his life, misses even that. In common sordid life there are few who would notj prefer any other to die rather than themselves/ There are many who would give most of their possessions to ensure victory for Britain, but not many who would be willing to die secretly to purchase victory from a| malign fate. But the magic of war lifts men above the sordid level. Thousands offer to go. They hope to return, but they »iake no condi- j tion. They surrender all. What j for? That others may live and pros- j per. What others? Those whom! they love and reverence. Has notj then H. W. Joslen.made the great") surrender and reached the-furthest j limit of human devotion? He laid down his life for his friends—the life of youth that is gilded with hope; that spreads rainbows over the most drab and monotonous path.

The Great Teacher who uttered the text has three other sayings about life which are related to this. He says: ''Man shall not live by bread alone." There are principles and righfs and ideals without which he cannot live. Again: "A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth." There is a heart that sings In a sea of troubles and an unconquerable mind that fronts the last stroke of Fate with a smile. Again: "Whosoever shall lose his life for My sake" —or for any high sake—"shall find it."

What are the things that are so superior to mere material good? First, there is honour—not the honour that another may pin on to you, but the honour that is in you—your own standards, your group of selfrespects. Without this, who would wish to live? Life consists in it. It is more than bread. Not even for a friend would a man lay it down, for it is the immediate jewel of his soul. Honour is more than pelf, more than bread, and,'by laying down the bread-life, the income-life, our fallen friend has found the larger life. He lives in honour.

Another essential of life is loyalty, that fealty to king or to nation and race which saves us from being mere disconnected and jarring units. The most hateful word in all speech is "traitor," and the most hateful name is "Judas." A story of the Sudan describes a man who was captured by fanatical Dervishes and commanded to trample on the cross traced on the sand, or die. He obliterated the cross, but he could not feel easy about it, though he was not a religious man. He escaped, and he found that his old friends at the clubs in London, when they learned his story, fell off from him as if he had the plague, for had he not taken out the backbone of his soul and trodden on it? Saving his life he lost it. Now the brave soldier dying on the field of battle is at the very opposite pole of the mean betrayer. He lays down the husk of life that he may keep its kernel. "A third essential of life is love, personal affection. Most things in this world are done from love of some kind. It is the great motive force. The bitterest losses, are made endurable by love, and the hardest tasks easy. No man would live! without it. His life consisteth in it. It is more than bread or pelf. Man would not lay it down for his j friend, for that would be a contra-, diction. He who loses his life for! love's sake find it. Think not that { our fallen comrade loved you who must bide at home less than those who stay. He loved you more and loved you wisely. "The text was spoken by one who contemplated laying down his life —unfriended, alone, in ignominy, and shame, that he might be true to his honour, unflinching in his loyalty

to right and truth, and that he might make love triumph oyer hate. He died praying for his enemies. The Scriptures say he died for his enemies. He went a stage beyond what he limited as the greatest love of man. Hence he stands alone as the hero of heroes, the king of love, the mirror of, loyalty, the soul of honour who made everything, he touched dignified. Even his gallows tree, his cross, has become the noblest emblem. What was "bread" or "abundance of things" to him? He laid down his life and he found it for ever, and out of his tomb rises the fountain of immortality." After the beuedictidti Bandmaster Cecil Hoskin sounded "The Last Post." • .