WAR'S HARVEST.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume III, Issue 873, 27 November 1916, Page 6

WAR'S HARVEST.

"IT IS THE BEST WHO FALL." A YOUNG SOLDIER OF FRANCE. "French Protestantism has been hard hit by the war, which has cut .off many of its most promising young men,"' says the "Friend." " 'lt is the jbest who fall' has become a proverbial expression. An exceptionally ; fine example is to be found in Alfred J Eugene Casalis, the grandson of one j of the three young Frenchmen who, ; in 1833, responded to the call of the J chief Moshesh, discovered the Basuto ! nation, and became, with their successors, the instruments of its preI serration as an autonomous British ! protectorate. "He was born in Basutoland, j where his father, now Secretary of I the Paris Missionary Society, was I then a missionary. From early childhood he had determined to follow in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, and when the warbroke out it found him entering on his second year of theological study at Montauban. He volunteered for service early in 1915, before the men of his age, 18, had been called up, went to the front in April, and was killed in action in May. "Extracts from his letters, with the briefest possible introduction and particulars of his end, have been put together by his father. Of My Own Free WilL" "January 7, 1915.—'1 am a soldier, of my own free will, and by no hasty impulse. . . . You know how i contrary it all is to my nature, to my ideal, to my vocation. You know how I wanted only to be a "rescuer"; how my only ambition was to bring all who suffer a heart of compassion, overflowing with words of hope and tenderness, like the Master whom I desire to love and serve. And here I am in barracks!' "March 3.—[After being refused, on account of health, as a volunteer for the front]: "This was the thought which enabled me to remain here quietly, I had almost said happily: the thought that I was going to be with these young men whom I know now, and who know me, and know, j too, in a dim way, where I go to get ! the little strength I have. . . . There are such riches, when one can get to the bottom of these souls! I have ; learnt to love them, and now I try to speak to them.' "March 17.—'1 shall go forth calmly and with confidence. I shall fight with a good conscience and without fear, I hope certainly without hate, because I believe our cause to be just, because France victorious will I have a mission to fulfil, in elevating and educating mankind for brotherhood. I believe this, because I have [myself accepted this vocation and because I know many others who have made it theirs.' 'The new France must stand up for this: "to make Christ King." And it will be for those who remain to prepare new I labourers for the ripening harvest.' "April 20.—'1 dream incessantly j about the France of to-morrow, that ! young France which is awaiting its :hour. It must, it must be a consecrated France, wherein each person : has only one thing to live for—Duty. | They will only live in so far as each one knows his duty and strives for it. And it is for us Protestants, or rather for us believers, to reveal that jnew life to the world. " 'For me, military life has sim- ! plified everything. Things have taklen on their true values, their full ! significance. Difficulties which I seemed almost insurmountable for me have disappeared. Intellectual [sacrifices which I thought I could j never accept have been accomplish- | ed almost unconsciously and without a pang. Instead of them I find a | new vitality, an intense desire for • action.' Learning to Live. "April 27.—'You cannot realise the intensity of my life at this moment, during these hours of rest; blessed hours of my life, in which mere systematised work, fixed in traditional grooves and formulas, has been replaced by the free development of my soul. I have often dreamt of this hour, when I should enter into reality. But I did not think it would come so soon. And now I am enjoying it profoundly.' "On May 5, four days before the end, he writes: " 'You hope this trial will yield me a great deal. Thank you. I feel myself changed already. The abstract being that was in me is falling away bit by bit. Many realities of the spiritual order, which before were only phantoms, have become flesh and blood, by an experience which is being renewed moment. I am learning to live.'"