NEED FOR SACRIFICE.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 16115, 25 April 1918, Page 3

NEED FOR SACRIFICE.

VIEWS OF SOLDIER IN FRANCE. Interesting glimpses of conditions on the western front are contained in a letter to his parents, written from the western front by Company-Sergeant-Major G. Gilmore Griffiths, son of the Rev. Griffiths, of Waipu. SergeantMajor Griffiths says: — “'filings drag slowly on here, and as far as wo can see, no dawn is yet in sight. But we always remember it is always darker just before the break of day, hence onr hopes are high. Everything is quite all right with the boys, and provided the people at home remain, firm, all will bo well. That is the only danger. Will the homo folks back us up? Sometimes we think they do not realise there is a war on. They seem so full of their own petty troubles “After all. our principles are not worth much if they are not worth great sacrifices. And if the masses at homo are not prepared to deny themselves, then so much greater will' bo their loss. Our information may be a bit scrappyj and thus our perspective not quite true! but it appears to me personally as if the Church were losing a- great opportunity and failing to rise to tire occasion. If they would give less prominence to the morals of onr troops, and cut out joyboll ringing when these self-same troops score a win, they would have more time to realise the issues at stake in this great world-war game. . “It is easy to talk glibly of justice, right and freedom, hut if the fact is not impressed on the multitude by both precept and practice that nothing worth attaining was over got without sacrifice then tile labour of the birth of Right is’ going to be unnecessarily painful and prolonged. A crowd cannot realise this but thinkers can. And, with the ghastly nightmare of strikers and so on disturbing us, it is surely time to bo busy. Russia ought to be an object, lesson to them. Still, I have even faith yet in Russia. Without taith we could not carry on. 1.