THE FEAR OF LIFE.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 16433, 29 January 1919, Page 4

THE FEAR OF LIFE.

A Bit Neaier Bei'liu. So the world-war is over? To-duy the four of death has passod from millions of men who love life only .a little loss than they love liberty, hdiiour, and thoir home-land. But already the fear of lif6 is creeping upon 11s, and thoughts of the future agitate our minds. With some, the 'most distinct misgivings are associated with material things; with employment, houses, ■financial prospects; with others, they are of a different order, and impersonal. _ Mine are of my "mates" and llio inevitable severance.

There's F . for instance. Civilian life had put hiiu "down and out" before ho reached his twenty-fifth birthday. Ono night last year he strode forth into the darkness of No Man's Land to win a bit of ribbon to send home to some man who had sworn he was "a rotter through and through," and he won it. \

H; was like slamming an open door in the face of the Angel of Death when T read the letter containing the other fellow's amende honorable to my wounded "pal" in the hospital ward. But K remains to-day a modern Issachar, as "an ass between two burdens," oscillating between the ways of the flesh and the ways of the spirit. God grant that those of us who love him may not wish some day that we had left him behind.

And J ? Four years ago J was a "fivo-o'clock-teu-ciy' a social lap-dog for Mayfair's dollwonieni How, and why, he got pitchforked into "Ours" as a private soldier is his own story, but that he is a man of rare mettle the whole division knows to-day. A splendid fighter, a loyal friend, and a gentleman bv instinct, ho is far too good a fellow to degenerate into his old position as a drawing-room ornament.

But, to use iiis own expression, I "There scorns nothing else for it. You can't always stage a world-war to woo a fellow from his lotus-lilies!" And II- , who is a pawnbroker when iu '-civvies" —what- is to become of him? I remember him when ho entered the regiment; how ho seemed such a "make-shirt" of a man; a stunted, \vi::eii-itatL'ied chap, with small, beady eye-, and with "clawy" lingers that seemed to (['.liver and itch in their cagernov* to seize something tangible and hold it in pledge: how lor a while ho was an Lslunucl in the camp, with his hand again&t every man, and their hands against him ; and how, later, in I' ranee, hi? won a name i'or patience, endurance, high courage, and a rare tenderness towards the ''softies" of the regiment that will live to the dav of his own redemption. Is he to go back to the flesh-pots; to ehafferings over unwanted bundles; to the miseries of a huckster's life in a dirtv shop in a city slum?

"1 don't fear the parapet to-day, mate, as much as I foar the pawnshop to-morrow," R whispered to me one

morning as 'wc were almost duo "over tho top."

.All, well, the risks to our bodies are over! With smiling faco3 let us return to face the perils to our souls.

■(W.H.X., in London "Daily Mail.")