COMFORT AND HOPE.

Hokitika Guardian, 8 January 1917, Page 4

COMFORT AND HOPE.

A Soldier’s Message From the Battle God’s arms are round the undying Dead Who Bdivs Him, Torments seeks in vain To touch them, though because they bled i’oola take their passing for a pain. In Honocr. The dead soldiers of this war have given mankind the splendour of their example and the abiding memory of their love. Bat they have done something more. From - the trenohes and from these vast battlefields where man is oruoified anew they have Bent baok countless messages of comfort and hope. “Is it well with them?” that question which will eternally rise to the lips of those who have loved and lost, is answered by them in anticipation with the assurance of prophecy. *• It is well.” * This answer rings through that remarkable eerier of letters from a youDg French artist-soldier to his mother which has recently been published in France wiih a preface by M. Cbevillon under the title “ Lettres d’un Soldat ” (G'hapelot, Paris. 2.sofes, or 2s). It has in a peculiar degree the qualities of sincerity and directness. The artist was never destined to paint the great picture of which be dreamed ; he vanished in the fearful fighting in the Argonne of April 1915. But if his grave is unknown he has left a monument more enduring than brass in this record of a soul that faced death with unfaltering courage and calm. No translation can reproduee the rare beauty and no selection do justice to the vast compass of the original, from whioh we extract soma of the thoughts that make the deepest appeal to the heart : DISCOMFORTS AND TERRORS. Bain in war-time. It is a punishment of whiah you eaa form no idea. For three days and nights we have boen able to do nothing but shiver and whimper, and yet we must oarry on. To sleep in a trench full of water has no equivalent in Dante, but what of the awakening when you have to watch for the moment to kill or to be killed I Ton must never know what man crd do to man. For five days my boots have been foul with human brains. I have been treading on throats and stepping in entrails. Two dear friends, one ot whom made a charming model for my last portrait, have been killed. It was one of the terrible discoveries of the night. His body lay, white, magnifioent, in the moon, I lay down close by. him. Beauty of things woke within me. Our condition aa infantrymen is rather like that of rabbits whioh are being Bhot. We have acquired—or at least one of us have—a perpetual inclination to look for a bole. ON THE SOLDIER’S STATE. I recall my satisfaction when I received my military discharge at 27. And cow at 28 I am again part of the Army, far from my work, from my interests, from my ambitions, yet never did life bring me such an abundance of noble emotions: never perhaps have 1 had such freshness of feeling in recording them or such peace of soul. I think our life must resemble the existence of the monks of old. We are children. “A RANSOM FOR MANY.” . Tell M. that if dea'.h strikes the best it is not unjust. The less noble who survive will thus be made better. Let her accept the sacrifice and know that it is not made in vain. You do not know what a lesson the dead teach. ] know it. In the spectacle of the soldier who falls there is a lesson in nobility and immortality whioh steels us and by ■which we ought to wish those dear to us to profit. I know because I have seen how the soldier whose leader has fallen isjtransfigured with heroism. MOTHERS AND WAR. Mothers have overwhelming agonies to suffer in this war, but be of good cheer, nothing here is lost.

pleasure as usual. What passes our understanding—and yet, after all, it is natural enough that civilians are able to continue their normal existence while we are in torment. courage and faith We have need of courage, or rather we have need of something difficult to obtain, which is neither patience nor excessive confidence, but a certain faith in the order of things—a power to say aa eaoh trial befalls us that it Is well. Let ua always and in every condition have faith in God. Hike you, I feel we can only worship Him in spirit; like you, I feel that we ought to avoid every kind of pride whioh offends the beliefs of oihers. Why am I saarificed when so many •thers who are not so clever as 1 are preserved? And I had something great to do in this world. But as God has not willed that this cup should pass from me, let Hib wi'l be be done. HIS IDEAL The artists must put forth his buds without dreading the and perhaps God will permit me hereafter to realise my ideal. BLESSED IS THE PROPHET Our consolation lies above all in the superhumanly clear conviction that the divine and immortal energy which acts in onr race, so far from being weakened, is exalted aud rendered infinitely more potent by these turmoils. Blessed is he who will hear the hymn of peace, but blessed already is he who divines it in the tumult. And what does it matter if this magnificent vision should be realised when the prophet has gone ? He who has foreknown its coming has gleaned abundance of jby on earth. the death of the soul The true death would be to live in a conquered country, for me above all, whose art must then be destroyed. It would be shameful to think for a moment of saving my own life when my race demands my sacrifice. NATURE AND MAN, Spring has triumphantly arrived. It finds men full of hate, doing utter outrage to creation. There will always be beauty on earth, and man, for all his mischievousness, will never be able to root it out, I have amassed enough to furnish my whole life. The dead will not hurt the spring. After the horror of the moment of their loss has passed, when you see how large a plaoe is filled by their memory, yon feel a kind of relief et the thought of that whioh really persists (after death). It is in these dismal woods that you understand the vanity of burial and of funeral rites. The soul of these poor brave lads does not need that. SUFFERING. If there is one thing absolute in the realm of human sensation it is suffering, Now I understand what life is. It is the instrument that clears the soul’s path to the absolute, BEFORE BATTLE, Haman separations mean little; that whioh is really onrsslves is the ardour of the soul. We have the order to attack. I don’t want to face the risk* which that involves without sending yon my thoughts in the few moments of quiet that we have left. Everything here combines to impart peace of heart—the beauty of the wood in which we are living, the want of intellectual complications. It is paradoxical, bb you say, and yet the best moments of my inner life are now being passed. It is perhaps a destiny and a privilege, of which our generation should be proud, to witness these horrors ; but what a terrible ransom it bas to pay. In fine: Eternal faith dominating everything. Faith in an evolution, an order surpassing our human patience. IN FULL BATTLE. One word only. We are in the hands of God. Never, never did we so surely need steadfastness and confidence. Death rages but does not reign. Life is still noble. 1 have seen all my leaders struok down and the regiment decimated. 1 am in the hands of God, and I pray only that Ha will allow me such a condition of mind and heart as will permit me to enjoy all xn His creation that man has not been able to polite and spoil. LAST WORDS. Dear mother, we are again in the care of God. We leave at 2 for the etorra. I think of you ; 1 love you ; I commend all three of us to Providence. Whatever happens, let us be ready for it. In the full possession of all my faculties, that is my prayer. Hope to the last, but above all steadfastness and love. We are now at the last waitingpoint. I eend you my love. Whatever happens, life will have been beautifnl. Thus he passed, in the exquisite words of our own Poit Laureate, "nobly, aa saints and heroes die, with heart and hand unstained by hatred or wrong,” speaking even in death his glorious message to the world of living men.