A DAILY MESSAGE

Hokitika Guardian, 7 January 1929, Page 1

A DAILY MESSAGE

THE DEAD WHO LIVE To die may he the end of existence, to those who never really lived; hut to die is not the cmd of existence to the men and women who have wrought, out of their ideals, the very foundations mf human liberty— Who have breathed their aspirations into the institutions of their country— Who have stamped their characters upon the < haractcr of every age— Who have poured their life blood into streams of public prosperity— These men and women never die. Tell me, is Livingstone dead? Those who have eyes to see can set him still.

Not as lie stood, racked with anguish, before Mary Livingstone’s sad and lonely grave; nor kneeling on that last morning, stiff and cold, beside his own death-bed, where his hoys found their Great White Master still; hut, moving superbly in solitary splendour, across thirty thousand miles of darkest Africa, by tortuous slave-tracks, through swamps ami deserts, forests and marshes, where none had crossed before. See him, then, with the flush'd!* fame upon his check, the flame of faith within his eye, the oriflajnme d! glory in his hand! Livingstone though dead, will never die. Toll me. is Edith Cavell dead? Can you not see her, too, in those last moments, and hear her, as she says: “I have faced death so often that it has no terrors for me. 1 am ready now.” j The immortals have kissed her ere her matchless spirit speeds on to join the deathless army. Yes; many arc dead who will never die. The hands that traced tlio Great Charter, and all the other great instruments which have secured our liberties, are. indeed, motionless; the lips which pleaded the cause ol liberty are silent ; the voices which -stirred the listening crowds arc hushed. But tin* spirits which framed these instruments will live for ever. However lowly your sphere of life may he, you, too, may leave -indelible footprints on the sands of Time. A mother may breathe her sp'rit into the institutions of her country h.v unfolding the character oil her childien. A father may stamp his character upon his times by implanting courage, steadfastness, sti'cngth, and honour in his sons. Every good citizen raises monuments which will endure longer than those o bronze or brass. And the humblest man in the community who does his duty is every da\ enhancing the national prosperity in a thousand avenues, undreamed "f by himself. These arc the men and women to whom to die is not the end o'l existence. _M. PRESTON, STANLEY.