LAST MESSAGES TO HOME.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1701, 21 April 1917, Page 4

LAST MESSAGES TO HOME.

DYING LAD’S NOTE WRITTEN ON BATTLEFIELD.

“MY THOUGHTS ARE NOW FOR YOU ALL.”

His last message home as he lay wounded on the battlefield! An intensely human document, written by a dying soldier on the battlefield of France, was that written by the late Private Thomas Heaton, of the Liverpool Regiment, a clerk employed in the advertising department of Messrs Haulton and Co., of Manchester and London. His parents reside at 140, Lower Broughton

road, Lower Broughton, Manchester.

At the outbreak of war he enlisted in the Liverpool Regiment. Last week, as Private Moores, of the Ist Newfoundland Regiment, was searching the battlefield, he found the dead body of Private Heaton, and hanging from the pocket was a note, evidently hurriedly written as he lav wounded.

This letter, which is authenticated by Lieutenant Nuns, a Huddersfield man now with the Newfoundland Regiment, and Private Moores, of the New foundlands, reads: — “My dear Mother, Father, Sisters and Brothers. —The good God has willed it so that my existence in this life, like many another, should be ended suddenly unexpectedly, in the time when all is young and life offers unlimited means of enjoyment, and 1 want this last message to you to reach you, to show that it docs not find me unready to make the great sacrifice. IN THE GREAT BEYOND.

“My last thoughts are for you all, well knowing that the decree will greatly upset you, but remember — and I hope you will draw some consolation from it —that I am not. the only one, nor you the only parents, who have been called upon to make the great sacrifice. This, then, is what I want you to do —to bear the loss as bravely, quietly and resignedly as you possibly can. 1 myself Avill have the far easier task,and you the more difficult, but it is the will of Him above, and He knows best. You will remember the good old hymn, “God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform.” “And, please, for your own sakes, try not to rail at His decision for us, as we arc not the only ones to suffer. Perhaps God in his goodness, although He has denied the pleasure of meeting again on this earth, may in His unbounded mercy, grant us the greater pleasure to reunion in the great beyond. With (he greatest affection for you all, I leave you. —Your loving son and brother, Thomas.”