LIFE GROWS THROUGH NOBLE SACRIFICE.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 125, 24 December 1915, Page 3 (Supplement)

LIFE GROWS THROUGH NOBLE SACRIFICE.

Asked what he would say to a bo reaved mother who has lost her son in the war the Bishop of Birmingham, Dr. H. R. Wakefield, has replied to the " Psychic Gazette": " I would answer the mother in some such words as these: Your boy passed hence for the sake fo the world's* righteousness. Were there no hereafter, still he has lived to make better and nobler the ideals and the methods of mankind. He will live, therefore, in the future he has helped to create.

" But when we have torn aside all the veils which even religious systems 6et up between humanity and the Beyond, do w« not see with unclouded vision a land in which the spirits of those we mourn hold communion with anotner? The noble cannot die eternally, and there is always room for the noble in the council chambers of the Divine. Your boy has his place there. "Again, could you call your boy back again and ask him whether he would choose to live here the dead existence of the one who has done naught in the great crisis to promote the good, or once more to lay down his all for the true, you know what his answer would be. Life grows through noble sacrifice. Nay, more. You, mother of the hero, do you not know in your heart that, all your anguish notwithstanding, you feel your boy is now more yours than ever? Your pride in him is absolute, and, believe me, if you will listen with the mother's' all-hearing ear, you will still be able to hold sweet communion with him who was, is,and must ever remain part of yourself. Love is Life, and Death cannot kill Love. So be comforted, and—wait." Rev. James Drummond, M.A., L.L. D., has replied to the same question: — "Sorrow must be allowed to have its perfect work, and break through the crusts of selfishness that hide from us the deep things of God. And when this is accomplished, we can commit our beloved to him, in full assurance that his Fatherly Lovo cannot change, that his realities are higher far than our ideals, and that ey e has not seen nor ear heard the thing 6 which he has prepared for them that love him."