"WHAT MEAN YE BY THESE STONES."

Shannon News, 1 May 1925, Page 3

"WHAT MEAN YE BY THESE STONES."

AN ANiZAC DAY ADDRESS. Ai, the Aiizao Day service in Shannon, the speaker, the Rev. J. D. AlcArtnur, delivered the following address Based on the words irqm Joshua "What mean ye by these stones?" "I do not Know whether or nut Jo&nua realised what every lather and mother and teacher to-day knows lull well—that the children are and . will be eternally asking questions, but one tiling is certain, he was not prepared to have them

turned aside from the truth 'by any evasive answer. It is possible that old Joshua quite well knew tna.t uie uoys and girls have a very shrewd notion of the real position of things when those who are asked a question try to dodge the answer. 'That the children of Israel, yet unborn, should not be left in ignorance of their wonderful history, Joshua commands that they be told cleariy and openly the meaning of that monument. By the way, dp yoi\ know the meaning of those stones? The children of Israel had crossed into the Promised Land. So wonderful was the way of it, that Joshua commanded that each tribe select a representative, who should select a stone from the .bed Qf the Jordan; these twelve sto'ues were set up in Gilgai as a 'monument a reminder to the men and women then living, and as a sign to the unborn generations of the great thing's God had-done for them. And in the days to come, says JOgbua, when your children shall ask: What mean ye by these stones? yiQu. must tell them the' whole story hiding nothing, for there is nothing of which to be ashamed.

"To-day, right through New Zealand and Australia, we hold a. great event in remembrance. We who iiau reached years of reason before 1914 do not need to be told what event *hat was. We know. But do our children know? Have these ceremonies any meaning for them? Or, have we kept them in ignorance of their birthright? If this kind of ceremony is worth continuing at all, surely it is worth while out teaching our children why we hold it. One writer has said that to put meaning into sorrow; to put a meaning into" struggle, to put a meaning into that which baffles, and bewilders, and hinders, to put a meaning into life—that is, to put God into life—is the greatest thing we can do for our children. What mean ye hy these stones? Joshua felt long ago that the question would be asked, and he felt that it deserved a plain, practical, truthful answer. Punch said that the great question would be: "Daddy, what did YOU do in the Great War?" Yes, but that suggestion can't he asked by our grandchildren. But the other question—what mean ye by these stones?—will be asked so long us men live.

"The author of 'Put forth by the Moon,' says in one place:. 'One can imagine a South Sea Islander visiting our land, asking the meaning of those strange red pillar-boxes, standing like scattered sentinels about our streets. And, if such a question were ever to be asked—we should be quite ready with our answer. We would explain that much of life, nine-- of the best of life, consists in correspondence with the unseen; that, we are bound closer to those we do noi see, by friendship, and love, aiuV common interests. We would say that the whole resources of the King and -Government are placed at our disposal ,the. complete machinery of foreign Governments are our's; to carry little messages by sea, air, or land, to those oi our friends to whom we wished to send' greetings. And he, no doubt, would marvel greatly at what is to us such a commonplace. "There are questions that seem too hard to answer and can never really be answered except in deeds. We call these questions the riddle of the Sphinx—and <they are challenged by all who would increase tlio knowledge hidden from, mankind in Nature's secret hiding places. What is the secret of the North and South Pole? And the challenge was taken up greedily by Scott, and Shackelton and Peary, and Amundsen, and Wild and Worsley, and others,. Did tney talk about their secrets? They fitted out expeditions and' went there and tore their secrets from their age-long silence. What is the secret of the air? The challenge was. taken up by tlie Wrights, and the Ross Smiths, and, when it was .being demonstrated that any machine heavier than air could not possibly fly, they went up and wrested the secret from its agelong silence. We have not the time to-day tQ speak of other realms, but the same thing has happened as in these-r-iinen have* gone right to the centre of' tilings and have grasped the secret. To-day, the riddle of the Sphinx is asked of our doctors and nurses who fight plague and pestilence, and, without saying much about it, they go right into it, and tear off its coverings, and compel it before it dies, to give up its secret. Thank God to-day for those who have accepted the challenge of infantile paralysis, and cancer, and tuberculosis, and who are saying little, but working—please God they shall succeed. But, everywhere death, waits to trap those who venture upon unknown and untried paths, and the greatest glory of fnajukind is that death has never yet prevented tin? progress of science, the expansion oi knowledge, the <upward, God ward movement of humanity. And we wno follow on in tlie footsteps of these men and women who have done such great things, try to show our .regard and our indebtedness by starving and shaming and crucifying them when they are with us; and then, after 'they are gone, by raising up stones in remembrance.

"In almost every town m tliis country and Australia are monuments and tablets of stone built with a purpose. 1 have seen photos of lines upon lines of little crosses, hundreds of thousands of them, in cemeteries overseas. I have seen tablets in halls and in schools and churches in this land, and cenotaphs On our streets. What mean ye by these stones? And our children who were too young to > understand in 1914 must be told, and told truthfully, what are we to tell

them? They must be told that the race that shrinks from pain dies. Tlie race that is not afraid of pain and death, but meets both gladly, finds everlasting lift. We learned that lesson on our mother's knees, with every baby breath we drew in that lesson. From the ceaseless self-sac-rifice of our mothers upon the altar of the race we learned to dare pam and torture and death itself when called by an ideal., When a man or woman suffers and pains "and anguishes and dies for something othe.i than for his or her petty self, then he or she is lifting tlie whole race a little higher.' We all come sooner or later into the hands of that great pluck tester. Pain, sometimes in the dark, like the scalded engineer fumbling with blistered fingers lor the valve which will control the giant, sometimes the miner, deep in the bowels of the earth who Knows that every breath spells death; sometimes the doctor, sometimes the explorer, from the highest of us to the lowliest of us; sometimes in "the 'broad lignt of day, with beat of drum and blare of trumpet, generally with no one to know but the all-seeing God, who never forgets. From tlie man who does his duty on the battlefield, to the man whq does his. in some other walk of life, it is all tlie same. And our boys would rather stand up to pain and death such as German and Turk in their unholy alliance could and did inflict, than, escaping that Gethsemane, live, to know, that they were cowards.

"At play and at. work, in war and in peace, New Zealanolers have shown themselves the equal of the best. Ai war they earned imperial recognition by their splendid gallantry and magnflcent achievements. And we knew, >vhen they went away that whatever they were set to dQ, they would not be found wanting, in a, time of great peril the old orators of Greece cried: •We have trusted that in time of neeu our citizens would not be unworthy of the State that has given them fulness oi living.' Athens, had n°t trusted in vain, and soi with Britain, she trusted to the breeding and the rearing and tq the ideal that inspired. Not to conquer, but to save, not to tyrannise but to serve, our lads left home and laced pain and death. •'Only bullets can make them litter, wrote Godley from Egypt, and the Turks and Germans at the Dardanelles learned just how fit they were. "What mean ye by these We to-day remember them—the flower of our country, and their message from Anzac is graven in our Aearts never to be forgotten. Only let us see to it that they did not die m vain To you and to me comes as great a challenge as lias ever come to man—the challenge to keep the worth while things sacred and to play the game, fair weather or foul. What did Micah say long ago, true now as then? What doth the Lord require- of thee, but to do justly, love mercy, and to walk humbly before God?'