APPEAL FOR MEN.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 December 1915, Page 4

APPEAL FOR MEN.

THREE DAYS TO ENLIST. SERMONS IN THE CHURCHES. CHAPLAIN SULLIVAN'S APPEAL.

Only three days remain for men to come forward in response to the urge»t appeal for men to complete Taranaki's quota for the Eleventh Reinforcement*, Originally thirty infantrymen were required, and up to Friday night seven men had been accepted. There were several enlistments on Saturday, and their medical papers will not be returned until to-day. A strong effort is required in the short time left to get the men. At some of the churches in New Plymouth yesterday the appeal was referred to, the preachers stressing the urgency of this call. Preaching at the Whitel'ey Memorial Church last night. Chaplain-Captain R. J. Sullivan (who went through the opening stages of the campaign in the Dardanelles as a corporal) appealed to men, and especially young men, to enlist. The mar who said iie was a Christian and was fit and free, and did not enlist, was a coward and a earl, and was unworthy of the name of Britisher, Christ's way was the way of self-sacrifice, of unadulterated unselfishness, of honorable surrender of life, with its beauty, its wealth, its olean prospects, and the sweetest associations to the service and protection of others. That was the way the soldiers were going on the battlefields of Flanders and Turkey. To-day Christ's way led straight to the firingline and into the bayonet charge. "He does not ask you to yield your life for the fat man who gives with much grace and advertisement the overflow of his cup of prosperity," he added, "but takes mighty fine _care the cup remains full for himself. " Christ asks you to come in His name to avenge intolerable wrongs and violations of honorable treaties; to avenge outrages on women and children, and the deliberate and heartless trampling under the iron heel all that is sacred to the human heart and the best institutions of human iociety. He asks you to avenge these. He wants you to fight for generations unborn. He wants you to fight in defence oi your own prospects, and for tho future which you have made the guiding star of your' life. He wants you to come—to come scelcing no reward. Ho wants you to come, ready and delighted to give up your utmost for the highest. Be wants you to come to enlist in the service of your country." Chaplain-Captain Sullivan related that when the late Grant (formerly of New Plymouth) was doing his noble work of rescuing the wounded, he remarked to a fellow chaplain that the place was the valley of the shadow of death. "Yes," remarked his colleague, "if one is to go there arc worse ways." The last words of the major (for h* was shot almost immediately afterwards) were, "This is the best way." The preacher appealed to young men to take the message f heart*