ONLY A CROSS OF FLOWERS.

Digger (Invercargill RSA), Issue 34, 5 November 1920, Page 12

ONLY A CROSS OF FLOWERS.

(By "Lest We Forget.")

"What is the- band playing so brighUy for?" "Uh, don't you know, there is a contin. gent going away to-day, and you should have been at the theatre last night and heard the speeches. They were grand ! They make one feel so" patriotic." How often those remarks were heard in those dreadfu-1 days now past, and the contingents, how splendid they looked in their glorious young manhood, full of strength and vigour, proud because of their their. They were going to do their share in the cause of rigliteousness and freedom. It mattered not to them that they were going to face unknown dangers ; but why of that— youth and strength they had. One wonders what their thoughts for the fut§re had been. A writer once said : "The thoughts of youth are long, long long thoughts," Well they went, and those who stopped at home, how eagerly they scanned the papers for doings of those brave lads overseas, and ev«ry now and then the cables told the names of those \yho had died. Some said he was a school mate, a shop mate, factory mate, an offlce mate and so on. So many knew him and spoke of his goodness. One heard the people talk and one thought what a splendid example for the young who were to follow. For years it went on, and the fighting ceased. No more contingents were reqnired. Then the contingents began to return, but oh, the gaps in the ranks, and the broken, weary ones — but all with a smile. They had done the work they went to do, truly and well, and what mattered youth's shattered ambitions. And now the years are passing and every now and then comes the anniversary of those . battles where New Zealand's sons made her nam.e for ever famous in history. _Do we "remember them and observe them as we ought? Mr Massey said : "The children must be taught to honour the anniversaries, and revere the memory of Kew Zealand's noble' dead." Do we -find it so? No! In Parliamentary \ re-ports we read of wrangling and divisions over soldiers' pen. sions, land for soldiers, hospital treatment, etc. Schools have their rolls of honour, and we in Invercargilljrave our South Afri'can Troopers' Memorial, and some day — let us hope — a wave of palriotism will stir the hearts of the people of Invercargill, then they will thihk of those graves on Gallipoli, France and Flanders, lonely and far away from home and loved ones, and then we will have our mepioriai for our noble dead, and the school children will be told about the anniversaries and they will bring wreaths oi flowers and shrubs that by

their meanings, speak of love and even la-sting gratitude to those who by deaths have given expressionto the vio j of Him who said : "Greater love hat a 'man than that he laid down his 1 e " another." Their cross was suffenng ^ death. Let us remember them^VC1/ and in gratitude to them, heip ^eirC rades, who have returned, in ever) sible way — and the ways are mW! varied. Let us neve'r forget their a ^ | was the wall that kept us sal'e at