My "Little Bit"

by Marie Corelli

SEA POWER, 1805–1918

I

Glory and terror and splendid joy of the Sea!

Thunderous Sentinel-Guard of our flowering Isles of the Free!

Fortress impregnable, built with the mountainous waves

Toppling in fury of laughter sheer over our enemies’ graves!

God!... It is all we can ask for!... that still we ever may be

Saved by the glory and terror and conquering joy of the Sea!

II

Sea that sprang to the keels of the ships of Nelson and Drake,

Billows that leap’d for delight in the battles for England’s sake—

Will ye fail us now? Nay, never! Ye are strong as ye were of yore,

And Victory’s voice rings clearly out in your rush on the rocky shore—

And shark-like Death, at the enemy’s cry, to meet him swiftly runs,

For your swirl and sucking sands are as sure as the fire of a thousand guns!

III

Glory and terror and conquering love of the Sea,

Circling our Fortunate Isles of Fame, more famous still to be!

Let us praise the Giver of Life for the silver and azure band

He hath set between us and our foes on the other side of the land.

Break, it cannot! Yield, it shall not! England, home of the free,

God keep thee safe in the strength and light and conquering love of the Sea!

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THE SPLENDID SERVICE OF THE SEA
(Written by request for the Navy League)

In this greatest War of all history, a War which in extent, in terrifying armaments, and in massed millions of men surpasses in fearful slaughter and incalculable results all the battles ever chronicled from earliest times to now, why is it that in these Isles of Britain, the nucleus of the Empire most concerned, there is so much indifference, apathy, and real ignorance displayed among the general public of the “man-in-the-street” type concerning the silent but ever vigilant work of our Navy? There is no use in denying the fact—indifference, apathy, and ignorance exist; and all taken together constitute an extraordinary, wellnigh alarming national phenomenon. Carelessness arises from what is sometimes called “cock-sureness,” and we are amazingly “cock-sure” of ourselves, especially in naval matters. The levity of our women, apart from those who are engaged in sick nursing and charitable works, and who are happily numerous, is almost unbelievable; their outrageous, not to say positively crazy “new fashions” in dress, their “dinner dances” at London restaurants, their “bridge parties,” and their “night clubs” make one think of the warning words of the prophet Isaiah:—

“Rise up, ye women that are at ease; hear my voice, ye careless daughters; give ear unto my speech. Many days and years shall ye be troubled, ye careless women; for the vintage shall fail, the gathering shall not come!”

For truly the “vintage” of prosperity and the “gathering” of good for this country of ours would fail, and fail utterly, if it were not for our resolved and invincible guardianship of the sea—a guardianship which must never be relaxed, and which every one of us should learn to appreciate and help to strengthen by every means that we may.

We are assured by many sagacious essayists and historians that it is the women of the nation who make and who influence the men; and if this be the case, at least one-half of our British women have cause to be proud of the splendid fellows they have sent forth to take part in the vast contest on which such mighty issues depend. But the other half seem deaf to the roar of the guns, or to the call of the Sea. The land forces occupy all the attention of newspaper readers, and very little information can be gleaned about our seamen. The women prattle pleasantly about the grim struggle at Neuve Chapelle or at Ypres; one hardly ever hears them talk about the long, long hours of long, long days and nights spent by our silent mariners, watching from every great battleship and cruiser for the treacherous foe. Yet every woman should, at the present moment, be well on the alert; eager, enthusiastic, and ready to inspire, even to command the youth of the rising generation; and among other duties falling to their lot is distinctly that of teaching their own boys, and other women’s boys too, the inestimable value of service in the Navy.

That grand protector of our islands, the Sea, is to Great Britain more than a hundred million of men; and every boy should learn the history of what it has been to us, what it is, and what it ever will be, held by a Fleet which has never been conquered! Every brave lad’s heart is bound to thrill when he is told of the magnificent deeds of daring performed by our naval heroes whose names are household words; but it is to be feared that of latter years boys have been encouraged both at home and at school to think more of “sport” and games of skill than patriotism, and the special training which would help them also to be heroic and to “make history.” Lawn tennis is now regarded as a serious business, but it is only a game, and a country will never be saved by it. Cricket and football are equally “games”; neither one nor the other will drive the foe from our shores should he invade us. Games are good as “games,” but when they become a national obsession the hard and fast line must be drawn before it is too late.

The Sea is our fortress, and so long as that is kept and guarded by a perfectly trained and efficient Navy, we need not fear. Nevertheless, to keep that training and efficiency up to the mark we must show no slackness, no falling-off; there must be a perpetual addition of new, youthful, and ardent blood; brave boys and young men for whom the ever glorious lines of Shakespeare express life’s utmost truth and meaning:—

“This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,

This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,

This other Eden, demi-paradise;

This fortress built by Nature for herself

Against infection and the hand of war;

This happy breed of men, this little world;

This precious stone set in the silver sea,

Which serves it in the office of a wall,

Or as a moat defensive to a house,

Against the envy of less happier lands,

This blessèd plot, this earth, this realm, this England,

This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings

Fear’d by their breed, and famous by their birth,

Renownèd for their deeds as far from home—

For Christian service and true chivalry—

As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry

Of the world’s ransom, blessèd Mary’s Son;

This land of such dear souls, this dear, dear land,

Dear for her reputation through the world,

* * * * *

England, bound in with the triumphant sea,

Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege

Of watery Neptune!”

I wish that every word of this magnificent outburst of noble patriotism were learned by every boy in Britain, and imprinted on his memory, as ineffaceably as his daily prayer. It is the heart’s utterance of the greatest poet and truest lover of his country England has ever produced, and inspires the soul with the same emotion as that expressed by Sir Humphrey Gilbert, of Shakespeare’s time and spirit:—

“Give me leave, therefore, without offence to live and die in this mind, that he is not worthy to live at all that for fear or danger of death, shunneth his country’s service and his own honour, seeing that death is inevitable, and the fame of virtue immortal.”

Great as were the responsibilities and labours of the Navy in the past, they were nothing compared to those of the present. In the days of the brilliant and sagacious Queen Elizabeth, there were no submarines, mines, or torpedoes, and the historian Camden tells us:—

“This great Armada which had been three complete years in rigging and preparing with infinite expense, was within one month’s space many times fought with, and at the last overthrown, with the slaughter of many men, not an hundred of the English being missing, nor any large ship lost.... Whereupon several monies were coined in memory of the victory, some with a fleet flying with full sail; others in honour of the Queen, with fireships and a fleet all in confusion, inscribed Dux Fœmina facti, that is, A Woman was conductor in the Fight.”

At that time the enemy Spanish Fleet came forth and showed battle, but up to the present the German Fleet, which took much longer than “three years” to prepare, has not been much in evidence till its humble surrender, and its only exhibited warfare was the treacherous method of torpedoing unsuspecting and mostly neutral vessels, some of which had no means of defence. My own heart thrills when I think of our splendid naval men, whose spirits still respond to Nelson’s undying signal—“England expects that every man will do his duty!” The Germans are not a seafaring race. The British are born and bred “of the sea”; the salt and savour of it are mixed with their blood, and for a thousand years they have been accustomed to it in all its wildest moods.

Herein our Navy has an immense advantage, but because we are thus fortunately bred, there is no need that we should forget that breeding, or neglect the long education we have had, and allow the youth of the country to imagine there is no need of their service. On the contrary, there is more need of their service than ever, and for the furtherance of this purpose we are all anxious that as many of our hopeful lads, who have a turn for seafaring and adventure, should join the Navy League at once, and “train” to be defenders of their country as young and smart “sea-dogs” of the old, dauntless, unconquerable mettle. Every help should be given to this end, especially through the women, the mothers of strong and gallant boys, who can influence their sons and imbue them with the true spirit of patriotism, and while we work to strengthen and replenish this vital and necessary force on which we depend so much for our defence and our means of existence, we should think—we who “sit at home at ease,” of the long periods of watchfulness endured by the men of our Fleet at sea in waiting at every turn for each fresh move of an insidious and unscrupulous foe. We should manage to let them know that their work is not all in vain; that there are plenty of young fellows ready to follow them when the time comes, and join in their splendid service of the guardianship of the sea.

In this effort, the Navy League is a fine and necessary institution. It keeps the youthful spirit of the Navy alive and enthusiastic, and it reminds us of what might otherwise be forgotten, that far more than all other defences we rely on the Sea and our Fleet to preserve our existence and protect us from invasion.

We can help them at home by spreading the Spirit of the Navy—the spirit of Drake, Frobisher, and Nelson among all our growing lads who are, in their hearts, eager to be “up and doing.” I should like to see an active branch of the Navy League established in every town and village all over Britain—a centre where ambitious boys can be sure of receiving sympathetic attention and assistance for their training; and I think it would be good and serviceable if women would help more than they at present do in this work, by teaching their boys to honour and love the Service, and encouraging them to read the stories of naval heroism and naval conquest, so that their minds may be turned constantly towards ideas of their country’s defence, their country’s safety, their country’s glory. None of these things will, or can, be assisted by football, cricket, or lawn tennis, except as games for physical development; but by discipline, study of the art of navigation, and the wonderful ways of Nature in wind and wave, and by that sincere devotion to duty which brings a man’s life into safe port as surely as a well-piloted, well-guarded vessel. A sea-girt land should breed seamen; we cannot have too many of them. And by early training such powers may be attained as may build a bright British lad into his land’s history as an unforgettable hero. For, as the famous song tells us:—

“Britannia needs no bulwarks,

No towers along the steep;

Her march is o’er the mountain waves,

Her home is on the deep!”

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THE LILIES OF FRANCE
(Written by request for “The Golden Book of France”)

Glorious Lilies! Stainless and sweet, they spring from a sacred soil, wet with the life-blood of brave men and the tears of noble women! They are the Children of France and of the Future!—the gracious youth of a happier day, when tyranny and fear are past, and when Peace of the highest and purest is the canopy of safety and honour, under which the nation may rest after long and bitter strife! The Lilies of girlhood and boyhood; the Children, some of them deprived of fathers and mothers, but never entirely orphaned because France is their closest parentage! Oh, beautiful human blossoms, growing up like buds of snow from the black smoke and ashes of battle fires!—we thank God for you, and we pray that you may expand in happy fragrance, nourished by the fresh air of freedom, so that the sufferings your heroic fathers have endured for France may be transformed into joys for you! You are the hope and glory of your land, you fair flowers which even now are beginning to bloom innocently in the dust of many graves; you will be the radiant and triumphant France of coming years, when your wealth of splendid youth and victory shall flame a white aurora against skies of heavenly blue, undarkened by any cloud of treachery! Children of France!—Lilies that grow around the standard of Liberty!—we commend you to the Future in faith and in hope! Not without some natural sorrow, for, alas! your garden is the graveyard of many loves!—but though we weep, our tears are tears of pride that those whom we have lost are fallen in honour, and that the blood from which you draw your sustenance is unpolluted by so much as one drop of traitor’s gall! So shall you rise nobly, on stately stems of heroic ancestry and memory to make France once more an earthly paradise, and in the very fairness of your youth we shall see reflected the light of the dauntless spirits that have fought and passed away, leaving you with us as their most precious legacy, which we accept with gratitude—which we keep with all tenderness—holding you reverently to our hearts as the “Annunciation” Lilies of a New Gospel!

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“WHOSO SHALL RECEIVE ONE SUCH LITTLE CHILD!”
(Written on behalf of St. Nicholas Home for “Raid-shock” Children at Chailry, Sussex)

Nothing is lovelier than the sight of a perfectly happy child—a little, laughing, dancing, restless, sparkling bit of humanity just beginning to expand into life like a plant putting forth leaves and tendrils and buds that promise fairest flowering—a creature of unspoilt confidence and innocence whose whole consciousness is absorbed in wonder and delight at the strange newness of the world around it, and all the beautiful, amazing things the world offers for its attraction and pleasure. The flight of a bird—the delicate caperings of a butterfly—the flicker of sunshine on the wall—the ripple of water—the sound of joyous laughter and dainty music—all these pleasures and many more captivate and move a child to smiling and pleased gesture—the little voice, the little hands, express wordless ecstasy—the young eyes glisten with unutterable meanings. Fresh from the unseen Power that declared “Let us make man in Our image,” it displays a pathetic faith in good—it trusts all the big, grown-up people around it in an exquisite confidence that none of them will allow it to suffer harm—it accepts life as it finds it, with the beautiful assurance of a flower which opens to the sun, instinctively certain that all is, or shall be, well. Let us remember that a child might never know evil if its elders did not instruct it therein! It is as innocent as any other young animal—innocent as a kitten or St. Bernard puppy, than which nothing is more blunderingly simple and touchingly confident. If we watch the unspoilt, natural gaiety and playfulness of all young things we cannot but realise the truth of the Divine pronouncement on creation, “Behold, it was very good!” and that we were meant to be happy on this planet—moreover, that we should be happy, if it were not that we cannot leave each other alone—we must always be backbiting and hurting each other, interfering in our neighbour’s business and grudging our neighbour his or her special form of happiness. No child can be honestly said to know evil till we assure it that evil exists—till we frown and say “Naughty! That is wrong!” heedless of the bewildered eyes that mutely ask “Why?” As the Italian proverb says: “The ‘Why’ of a child is the key of the Universe.” Generally speaking, a child’s attitude towards life is one of complete reliance on unknown but trusted destiny, and in very early years, if that reliance should be broken, the little spirit so startled by some cruel blow is seldom or never the same again. But a few years ago, when we who plead for the children now were all children ourselves, the phrase “a bolt from the blue” was a phrase merely, expressing a possible calamity, too sudden almost to ever take place—and little did any of us dream that we should be forced to realise its literal achievement. The ingenuity of man, warped to devise schemes of wickedness rather than beneficence, has brought about a state of things in which the once secure loveliness of the heavens has become accursed by his vindictive presence, bearing with him through the offended air the means of destruction and death to the innocent and non-combatant populations of peaceful earth places below—and without a generous human thought for the lives of others, he speeds his selfish and devilish flight, insanely convinced that he is a brave man in his efforts to kill his fellow-creatures from the air, as well as on the land and under the sea. Nothing more heroic is left to him by his governments, teachers, propagandists and the like but to kill—to kill! Were he—apart from the red crime of War—to murder man, woman, or child in cold blood, with circumstances of mutilation and burning, he would be condemned to the gallows—but the wind-blown scarecrow of a false “patriotism” speaks, nay, shouts, “Herein killing is no murder!” and he rushes on his way through the air as though to perform an errand of mercy instead of slaughter, dropping bombs of destruction anywhere that seems to him feasible, and when he can have, as he reports, “good results!” “Good” results! “O Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!” Let us look with the eyes of the mind and the heart on such a scene as has been enacted many times recently—a group of little children in a school, singing their little play-songs, or repeating their earliest lessons—happy, innocent, confiding—when, suddenly and without warning, a murderous crash and thunderburst of explosives is launched from the air through the roof above them, and where the young lithe bodies a moment ago disported themselves, there lie mutilated corpses drenched in blood. Our foes call that “war”—but I would fain believe that in their own hearts they know it is butchery, and that they deplore the merciless militarism that compels them to perform such deeds. And even worse than death for these little ones is the stunning blow on their mentality—the horrible knock, as it were, on the delicate membrane of the nervous system, which bruises it in a subtle, creeping way that is almost unimaginable. Contrast a healthy, happy child, playing fearlessly in the fields among the flowers, with one who is suffering from “raid shock”—and who sometimes sits lost in a vague stupor, unwilling to move—afraid to look up at the sky lest something fiendish should fall from it! I know one such child who refuses now to raise his eyes from a morose study of the ground. Hour after hour he sits frowningly absorbed. Pressed recently to look at the flight of a butterfly through the air, he gave a terrified glance at it sideways, and then resumed his downward staring. A kindly nurse, trying to rouse him, said, “You mustn’t be frightened of the sky—God is up there!” but he uttered a little pained cry and covered his face, sobbing, “No—no—no! Wicked man up there—not God!”

There is no need to comment on the effect of such impressions on a child’s vivid imagination; it is altogether dreadful and disastrous, for who can tell what damaging results to the brain may be in store for the innocent little victim! Time and care, with healthful surroundings and healing influences, may do much to eliminate the evil and disperse the horror and cruelty of such experiences—and this is why the “St. Nicholas Home” exists to-day, thanks to the loving heart and patience of its founder, Mrs. Kimmins, whose tenderness for children makes one feel that Her guardian angel, as well as the angels who watch over Christ’s little ones, must always “behold the Face of the Father.” No one with even a small amount to spare from the multitudinous claims made on the pocket of the unfortunate British taxpayer, whose Governments have dragged him into the incredible wickedness of a war for which he had neither the taste nor the inclination, will refuse that mite to assist the work of the “good Saint Nicholas” in the home over which his childhood-loving spirit presides, while those who are making much of the “filthy lucre” out of the exigencies and demands of the nations’ slaughter-houses will perchance salve conscience by munificence. Some of the donors may call to mind the story of the father who murdered his three sons, and whose crime St. Nicholas discovered in a vision. Going to the inn where the murderer was, the saint forced him to confess his wickedness, and forthwith raised the three boys to life again. In this legend we may find a happy symbol for the “Home” on whose behalf we plead. For the “raid-shock” children are, in a sense, murdered, though alive—murdered in their natural confidence, hope, and gaiety, and crushed by the oppressive consciousness of an ever-looming evil. We wish, as St. Nicholas did with the three boys, to raise them to life again—to re-establish their youthful trust, to make them forget that there are men who are devils—but perhaps to persuade them that there are women who are angels! Women, with mothers’ hearts, ready to put mothers’ arms round them—to play with them and talk “fairy bits”—as a sweet little girl asked me to do the other day—women who will care for them and see that nothing scares them from their healthful sleep at night, or their innocent games by day. This is the object of our appeal for “St. Nicholas Home”—a worthy cause—a noble, humane, and sacred cause, for we must “take heed” that we “offend not one of these little ones.” And most earnestly do I join with all who have put their shoulders to the wheel of this great Car of good effort steadily going a stiff way uphill—a strong push, a big push, and a push all together, and we shall stand on the shining summit of success with our saved children gathered round us in the light of happier days!

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APPEAL FOR THE FRENCH RED CROSS
(Written for the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, July, 1918)

Dear Friends!—We are here to-day in the name of France; France, the beautiful, the beloved country, now ravaged and desolated by the crudest enemy that ever dishonoured the name of War. I am asked to make an appeal to you,—to you, the people of the land of Shakespeare, on behalf of the people of the land of Victor Hugo,—and I esteem it an honour, a privilege, and a duty to plead this great Cause. I ask you to look away from yourselves, your own interests, your own comforts in this peaceful town, which has never known the horrors of invasion and destruction by brutal foes,—I ask you to think of other towns and villages, once as happy, but now ruined and desolate, where thousands of harmless people have been driven out of their homes and forced to endure miseries such as you have never known! Remember, too, with what heroism they have borne their sufferings!—with what courage and fortitude! Never complaining, they have put their own sorrows and losses in the background for the sake of their country, and when all the tale is told, the splendid and unflinching patriotism of France will shine on the page of history as a deathless example to all the nations of the world!

Think for a moment what it would mean to you, if you had to look on at your beautiful old Church, the holy shrine of Shakespeare’s rest, battered into ruins by the bombs and shells of the remorseless German foe!—your houses shattered—your gardens laid waste—your streets broken up by the machines of war, and you yourselves turned forth as homeless wanderers without hope or refuge!—your little children murdered before your eyes! This is what France has had to endure, and it is your happy fortune to be spared these terrible calamities only because brave men are fighting for you and giving their lives for you that you shall never know such desolation! And not only your own brave men but the brave men of France are fighting, for you as well as for themselves! France and Britain are friends and brothers-in-arms; and in the great and terrible struggle they fight as one soul! We, who are protected in our island home by the magnificent heroism and self-sacrifice of such splendid men, can do but little to show our grateful love and admiration towards France for her unmatched endurance, resolution, fortitude, and courage; but such little as it is and must be, let us do it with a full and generous heart! Let us take pride and joy in helping to rebuild the ruined towns and villages,—let us try to comfort the brave people by giving homes to the homeless, and restoring in some measure their lost peace and prosperity. Every pound that can be spared goes to alleviate some trouble. No money brings such divine interest as that which we spend in helping those in need. Therefore let us not grudge our offerings to the heroic martyr of the nations! She is pierced with many swords,—she is scourged and crowned with thorns,—but her invincible faith and honour and patriotism will bring her through the darkness to the light of a triumphant and glorious Day! Her cause is Ours; Our cause is Hers! Now is the time when we, who are not in the stress of battle, can cheer and help her by proofs of love and sympathy in her sorrows. Most earnestly do I hope, and most ardently do I pray that the noble, ever-living spirit of the Master Poet of the world whose name and memory make this town honourable, may so influence your hearts that you will give freely all and more than you can spare, in generous tenderness, and with that “quality of mercy” which brings blessing beyond all wealth, and reward beyond all fame!

(The above Appeal was spoken in French on the stage of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, Stratford-on-Avon, by Monsieur Combet de Larenne as follows:)

Mes Chers Amis,—Nous nous réunissons aujourd’hui en l’honneur de la France, la France, ce beau pays, ce pays aimé, à cette heure ravagé, désolé par le plus cruel ennemi qui ait jamais déshonoré la guerre.

On m’a demandé de m’adresser à vous, mes amis, à vous qui foulez la terre de Shakespeare, en faveur de ceux qui foulent celle aujourd’hui dévastée de Victor Hugo, et je considére comme un honneur, comme un privilége, et an même temps comme un devoir de plaider auprès de vous cette grande cause.

Je vous demande de vous recueillir, de considérer votre situation propre, de jeter un coup d’œil sur votre confort, vous, habitants de cette ville paisible, qui n’avez jamais connu les horreurs de l’invasion, de la destruction causées par le plus féroce des ennemis! Je vous demande de diriger votre pensée vers d’autres villes, vers d’autres villages, autrefois joyeux et prospères aujourd’hui ruinés, désolés, au des milliers de malheureux innocents ont été chassés de leur foyer et contraints de subir des misères plus terribles que toutes celles que vous pouvez imaginer!

Rappelez-vous aussi avec quel héroisme ils ont enduré leurs souffrances, avec quel courage, avec quelle force d’âme! Sans se plaindre, ils ont, pour le salut de leur patrie, refoulé dans le plus profond de leur être leurs chagrins et leurs angoisses, et quand l’Histoire parlera, le splendide et inébranlable patriotisme de la France, brillant d’une lumière étincelante, sera pour toutes les nations un noble et impérissable exemple!

Pensez, mes chers amis, un instant seulement aux angoisses qui vous étreindraient le cœur si vous deviez considérer votre vieille et belle église, le sanctuaire vénéré au repose Shakespeare, réduits en cendres par les bombes et par les obus de l’impitoyable ennemi allemand! vos maisons abattues, vos jardins dévastés, vos rues détruites par le fer et par le feu, et si vous deviez vous trouver vous-mêmes errants, hagards, sans espérance, sans refuge! vos petits enfants massacrés sous vos yeux!

Ces sant ces terribles supplices que la France endure! Vous avez la bonne fortune d’échapper à ces épouvantables calamités grâce au dévouement des braves qui combattent et qui donnent leur ire pour vous, et c’est a eux que vous devrez de ne jamais connaître une si abominable désolation! Ce ne sont pas seulement les enfants de l’Angleterre qui se battent pour vous: ce sont aussi les enfants de la France; ils sont frères dans la grande et terrible lutte actuelle; ils n’ont qu’une âme!

Nous qui sommes protégés dans notre île par le magnifique héroisme et par le dévouement d’hommes aussi splendidement grands, donnous une preuve de notre amour reconnaissant et de notre admiration pour la France, pour son incomparable ténacité, pour sa résolution indomptable, pour sa grandeur d’âme et pour son courage, et si peu que nous puissions les uns et les autres faire pour elle, faisons—le avec tout notre cœur, avec toute notre générosité! Sayons fiers et joyeux d’aider à reconstruire les villes détruites, les villages anéantis; essayons de donner un peu de confort aux malheureux éprouvés, en leur procurant un abri, en leur rendant un peu de la paix et de la prospérité perdues! Chaque obole allégera une part de souffrance! Nul placement ne peut rapporter d’intérêt plus divinement profitable que celui consacré à secourir les malheureux dans le besoin!

Donc, donnans san hésiter à l’héroique nation martyre! Elle est meurtrie de coups de lance, elle est flagellée et couronnée d’épines, mais sa foi invincible, son honneur et son patriotisme la conduitent à travers les ténèbres vers la lumière éblouissante d’un jour de gloire et de triomphe. Sa cause est la nôtre; notre cause est la sienne. Le moment est venu au nous qui ne sommes pas dans la fournaise de la lutte, nous pouvons venir en aide à la noble nation et lui donner les preuves de notre amour et de la profonde sympathie que nous ressentous pour elle.

J’espère ardement que le noble et vivant esprit du génial poète dont le nom et la mémoire illustrent cette ville, inspirera vos cœurs et que vous donnerez à l’œuvre française ce que vous pourrez, tout ce que vous pourrez, presque plus que vous ne pourrez, dans un élan de tendresse généreuse et avec cette qualité de miséricorde dont parle notre grand Shakespeare, cette qualité de miséricorde qui apporte une bénédiction supérieure à toute richesse, une récompense supérieure à toute renommée!

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GLORY OF THE WORCESTERS
(Written by request in aid of the Homes for Disabled Worcestershire Soldiers and Sailors) A TRIBUTE TO A FAMOUS REGIMENT

“You have deserved nobly of your country.”

Shakespeare.

Far down the long annals of past history we must look for the beginnings of the brave breed of Worcestershire men—the outcome of that ancient heroic blood which nourishes the flower of chivalry and strengthens the spirit to perform imperishable deeds of valour. Between a band of tenacious Britons holding the summits of the Malvern Hills, and a military guard and outpost of Roman warriors at Worcester itself, was seemingly produced that special type of Englishman who, ever since those far-away days, has been famous for courage and conquest. The native fighting force of the Gael, and the trained skill and prowess of the Roman are mingled in his being, and they make him, almost unconsciously to himself, a hero from his youth. Something of the salt of ocean, as well as of the salt of the earth, is in him, bracing his energies and hardening his muscle and, indeed, if we grope farther back in the dark recesses of time, we shall find geology suggesting that Worcestershire was once a sea, and the hills of Malvern, islands, and that the projecting bluffs on each side of the gaps in the opposite range were capes standing out from what some imaginative folk called the “Severn Straits,” so that we may be permitted to fancy the earliest progenitors of the Worcestershire breed were, perhaps, bold mariners, sailing round a veritable archipelago of islands, and skilfully steering their primitive craft into harbours sheltered by the very headlands which confront us to-day; or they might have been hunters, chasing the innumerable wild beasts which at one period infested the formerly dense “Forest of Malvern”—a forest that even in the Middle Ages stretched from the plains to the very tops of the hills. Be this as it may, our redoubtable men of Worcestershire must have been born and bred from strong beginnings; they come of a stock which knows no fear, no hesitation, no failure. The “Firm” fighters whom we delight to honour are the product of centuries of heroism. Heroism comes so naturally to them that they think little or nothing of it. Their pride is in each other—not in themselves individually; what is said of one man, must be said for the whole Regiment. Their spirit is expressed in Shakespeare’s lines,—

“In this glorious and well-foughten field

We kept together in our chivalry!”

And though they have performed prodigies of valour in bygone great battles, as in the terrific “World War,” they make no boast of their proved mettle, nor have they called upon the country they so nobly serve for special consideration. It is with difficulty, and only by piecing dry and desultory bits of history together, that we are at all able to read their Golden Chronicle, or to realise the nature and worth of their splendid services, splendidly performed in defence of “This dear, dear land, this land of such dear souls—This England!”

* * * * *

We do not know with any certainty the character or military qualifications of their first Colonel, Thomas Farrington, who raised the Regiment in 1694, but we do know many of their brilliant exploits since that far-off day, especially in India, such as the carrying of the Delhi Gate and the storming and capture of Bangalore, which helped to bring about the vanquishment of that notable rebel, Tippoo Sahib; and though the overladen pages of historians find little space for special mention of special companies of soldiers, the Duke of Wellington’s praise of the Regiment after Badajos has not slipped notice, nor is it likely to be forgotten:—

“It is the best Regiment in this Army, has an admirable internal system and excellent non-commissioned officers.”

But the laurels of the past, thickly showered as they were on the “Worcesters,” are little to compare with those of the present, when valour is put to its utmost test, and when war weapons contrary to all international usage, more deadly and treacherous than ever were known before, are employed by the most inhuman and dishonourable of foes. We have only to recall the dramatic scenario of the village of Gheluvelt during the battle of Ypres, when the Worcesters literally saved the day. No page of romance was ever more thrilling! The Germans had carried the village, but the Welsh, true sons of “Gallant Little Wales,” remained, firing, holding their ground and refusing to admit any sort of defeat. Even when they had been given the order to retreat, they hung on with the grim tenacity of their Celtic ancestors, and it depended on the merest chance as to whether any company of men could advance to their assistance under the deadly fire of shrapnel which covered and cut them off from the rest of their line. But rescue was forthcoming—a mere handful of Worcesters—six hundred of them, were stationed but a mile off Gheluvelt. Their commanding officer gave the order—“Advance without delay and deliver counter-attack.”

“Theirs not to make reply,

Theirs not to reason why,

Theirs but to do and die!”

They responded, and rushed for about half a mile under the battering rain of shrapnel, going for two hundred yards without cover.

“Into the jaws of Death,

Into the mouth of Hell

Ran the Six Hundred!”

Shrapnel showered thick and hot in front of them, and on their right flanks the Bavarians poured bullets upon them from rifles and machine guns. In crossing the two hundred yards without “cover” they had one hundred casualties. But what did death or danger matter to the Worcesters? What have they ever cared for shots that have sped their brave souls to Heaven? They pressed on, up on the left of the splendidly stubborn Welsh, and opened fire with so much success that the foe was forced to retreat. The effect of their action was such that the position was entirely changed—the Germans fell back and the British line was reinstated. In Sir John French’s despatch it is written:—

“The recapture of the village of Gheluvelt at such a time was fraught with momentous consequences. If any one unit can be singled out for special praise it is the Worcesters.”

Quite recently, a British General, whose name, for some occult reason or other, was withheld from the public by the newspaper reporter, gave an enthusiastic account of the fine deeds of the Worcestershire Regiment on the Somme.

“The Worcesters have a wonderful record,” he said. “They have seen some of the hardest fighting of this war, and they have won new honours for a fine regiment, which already boasts some of the most glorious records on our military history.”

We shall do well to think of, and to long remember, some of this “hardest fighting.” For example, when they made their wonderful stand against the Prussian Guards, with the Wiltshires. Some of the incidents in that fight have never been recorded, and yet, to those who witnessed them they make the glory of the Worcesters still more glorious. Listen to the stirring account of the stirring action!

“The battalions had been fighting incessantly for weeks, with little or no rest. They had taken trenches from which the enemy had to be flung out. The subsequent German attack or counter-attack was delivered by a force of picked troops, made up of Prussian Guards and other crack regiments. There were at least ten thousand of these crack troops. They were supported by magnificent artillery and had been trained for an attack over this ground for days before they were sent against the Worcesters. Judging by the ordinary standard of things, the weary Worcesters’ battalions ought to have been crushed and finished under such an avalanche; but they withstood the fiercest attacks for two days and nights. They captured many prisoners, as many as themselves, and the German killed and wounded were twice as numerous as they. There was one great mound of dead before the trench, after the last attack was driven off, the Germans being simply mown down by the machine guns of the Worcesters.”

“Firm” has ever been the character of the Regiment, as well as its motto. On five several occasions they have held their ground and carried strong positions held by superior enemy forces. They have come triumphantly through every ordeal—shell-fire, machine-gun fire, liquid fire, and poison gas, without shrinking or complaint—and on several occasions the foe himself has been moved to praise of their splendid heroism. Here is another story:—

“On one occasion a battalion of the Worcesters was advancing under great difficulties against a strongly fortified village. The artillery fire and infantry defence was stronger even than they expected. For a moment the battalion seemed to pause. The officer in command sprang forward with the shout, ‘Firm! Firm! Give them Worcester Sauce!’ The men responded with a cheer and laughter—they swept forward, rushing the position and fighting their way to the rear of the surprised and baffled foe.”

Think of the time when a little band of these splendid lads were cut off by a sudden descent of the enemy in force! They were holding a bit of trench, which was powdered to ruins by shell-fire, and they were half-buried under the wreckage; but they dug themselves out again, and fought with such resolved fury that not all the forces of the foe could overwhelm or overawe them. They held their ground for three days—though every man who wasn’t killed was wounded. When they were at last relieved they were cheered wildly by the troops who watched their limping march down to billets for rest, heroes all, without a single exception!

Such is the “way” of the Worcesters—such has always been their way from their beginning. Unflinching valour, duty, and love of country beyond all love of life, has made them and still makes them what they are. They, and all their brave and noble kind, have fought and are still fighting for us that we may dwell in our homes in peace. It must now be our pride, as well as our honour, to prove our gratitude to them, not only by words but deeds. Many of them will return to us, broken men, deprived of health, strength, and all ability to work for their living—crippled, blind, disfigured—suffering too from what we may call mind-hurt beyond remedy. That is to say, the awful, ineffaceable impression of ghastly sights and sounds, so inhuman, as to shame humanity. What shall we do for our self-sacrificing defenders when they come home? How shall we assuage their sufferings and seek to make them forget the terrors they have confronted for our sakes?

In matters of this kind, many people incline to the old conventional, rather worn-out business of a “War Memorial,” which conveniently and with all official publicity and importance, writes the names of living subscribers as well as those of the heroic dead, but it is more than likely that the whole face of the Empire will be strewn with such “War Memorials” in so great a number that in a short time no passer-by will pause to look at them. And a monument of cold stone cannot come into comparison with the expressed warmth or loving hearts; so that the best and kindest “Memorial” to the gallant “Worcesters” who have passed away “in the stern and grim life-battle, in the morning of their day”—should be of a nature to care and to provide for the “Worcesters” who have come alive out of the Valley of the Shadow, and who remain with us to witness our recognition of their services. Such a “Memorial” is proposed by the Mayor of Worcester, and I, for one, do most heartily wish that his lead could be followed in every County and Town of Imperial Britain. For what a fine scheme it is! Could anything be more practically humane and sympathetic than the idea that small, pretty cottages or bungalows should be erected to provide permanent homes, rent free, not only for the life-disabled men of the Worcestershire Regiment, but also for Worcestershire Sailors and Soldiers in other units, similarly disabled, who have “borne the burden and heat of the day,” and who are entitled to the country’s heart-whole gratitude. I can imagine no more beautiful “Memorial” to these brave fellows than the free gift of charming little houses to live in, fragrant little gardens to tend, and a fair and peaceful prospect to look upon for the rest of their days. Nothing better, nothing kinder could be advised for the permanently injured and maimed, the sad and battered wrecks of once strong and comely men—no more comforting reparation scheme could possibly be thought of—and it is good to know that much has already been done, and is being done, to forward its success. The Mayor of Worcester himself has given the site for building, and one individual has offered five tons of lime to assist operations. Then come the Pharmacists of Worcester, who are willing to supply free all drugs and medicaments needed by the dwellers on this “Pleasaunce of Peace”—while the “Old Comrades” of the County Regiment have incorporated an effort of their own with the general plan, which has the approval of the local military authorities. Subscriptions are beginning to flow in; and when it is fully realised how welcome and warm “a Home-coming” can, by these means, be given to the heroes who have sacrificed their own homes to fight for us, surely every one will be eager and anxious to contribute to so worthy a cause. For say what we will, there is a truth in the familiar song,—

“Be it ever so humble,

There’s no place like home!”

And it is within our power to give our broken Worcestershire men that blessed abode of simple tranquillity and content, which, if they had not fought for us they might have earned for themselves. They will have their pensions from the Government of course, but we doubt whether those pensions will be as adequate as they might expect. Anyhow, we of the British People, who have been defended by their valour, cannot do too much for them, and if the Mayor of Worcester’s scheme were copied and carried out all through the British Isles it would lift a considerable burden of anxiety from the State. If any “County” must have a special “War Memorial” to coldly chronicle names of the dead rather than hearts of the living, there is nothing in our “Happy Homes” work to prevent the erection of “marble or the gilded monument,” but to the eyes of thinkers, philosophers, and all teachers and helpers of mankind, a little village of clustering cottages on the lovely site which the Mayor has freely given, commanding as it does an outlook over picturesque country—cottages with tiny gardens easy to till, plant, and care for, where in summer the dear old-fashioned flowers which are a liberal education in themselves, may bring their beauty and sweetness into lives that have been blackened by shot and shell—will offer a far greater and more impressive testimony of memory and gratitude.

I, who am privileged to write this brief token of honour and admiration for men whose fine character and splendid courage have been chronicled by infinitely worthier pens than mine, now plead this noble cause, as worthy of the strongest and most loving support of every man, woman and child in the historic county of Worcestershire, and I want the spirit of a fine and active enthusiasm to “catch on” and spread like a prairie fire, not only through Worcestershire, but even farther afield. Why should not every county have its own soldiers’ and sailors’ settlement? It’s own well-organised, picturesque haven and “Pleasaunce of Peace”? It is impossible that any of us should sit down in satisfied comfort at the close of the war and do nothing for the men who have done so much for our defence. A new “Garden City” would hardly be spacious enough to provide them with their well-earned ease—and shall we hesitate to build them villages? Villages so artistically and prettily planned, so dainty and restful that the wandering stranger in future years shall pause, enchanted, to ask what influences have been at work to create such little Edens on earth. And he will be told:—

“These are the homes of heroes!—here dwell men who faced death for duty’s sake and Britain’s honour—and Britain has given them what she can to prove her gratitude, and to make their remaining lives sweet.”

For, of every man that has fought for us in this terrific World-Struggle for nobler freedom and higher ideals, it can be said with Shakespeare,—

“The blood that he hath lost, he dropp’d it for his country,

And what is left, to lose it by his country,

Were to us all that do’t and suffer it

A brand to the end of the world!”

---

EYES OF THE SEA
(Written by special request of the Directors for the British and Foreign Sailors’ Society) A TRIBUTE TO THE GRAND FLEET AND ADMIRAL BEATTY

“Then said David to the Philistine, ‘Thou comest to me with a sword and a spear and with a shield, but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of Hosts.... This day will the Lord deliver thee into mine hand!’”

We all know that in Bible history there was a certain Goliath of Gath. His height was six cubits and a span,—that is to say, about ten feet. He had a helmet of brass, and he wore a coat of mail weighing five thousand shekels of brass,—about a hundred and fifty-six pounds. He had brass on his legs, and brass between his shoulders, and his spear’s head weighed six hundred shekels of iron. Taking him altogether he was a fine prototype of the Hun, who is similarly a monster of Brass, Iron, and Brag. And then DAVID, “ruddy and of a fair countenance,” drew near to this Brazen Being, and smote him with a stone in the middle of his forehead, so that he “fell with his face to earth.”

And this is just what our “David” has done. A matter for national rejoicing! Especially for “they that go down to the sea in ships and do business in great waters” do we rejoice that the “David” of the Grand Fleet,—high-souled, brave-hearted DAVID BEATTY,—commands the Sling and Stone of our straight-hitting Naval Power! What better man than he to take the place of Nelson?—to carry out with zealous ardour Nelson’s one wish, Nelson’s last desire that “every man should do his duty!” Look at the strong face,—the keen, clear “eyes of the sea,”—the resolute yet tender lines of the mouth,—the whole bearing of this bold and dauntless commander, and then think of the lofty and devout spirit of him expressed in his recent “message” to the nation:—

“Until religious revival takes place at home, just so long will the war continue. When England can look out on the future with humbler eyes and a prayer on her lips, then we can begin to count the days towards the end!”

There’s a challenge for you! Flung out unhesitatingly and manfully in the very face of a swarm of atheists in Church and State, who for the past decade at least, have copied Germany in mockery of all things holy and divine, and have spread their “literary” blasphemies throughout the land, assisted in their work of “tearing down” Christianity by a corrupt section of society and a decadent Press! It’s a challenge we are bound to hear,—given in simple, manly words which echo the high faith of him who won the Battle of Trafalgar, and who, on the eve of the fight retired to his cabin and wrote this prayer:—

“May the great God Whom I worship grant to my country, and for the benefit of Europe in general, a great and glorious victory; and may no misconduct in any one tarnish it; and may humanity after victory be the predominant feature in the British Fleet! For myself individually, I commit my life to Him that made me, and may His blessing alight on my endeavours for serving my country faithfully! To Him I resign myself and the just cause which is entrusted to me to defend. Amen!”

Without such faith, such humility and resignation as this, few great victories are won. Even pagan heroes sought the favour of their gods in every high enterprise; but in our time the nations of Europe, assuming an “advancement” beyond either pagans or Christians, have been seeking to ignore the Higher Power Almighty altogether; with what dire results is now witnessed by desolated peoples drenched in blood and tears! Of Nelson it is written: “All men knew that his heart was as humane as it was fearless, and that there was not in his nature an alloy of selfishness or cupidity, but that he served his country with a perfect and entire devotion, therefore they loved him as truly and fervently as he loved England.”

Cannot each word of this be said with equal truth of David Beatty? Every man of the Fleet will answer “Yes!” And every man of the Fleet will endeavour to be a copy of him in all the grand essentials of honour and duty. And here comes in a little story.

Only the other day I received a letter from a lad on board one of our mine-sweepers,—a stranger to me personally, but one who evidently felt sure (as he might) of my interest in his difficult and dangerous work. In that letter he writes:—

“I am in his Majesty’s Navy and I am just twenty. My last ship was Admiral Beatty’s Flagship, the Lion, on board of which I had the honour of being a little over three years under an Admiral whose qualities are magnificent. I want to say this, because people are apt to take doubtful views through articles in the papers about our truly Great Leaders.”

Yes,—“articles in the papers,” written by caterers for mere sensational gabble, are apt to influence the majority of fools; and “doubtful views” are generally entertained by persons who in themselves are more than doubtful. But if a boy of twenty, after serving for three years under Admiral Beatty, can write, “His qualities are magnificent,” it means a very great deal. Young fellows of that age are not always easily impressed by their superiors,—they are more critical than complimentary; and the rules of naval discipline go hard with them unless administered by a kindly as well as just hand. “Eyes of the Sea” must be everywhere vigilant,—watching men’s minds equally with God’s stormy waters,—ever on the look-out for enemies of the soul as well as enemies of the country; and so well and truly do they watch,—so faithfully have they always watched, that sailors’ eyes have grown to be quite different to all other eyes in the world! We know them at once by their far-off steady gaze—by their look of mingled pathos, persistency, and cheerfulness,—by the sparkle of the waves and the light of stars which are somehow commingled in their keen glances, suggesting the wonderful power and indomitable energy of “one life, one flag, one fleet!” The strong lines of Alfred Tennyson, the last worthy Laureate of Great Britain, may well ring in our ears to-day:—

“You, you, if you shall fail to understand

What England is, and what her all-in-all,

On you will come the curse of all the land

Should this old England fall

Which Nelson left so great.

His isle, the mightiest ocean-power on earth,

Our own fair isle, the Lord of every sea,

Her fuller franchise—what would that be worth,

Her ancient fame of ‘Free,’

Were she—a fallen State?

Her dauntless Army scattered and so small—

Her island myriads fed from alien lands,

The Fleet of England is her all-in-all;

Her Fleet is in your hands,

And in her Fleet her Fate.

You, you that have the ordering of her Fleet,

If you should only compass her disgrace,

When all men starve, the wild mob’s million feet

Will kick you from your place,

But then too late, too late!”

But Great Britain “is no longer an island,” we hear. Who says so? Merely brazen Goliath with his big mouth of Brag. “No longer safe from invasion.” Who says so? Goliath again! Our “supremacy of the seas is gone for ever!” Good old Goliath! Submarines and Zeppelins are to bring the invaders along as surely as weeds swept on the sand by the tide! Easier said than done! What says the old song?

“Since our foes to invade us have long been preparing

’Tis clear they consider we’ve something worth sharing,

And for that, mean to visit our shore;

It behoves us, however, with spirit to meet ’em,

And though ’twill be nothing uncommon to beat ’em

We must try how they’ll take it once more!

So be this the toast given,

England for ever, the land, boys, we live in,

England for ever, huzza!

Here’s health to our tars, on the wide ocean ranging,

Perhaps even now some broadsides they’re exchanging,

We’ll on shipboard and join in the fight!

And when with the foe we are firmly engaging,

Till the fire of our guns lulls the sea in its raging,

On our country we’ll think with delight—

So be this the word given,

England for ever, the land, boys, we live in,

England for ever, huzza!”

True enough, we have to deal nowadays with pirates,—not true naval men,—with burglars, not warriors,—and inhumanity being the characteristic of all such folk, the international laws of Imperial Britain and her Allies, regulating the conduct of warfare, have no hold on them. We are not at war with an educated people,—for they have shown themselves openly as savages. But though the wholesome air may be poisoned by the breath of the Hun, and murderous bombs may be flung through those spaces of heavenly blue, once most blessedly free from the presence of humanity, we have already proved equal to tackling the Zeppelins, and shall tackle them yet again. And we shall “manage” the submarines in a way of our own, if only the garrulous and indiscreet Press will leave us alone to do it, and refrain from giving elaborate details of all our newest machinery in their columns for the benefit and instruction of the enemy! We would not “tell it in Gath” to Goliath, how many of his under-sea “sneak” boats have already been “bagged” by our sportive captains—that’s a “secret of the Admiralty.” But it is just possible that even Huns may be weary of the certainty of death by fire in the air, and death by “ramming down” to the bottom of the sea! Neither way is a pleasant exit from the world of living men. Both are the result of inventive science put to wrong uses,—namely to injure, instead of to benefit. The old ways of combat were more open and honourable. Better the sword and shield than the gas and the bomb,—better the fair fight between ships confronting each other boldly on the ocean, than the floating mine or the sly torpedo, sneaking like a low thief beneath the waves. There is something cowardly about the new “scientific” weapons of war,—they manifest the assassin’s spirit rather than that of the honest soldier. The long-distance gun, the poison-vapours, the “dum-dum” bullet—all show the inventive faculty of murderers in training, not the sane education of civilised and honourable men. There has been much talk of “advancement”—but if human progress takes the form of “scientific” torture, barbarity, and outrage on our fellow-creatures, it is not progress at all, but terrible retrogression and back-sliding which must be checked before it is too late. No man can do better than see to it that what has been written of Nelson may also be said of him:—

“All men knew that his heart was as humane as it was fearless.”

We say this, think this, and feel this of David Beatty,—and by the Almighty’s grace and power, we want to say, think, and feel the same of every man and boy under his command! And so the Fleet will be as it always has been,—the star of victory in the crown of Empire. On the memorable occasion when Mr. Lloyd George rose to make his first address to the House as Prime Minister, Admiral Sir H. Meux, Member for Portsmouth, asked:—

“Will the right hon. gentleman say a word about the Navy before he sits down?”

And the new Premier replied at once:—

“My hon. and gallant friend knows that the achievements of the Navy speak for themselves. I do not think that anything I can say would be in the least adequate to recognise the enormous and incalculable services that the great Navy of Britain has rendered, not merely to the Empire but to the whole Allied cause. Not merely would victory have been impossible, but the war could not have been kept on for two and a half years had it not been for the services of the Navy.”

These words called forth ringing cheers. For it is We,—we Britons—who sweep the seas! It is our heritage to do so. A rumour is about that one of the “peace terms” foolishly proposed by Germany is, that we should “abandon our supremacy of the sea!” As well ask the sun to abandon its supremacy of the skies! It would be an evil day for all nations, not only our own, when Britannia ceased to rule the waves! Her just, wise laws of freedom and fairness would soon be replaced by ruthless piracy, and there would be no security for any coast. It is a good thing for America and Europe likewise that this

“Precious stone, set in the silver sea,

Which serves it in the office of a wall,

Or as a moat defensive to a house,

Against the envy of less happier lands”

should be the guardian of the girdling ocean, maintaining its highest rights and liberties in the face of all foes. And so may it ever remain!

What stories I could tell, had I the time and space, of heroic deeds “unwritten and unsung” performed by the men of the Fleet, not only in the past, but now!—now, in these actual present days, when great London, plunged to the neck in a flood of gold, poured in for the help, healing, and comfort of our fighting men on land and sea, is striving, like a giant caught in a net, to disentangle its sacred duties from its selfish pleasures,—trying to realise in its vague way that War is really War! Of “Tommy” one hears much; but of “Jack Tar” less,—though they are close comrades in the one spirit of devotion to duty, and each has his own burden of difficulties to bear,—his own sphere of danger to surmount and to master. The story of brave Jack Cornwell thrilled every heart,—putting well into the shade the similar exploit of “Casabianca,” of whom, when we were children, we all learned, in the verse of Felicia Hemans:—

“The boy stood on the burning deck,

Whence all but him had fled;

The flame that lit the battle’s wreck

Shone round him o’er the dead.”

and

“The noblest thing that perished there

Was that young, faithful heart.”

Only there is no poet among us worthy of the name to “sing the memory” of Jack Cornwell, thanks to the swarm of atheists, pessimists, decadents, and anti-idealists who have been encouraged to darken and disgrace the literary annals of Great Britain. “Casabianca” was a boy about thirteen years of age, son to the Admiral of the Orient, who remained at his post in the Battle of the Nile after the ship had taken fire and all the guns had been abandoned, and perished in the explosion of the vessel when the flames had reached the powder. All who have read the enthralling pages of our sea-history will remember that the Orient was the French Admiral’s ship, carrying a hundred and twenty guns, and that he himself died on her quarter-deck, his little son remaining at the post where his father had placed him, all unconscious of his father’s end. “Soon after nine o’clock,” says the historian, “the Orient appeared in flames, which spread with astonishing rapidity, and by their prodigious light the situation of the hostile fleets could be seen at a distance of fifteen miles. The Orient’s crew, however, continued to fire from her lower-deck to the very last, and at about ten o’clock she blew up with an explosion which was felt by every vessel to the bottom of its keel. To this succeeded a silence not less awful,—the sanguinary conflict ceased on both sides,—and the first sound that broke that portentous stillness was the splash of shattered masts and yards falling into the sea.”

So “Casabianca” perished gallantly—but not more gallantly than Jack Cornwell. Both boys, the one French, the other English, were made of the same heroic stuff that gives worth and honour to the nations that breed it.

Very quaint and poetic it is to read at this time of day, the picturesque record of William Camden, Clarencieux King-at-Arms to Queen Elizabeth, concerning the entrance of the Spanish Armada into English waters:—

“The next day the English discovered the Spanish Fleet with lofty Turrets, like Castles, in front like a Half-Moon, the wings thereof spreading out about the length of seven miles, sailing very slowly, though with full sails, the Winds being, as it were, tired with carrying them, and the Ocean groaning under the weight of them.... But so far was it from terrifying the seacoasts with its name of ‘Invincible’ or with its dreadful Show, that the young Gentry of England, with incredible Cheerfulness and Alacrity (leaving their parents, children, wives, and friends at home) out of their hearty Love to their Country, hired ships from all parts at their own private charges and joined with the Fleet in great numbers.”

I think we, in our present days, have had the word “invincible” thrown at us a good deal from the braggart mouth of the “Hun”—but “so far from terrifying us”—it has had the same effect on our manhood as it had in Tudor days so far as “incredible Cheerfulness and Alacrity” are concerned! And Queen Elizabeth apparently found a prototype of Nelson and David Beatty, for, says Camden, “The command of the whole Fleet she gave to Charles, Lord Howard of Effingham, Lord Admiral of England, of whose fortunate Conduct she had a very great Persuasion, and whom she knew by his moderate and noble carriage, to be skilful in sea-matters, wary and provident, valiant and courageous, industrious and active, and of great authority and esteem among the seamen of her Navy. Drake, whom she appointed Vice-Admiral, joined with him.”

Queen Bess evidently knew how to select the best men! And we may justly claim to have kept up the breed. For there is not a word written of Admiral Lord Howard in those old days that cannot be equally written now of Admiral Sir David Beatty. Every man of the Fleet knows it; and is proud and glad to serve under his command. “Skilful in sea-matters, wary and provident, valiant and courageous, industrious and active, and of great authority and esteem among the seamen of the Navy!”

And we shall do well to remember that on the outbreak of war, the country was assured that the Mercantile Marine accepted the risks incurred in maintaining the supplies of food so indispensable to the existence of the people, and in ensuring a path of safety for commerce, and the transport of troops and war material. And British shipmasters, officers, and seamen alike expressed their resolve to keep the seas open at all costs. The result of this inflexible determination is that throughout continuous struggle, exposed to daily and nightly peril from mine and submarine, British ships continue to arrive in British ports and sail again with a splendid disregard of all the difficulties and dangers which beset them in maintaining the overseas trade of the nation. It is time such priceless valour was more absolutely defended and held dear by the Empire which owes it so much. Our merchantmen should be armed. The expenditure would be less than the loss of heroic lives! Merchant seamen should be given every possible means of protecting their own existence and securing the safety of their ships and cargoes. Their foes are ruthless,—they should be given ample means of retaliation and defence. For—

“We sing the British seamen’s praise,

A theme renowned in story,

It well deserves more polished lays,

For ’tis your boast and glory,—

When mad-brain’d war spreads death around,

By them you are protected,

But oft when peace again is found,

Your bulwarks are neglected!

Then oh! protect the hardy tar!

Be mindful of his merit,

And when you’re plung’d anew in war

He’ll show his dauntless spirit!”

And no man of any class needs a “dauntless spirit” more. Courage alone makes him what he is. For though I love the sea with an intense love beyond all world-expression, I know how cruel it can be, although so beautiful—and while I rejoice and revel in the splendour of terrific waves breaking in pillars of foam up against rocks a hundred or more feet high, I cannot but hear in my soul the wild and despairing cries of drowning men, and the noise of breaking ships—I see the horror of drifting dead forms and faces swirling on the blackness of the deep, and with my whole heart I join in the prayer:—

“God, Who alone spreadest out the heavens, and rulest the raging of the sea, be pleased to receive into Thy most gracious protection the persons of Thy servants and the Fleet in which they serve! Preserve them from the dangers of the sea and from the violence of the enemy, that they may be a safeguard!—and that the inhabitants of our Island may in peace and quietness serve Thee, our God!”

* * * * *

Amen, and many times Amen! And it is possible that Admiral Sir David Beatty, like his great prototype, Admiral Lord Nelson, may have sent the same message to the Fleet on the day of the German surrender which Nelson sent after the Battle of the Nile, thus:—

“Almighty God having blessed his Majesty’s arms with Victory, the Admiral intends returning Public Thanksgiving for the same at two o’clock this day, and he recommends every ship doing the same as soon as convenient.—Signed, Horatio Nelson. August 2, 1798.”

* * * * *

A similar devotional spirit inspires our “David” of the sea, when he says that England must look to the future “with a prayer on her lips.” This great War, the greatest in all history, will, with all its wickedness and bloodshed, prove a blessing, if the cloud of Atheism which has swept over us through perverted and decadent German ideals, is rolled away,—leaving a clear and wholesome heaven of faith and hope for a nation brought back to God through humility, self-sacrifice and splendid heroism!

Eyes of the Sea!

Steadfast and clear as the light of a midsummer morning,

Sure in your vigilance, swift in the flash of your warning,

Pledges of safety for us and our land of the free.

Slumberless Eyes of the Sea!

Eyes of the Sea!

Watchful at midnight, companioning stars in their courses,

Fronting the storm or the fire of the foe in his forces;

Yours be the honour of all that we are or shall be!

Glorious Eyes of the Sea!

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IS ALL WELL WITH ENGLAND?
A QUESTION OF THE MOMENT

Yes, all is well!

Or, rather, let us say all will be well! And in our steady progress towards future good we may confidently aver that all is well even now. Even now! though the great “spring-cleaning” of the Empire’s house is scarcely half-way through. Our home is topsy-turvy, familiar objects are thrust aside, our goods and chattels are disarranged and turned out to be swept or beaten or otherwise relieved of their accumulated dust and cobwebs, and the clatter of brooms and pails and general hurry-scurry, with many irreparable breakages, make comfort and quiet impossible. Yet there is a freshness in the air, the windows have been cleaned, and one can see the sky through their lately begrimed and sooty panes, the floors are swept and the furniture polished; deft hands are arranging flowers for the rooms—we may breathe in health and hope if we will.

There is much yet to be done, for the cleansing of a nation is God’s work more than ours, and He leaves no corner unvisited. He has not done with England yet, no, not by any means! The festering mass of diseased moral fibre resulting from a long worship of Self, the canker in the body social and politic, has to be cut out ruthlessly, despite bleeding veins and torn sinews, and God will not spare the remedial knife.

But even so, it is well for England! Well, and more than well! For no greater ill could chance to her than her condition prior to the war.

Far more injurious to her fair fame than the murderous attacks of the most dishonourable and unscrupulous enemy she has ever known was the stealthy undermining of her people’s ideals through the slow but sure rot which had begun to set in at the very core of her civilian life. That rot was eating its way through commerce and crumbling down every bulwark of society. Its ravaging microbes swarmed through every channel—the pulpit, the stage, and all forms of art. Through its influence the abominable crimes of Sodom and Gomorrah were re-enacted and condoned, both in the political and social world. By gradual and subtle process, step by step on the downward grade, the unthinking public were led by certain writers of the Press who are special pleaders for vice, to accept sensuality as the only meaning of love, and every town possessing a bookseller’s shop was flooded with published outpourings of sickly and degrading sexuality, insulting to the self-respect of men and women, old and young alike. Girls and boys hardly in their teens carried these vile books in their hands, and read and discussed them without shame. Their poisonous trail is over many a young mind, and the mischief they have wrought will take years of undoing.

This kind of pernicious literature, coupled with a “sensational” Press, by which I mean that side of the Press which truckles to the baser inclinations of mankind, and flaunts pictorial representations of semi-nude women of the stage and of the demoralised portion of Society in the eyes of decent folk whether they will or no, is in a great measure responsible for the recklessness, extravagance, sloth, and selfishness which have disfigured social England for the past decade.

Things were getting worse and worse; men who truckled to vice were paid with baronetcies as “hush-money,” women passing for “ladies,” lower than the lowest of street sinners, because they had education and opportunities which the street sinner has not, were praised as embodiments of all the beauties and all the virtues, and “home,” that dear possession of the faithful soul, was voted “dull” by the younger folk, because of its wholesome restrictions on harmful impulses and runaway passions.

And let us not imagine these clouds on the sun of our country have yet passed away. They are passing, but the full splendour of the light is not yet. “Home, dull Home,” is coming back to its own as “Home, sweet Home” once more, because a dark and threatening destiny has torn sons from their mothers, and has broken up dear associations which were unvalued, because possessed. Now that death has darkened many windows and shut many doors, the bereaved ones begin to realise what “home” really was in the past days of peace, and what it never will be again; while those that are absent on the battlefield, amid the roar of the guns and the storm of shot and shell, turn back wistfully to the memory of days spent “at home,” in a tranquillity of mind and body that seemed “dull,” but that now shines forth in the visions of the brain as a reflex of positive heaven.

Few, I think, have taken the trouble to consider what this Empire would become without the saving grace of “Home”—that oasis in the desert where love has its best chance and friendship its surest footing.

It is in very truth the foundation of national safety and the basis of educational progress, and yet it is what a very large majority of us have lately esteemed but lightly, moved as we have been by a spirit of strange unrest, impelling us to wander hither and thither in search of satisfaction which, after all our quest, awaits us at our own door.

Suppose that one and all we ran “amok” in the liberty which speedily degenerates into license, without any restraining hand? Would it be “well for England” then? We know it would not, yet if our young people are brought up to disdain and to neglect their parents, and “friends” so-called, only seek other “friends” in order to make use of them for their own ends, the social code will be one of pure egotism without a shred of conscience to soften its hard and fast self-seeking. This would not be “well for England,” and from this point of view alone we have to be thankful for the scourge of this terrific war. For here God has taken the lead. He has indeed “put down the mighty from their seat, and has exalted the humble and meek,” for the humblest ranks of our British fighting men are heroes to-day, and the true spirit and mettle of the British race, long suppressed beneath a featherbed softness of prolonged peace, have sprung up in splendid and unbroken strength, proving in deeds more than words that “all is well with England!”

No praise can be too high for their courage, cheerfulness, and self-sacrifice; the sword of their unquenchable valour has long been sheathed, but it has not grown rusty—the blade is as bright as ever it was.

This is something to be proud of, something for us to remember when inclined to pessimism. We have nothing to fear on the score of our warriors who have gone forth in the flower of their manhood, to contend with and to conquer a brutal foe; and, if the creeping suggestion that all is not well with England steals into our minds, it is on account of traitors at home.

Yes, there is a dire possibility of mischief, a chance of infinite harm being wrought on England, and on the whole British Empire by the avarice and short-sightedness of some of our leading men who have “axes to grind.”

It may be unpleasant to face the truth, but surely it is wiser and safer to do so than to wait till it overwhelms us. And the merest tyro in diplomacy, the most casual looker-on at the moves on the political chess-board, can see how many a man “in official capacity” is playing the German game, and manœuvring towards a patched-up “peace” which shall give Germany every possible trade advantage.

The people’s confidence is being daily betrayed by such treacherous hypocrites, some of whom have financial interests closely bound in with Germany, and who hesitate and shuffle and delay action indefinitely, though the slaughter of innocent thousands may pay the price of their ineptitude.

In such scandalous matters, all is not well with England—and all will never be well, unless the people take a hand against their own spoliation and betrayal. And they cannot begin too soon. The house of the nation is being “swept and garnished.” We shall need to take care that the “unclean spirit” of Germany does not take “seven other spirits more wicked” to “enter in and dwell there,” so that “the last state” of that house be not “worse than the first.”

We need the resolved spirit of Queen Elizabeth, whose proclamation against certain troublesome foreigners “which had flocked to the coast towns of England” in 1560, commanded that they “should depart the realm within twenty days,” whether they liked it or not, “upon pain of imprisonment or loss of goods.” Queen Bess did not put on gloves when dealing with treachery; she hit it fair and square in the face. We should do wisely to imitate her example.

No great reforms are ever accomplished without opposition from prejudiced and self-interested persons, and it needs a strong soul to stand firm and full-fronted against malcontents, and to steadily baffle political intrigues. With these latter, the Ministry is hemmed in and environed, and it is a regrettable fact that in some quarters “party” is ready to overwhelm patriotism, despite all plausible assurances to the contrary.

On this point I would venture, as an independent writer who has no favours to seek and no “axe to grind,” to warn our more or less passive, silent, and patient people of dangers ahead.

The people are the nation, the people whose labour makes the wealth of the country are the worth of the country; and for them the name of Britain should represent all things British. But unless they themselves take good care, their trades will be again swamped by Germany in the future as in the past, especially if they put in less hours of work. It stands to reason that if a British workman will only work for eight hours, and a German will work for fourteen or sixteen, the German will score in every kind of labour.

Even now the German is preparing for the relaxing of “restricted” trades. The goods which the British Government declared “unnecessary” in time of war are being “made in Germany,” and at an opportune moment will be “dumped down” on these shores before the Englishman, returned from battle, can so much as set his house in order.

We may think, or we may hope, that protection against such unfairness will be guaranteed by Government—but will it? Does it look like it even now?—when Germans are permitted to run the business of absent Englishmen, and to make profit therefrom!

Sometimes it would almost seem as if there were a certain numbness or apathy in the minds of the British people here at home, which robs them of “the native hue of resolution,” so that in

“Enterprises of great pith and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry

And lose the name of action.”

There is a general tendency not to take too much personal trouble over any matter, a desire to avoid “being bothered,” and a persistent jog-trot in the same old way, like “dumb, driven cattle,” no matter whether the road lead to prosperity or ruin. This is like the fatal lethargy which overcomes the traveller in heavy snow, when he yields himself to a sleep from which he shall never wake.

Half the people in these islands do not yet realise the full meaning or the real horror of the war in which we have been forced, by all the rights of law and liberty, to engage. They do not think—they cannot. Their sense of perception seems stunned as by a heavy blow. All religion, all faith, all hope, have in a great measure failed them. They do not see why they should suffer undeservedly.

A poor woman receiving the news that her son was killed, had no tears—her face grew white and stiffened, as with frost—but she had nothing to say except this: “Ah, well! I couldn’t expect anything else, as there’s no God left to us now! Only man, the devil!” She could but realise that the war is man’s work—the result of his miserable ambitions, his delight in destruction, his selfish pride and cruelty. And the church had taught her little more than that the God she was told to worship was “a jealous God,” and out of that saying little comfort can be drawn for the broken heart of a bereaved mother.

Perhaps one of the most terrible notes struck from the great thunder-echoes of the war is this apparent failure of all churches to cope with the sorrow that has swept over all lands, destroying homes that were once happy.

Our Lord’s pitiful and pathetic words are realised to-day:—“Because iniquity shall abound the love of many shall grow cold.” Ah, yes, love for Him and all the tenderness He taught has “grown cold,” and many of His professed ministers are tongue-tied and spirit-frozen, and seem all unable to raise the broken lives from the dust of despair, or dry the weeping eyes which are too tired and heavy to lift themselves to heaven.

There is a strong instinctive sense among us all, no matter to what sect we belong or what religious formula we profess, that if the churches had ever truly taught and truly followed the example of Christ, war and its horrors would have been impossible. For He gave us only two commandments—two instead of the Mosaic ten—thus:—

“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it—thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

Who is there that can deny that if these two commandments had been obeyed by man in his social and civil life, the whole face of things would have changed to an almost divine betterment, and the world’s progress, assisted by a sanity of thought and a clarity of action, would have been towards beauty and spiritual uplifting?

The word “spiritual” is sadly wronged and degraded nowadays by misguided or semi-crazed persons who “blaspheme the Holy Ghost” by their pretensions to psychic power, and play with the names of scared things in order to further their own sinister designs. Our Lord prophesied this evil when He spoke of “false prophets” who should “show signs and wonders,” insomuch “that if it were possible they shall deceive the very elect.”

Is it not a fact that we have come upon such days? Days when the pure, simple, and helpful ethics of Christ are set aside in exchange for an insane credence in the vulgar trickery of “mediumship,” “crystal-gazing,” and other base forms of superstition pertaining to the eras of ignorant barbarism? Does it seem believable that there should be so-called “intellectual” men in this country, even statesmen of admitted ability, who are actually partially under the sway of illiterate “mediums,” generally women, who pretend to hold communication with the dead, and even presume to offer advice from the “spirits” on the affairs of the nation and the prosecution of the war? One could hardly imagine a wilder improbability, yet it is an absolute fact! The names of persons in high and trusted positions are on the books of the unscrupulous jugglers and tricksters who earn their wicked living by mischievous tampering with the brains of their dupes and victims, and the wonder is that these notabilities should so feebly allow themselves to be duped and victimized. But one has only to think of the entire submission of the Romanoffs to the villainous machinations of that unspeakable “monk,” Rasputin, to realize that there is no depth of abasement to which the human mind may not fall if it loses its hold on God.

It has to be confessed there are very few indications of real religion among us at present. A large portion of the clergy seem stricken with ineptitude, and one longs for a strong man who would not only preach the truth, but live it. A narrow egotism disfigures the ministering spirit of the Church, and I could name more than one cleric whose absorption in self entirely blinds him to the real duties he is called upon to do.

The service of Christ should be broad and all-embracing, generous, cheerful, ungrudging, and untiring in the aid of all humanity, rich and poor, old and young, sinful and sorry, and only men who are prepared to work on these lines should be admitted to such a high and holy calling.

But things are moving, and will move in the right direction presently; when the roar of the guns has died away and the memory of our slain heroes weighs on our stricken souls with sorrow and shame, and we have time to reflect that it is for us and the saving of our honour that they have died.

We shall then lift our eyes to Him from Whom cometh our strength, we shall unite in a grand revolt against hypocrisy and shams; we shall hold our homes more preciously, seeing and knowing what blood has been shed to keep them inviolate, and we shall value simplicity and purity of life for ourselves and our children far more than wealth and the fleeting, feverish pleasures which wealth can attain.

In this new dawn of our day it will be well for England!

One of the happiest and most hopeful auguries for the future is the stimulus given to agriculture and the “life of the land” by the necessity of providing food supplies for our own people on our own soil.

The menace of the submarine has done this for us, and devastating as its brutal work has been, we may regard it as a blessing in disguise. For we should not need to depend on foreign imports of food if we utilised our own acreage as fully and diligently as we might.

Life in the country, work in the country, means health and a light heart; and many there are who would like to see the olden days of purely native production come back again—the days of home spinning, home weaving, home manufacture of every kind carried on in all the towns and villages of rural England.

Here and there of late years there have been some efforts in this direction—there is a spinning and weaving school at Haslemere, at Stratford-on-Avon, and elsewhere—but the support given to these praiseworthy industries is not sufficiently certain and prolonged to push them with sufficient prominence into the public notice. Nevertheless, many a woman helps the movement by electing to wear only home-woven goods; they are beautiful and artistic enough to deserve patronage, and can be purchased direct from the weavers and spinners without the intervention of the middle-man whose business is “profiteering.”

What an England it might be—what an England it will be—when every acre of suitable soil bears its weight of golden grain!—when every orchard’s value can be appraised by its measure of luscious fruit!—when farmyards are full of cattle, and good wives are so clever at poultry and dairy work that the country can do without “millions of foreign eggs”—having such “millions” of its own—and when prosperous farms in the country are esteemed more valuable possessions than houses in town, where money is often uselessly wasted on so-called “pleasures” which have their end in damaged health and “vexation of spirit”!

To my own mind there is nothing more lovely or more satisfying than the life of the country, where one may see the real breadth of the sky, and feel the real freshness of the air.

In great cities, where humanity is a mere hive, the houses of brick and stone block out the sky and impede the air, and somehow one imagines that God is a long way off, while in the country He seems “nearer than hands and feet.” Everything speaks of His infinite care and providence—the birds, the flowers, the trees, the murmur of the leaves that clap together like little fairy hands in the wind, and the low, sweet, sigh that sways through the long grass at sunset.

The nearer man approaches to Nature, the more he becomes conscious of a Divine, mysterious Presence to which his whole being instinctively, though almost unconsciously, responds as “Our Father.”

In the rush and roar of great cities he loses this delicate intimacy with his own origin, and all that is or might be divine in himself becomes lowered to the level of gross material needs and ideas which are the reflex of the coarser atmosphere around him.

The dweller among country sights and scenes is an idealist—sometimes even a poet, though he may never express himself in words—and many an ordinary labourer turning the rich clods of soil with the plough can be found who will at times say things both trenchant and eloquent which will give food for thought to the most cultivated stylist.

Some people imagine that cities educate, and that the country does not; but one may question whether it is not quite the other way about. In any case, the life of the country makes for health and strength, and these are two potent factors for happiness. No man can be happy or contented if he is ailing and weakly, and in our many “new” systems of education, which are now being so much talked of, it is to be hoped that health for the children will be the first thing to be considered and maintained.

Here I may perhaps touch upon a point where one may trust that “all is well with England,” in the immense change the war has wrought as regards the position of women in the State.

Some years ago I was one of the many who were strongly opposed to the “Votes for Women” movement, judging it to be wholly unnecessary.

I had been brought up on the chivalric view of man as taken by Sir Walter Scott in his immortal romances, and my idea, gathered from these exalted specimens of the race, was that as man was always ready to worship woman it seemed invidious on her part to contend with him in his own particular sphere. But when it was forced on me that, more often than not, man was more ready to deride rather than worship woman, that the special “strain” of Walter Scott’s heroes was in Walter Scott’s delightful imagination only, and that as a matter of fact men denied to women such lawful honours as they might win through intellectual attainment, and that in certain forms of their legal procedure women were classed with “children, criminals, and lunatics,” I began to change my opinion.

I thought that if the mothers of the race were to be assorted with “criminals and lunatics,” the men they had given birth to might be, in their toleration of such a stigma, criminals and lunatics themselves. And when the war broke out and all the world raised itself, as it were, on tiptoe to see what was going to happen, and beheld among many marvels perhaps the greatest marvel of all—the women going forth to work in the places of men, going in thousands, without demur or hesitation, and taking their full share of the hardest and most menial labour with a cheerfulness and spirit no less remarkable than the intelligence with which they handled difficulties hitherto unknown, it was no longer possible to deny them equal rights with men in every relation of life and every phase of work. By every law of justice they deserved the vote—and I who, as a woman, was once against it, am bound to support the cause. All the same I shall be sorry to see them in Parliament; deeply sorry to find them straying so far out of their higher and far more influential sphere. The vanishing of modest and refined womanhood will prove a greater loss to the nation than any other asset of its power and renown. No woman can mingle with the mess of political intrigue without losing something of the charm and reticence originally in her nature, which has inspired men to their noblest aims and ends. I imagine that a true woman would rather be the Madonna of a Faith than the Premier of an Empire!

Nevertheless I grant freely and fully that it will be “well for England” when women have a voice in the education of children, and when they can refuse to “temporise” on questions of the national morality and well-being.

The recent “food muddle” under the management of men is a proof, if one were needed, of the superiority of women in all matters of domestic management, for any capable housekeeper would have organised the scheme with better knowledge and finer tact. That there will be jealousy and injustice displayed by the stronger sex towards the weaker on this matter of the vote, goes without saying. But jealousy and injustice exist anyhow, and a proof of man’s inconsistency towards women in matters of art alone is furnished by the purchase of Lucy Kemp-Welsh’s fine picture “Forward the guns!” in the Royal Academy, which has been bought “for the nation.” Yet, mark you, though this woman’s work is considered worthy of national keeping, she herself may not be admitted as an R. A.! Comment is superfluous. But it is possible that the granting of votes to women will alter all this, and that the barriers which the men have carefully erected against the sex of their mothers will be broken down for good.

The Jewish dispensation has to be credited for the rule of “keeping women in their place,” along with flocks and herds. But the Christian dispensation teaches a lovelier lesson—for a woman was the first to hold the God-Man in her arms, and a woman was the first to greet Him on His resurrection from the dead.

Does this teach nothing? Is there no symbol of the future of womanhood thus gloriously foreshadowed? I venture to think there is.

I believe and hope that a wider freedom to woman will mean a nobler heritage to man, and that through her intelligence and influence he may find and prove the “god” in him, and rise from the grave of old prejudice to the light of more brilliant possibilities. And this will be “well for England.”

Many changes are bound to come, many sorrowful and tragic happenings are yet in store for this dear country, but “it is well” that so these things should be, to the end that we realise where we have missed the way, and take heed that we stumble not again.

The secret of our regeneration is not in this or that government; it is with the people.

Yet on the whole, despite clouds in our sky, it is well for England so far. We shall come out of the darkness if—if the people will it. Up to the present they have grudged nothing—neither time, nor labour, nor money, nor sacrifice. They have been in every sense worthy of British tradition—a people splendid. Now it is that they must see they do not fall a prey to “party” traps, designed for the safeguarding of Germany in those quarters where British financial interests are concerned.

I repeat, “All is well with England!”—all will be well—if the people are awake and alert, if they will unite to remove the German foe from their midst, and if they will in time remember the old proverb which says, “It’s no use shutting the stable door when the horse is stolen.” The German has the fixed intention of re-monopolising trade when the war is over, and already our Indian Empire is in advance of us by the ban announced against German trade in India, and the barring of German ships from Indian ports.

Decisive action must be taken in these matters before it is too late. British trade interests, British artisans, British workers of all classes must be defended and protected and encouraged.

The agricultural arts and sciences must be made a primary matter of education for the people, and our productive soil must be given a fair chance. Landowners who have held thousands of acres for the pleasure of sport alone must yield to the necessity of feeding men instead of preserving game, and a prosperous, smiling England, “a land flowing with milk and honey,” will be the reward of all those who steadily set their energies to work in the right direction, that right direction being always for the good of the many and not for self or the few. It should surely be the aim of every true patriot to leave his country better than he found it, and all personal interest should and must go to the wall where the welfare of the people is at all concerned. The trend of thought is all in this one way, for which we may thank God. A renewed faith in the highest, a return to the devotional spirit of true religion, and a resolve to root out from every educational system, from every art, from every form of literature all that makes for evil and degradation; this will ensure all being “well for England,” so well, that neither the hatred, envy, nor malice of rivals can move her from her sure foundations of peace.

She should be, and she must be great and pure, with the greatness and pureness for which our heroes have fought in the past, and for which they fight to-day, and for this high cause, though we mourn our slain manhood, we must grudge no sacrifice, however hard. We have not grudged anything as yet—we shall never begin to do so. And so both now and in the days to come, through God’s mercy, may we ever be able to say—

“All is well with England!”

(When the above was first issued as a booklet by the publishers, Messrs. Greening, it elicited a long and eloquent letter from the “St. Andrews Society,” asking me why I addressed my pamphlet to England? Where was Scotland in my thoughts? Knowing the curious prejudice some Scotsmen entertain for the word “England” (which I have liked to imagine included Scotland, Ireland, and Wales), I made haste to reply that I had not presumed to ask “Is all well with Scotland?” as I know all must be well, and that all would be for ever well! How could anything go ill with Scotland? I do not know whether I satisfied my truculent correspondent, but I hope I did.)

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