Third: Each soldier has to have a kit bag, and he puts his name on it in white paint, so that everybody knows it is his.
You and I have to carry our belongings with us too, good or bad, and nobody can steal them, as sometimes happened with the boys' kit bags. Ours always go along with us.
It seems so foolish not to gather good belongings that you won't want to bury or throw away. Life is a queer sort of thing, and the strange thing is that while you carry your belongings with you, you are also sending them on ahead of you, and they build your future home.
A woman once dreamed that she died and went up to heaven. Angel guides took her through the lovely city and showed her its wonderful streets and homes.
One was a magnificent palace with a beautiful situation, and great towers and windows. She asked who it was for and was surprised to hear it was for her footman who did the dirty work around the stable and house.
In another street was a little bungalow—beautiful too, for everything was fair and lovely, but still very small and humble. She asked who that was for, and was told it was to be her future home. In disgust she said, "What! Do you know who I am, and how much wealth I have? You give my ignorant footman a great palace, and me this little bit of a place!" And the angel quietly said, "Well, madam, we are doing our best with what's sent up."
So you see your kit bag possessions are with you now, but the real possessions of your life, your thoughts and words and deeds are helping to form the home you will some day live in forever.
I think it would be a good idea to see that we have only the best, and send on only those things that will help build a beautiful home of the soul.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, a great American writer, once wrote these words:
"Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll;
Leave thy low vaulted past;
Let each new temple nobler than the last
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea."