Most grateful of all to hundreds of sorrowing hearts in Australasia, London turned aside from its own countless griefs to mourn with Australasia the loss of the brave dead from the South. Nothing was more eloquent of the profound stir at the Heart of the Empire than that solemn memorial service to the Australasian dead held in St. Paul's Cathedral on the evening of June 15, 1915. In that sacred building, where repose the mortal remains of Nelson, Wellington, and many another great one who died for the Empire that Australasia is so proud to serve, there gathered an assemblage of mourners come to pay a spontaneous tribute to the brave young men who had laid down their lives for a great ideal. The King was represented there; and the Colonial Secretary, Mr. Bonar Law, himself born in the Dominions Overseas, attended on behalf of the Government. Great men and noble women of all shades of opinion thronged in the aisles to pay their tribute to the heroes dead, but never to be forgotten. And the citizens of the greatest city of the world were represented by their Lord Mayor, as by many a humble sympathizer who gained a place in the thronged building as a mark of loving kindness to mourners so far away, yet so near to the Empire's heart.
Some hundreds of Australasian soldiers were there—men who had fought bravely by the side of the dead ones the Empire was mourning, and had themselves sustained grave wounds in that Empire's defence. The rays of the setting sun lit their dull khaki as it lit the brilliant scarlet uniform of the bandsmen of the Grenadier Guards. The hush of true mourning was on the mighty building, and every sentence of the impressive sermon preached by the Archbishop of Canterbury could be heard in the farthest corner.
The Primate, who took for his text St. John xv. 13—"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends"—said:
"We are met to-night for a definite and a very sacred purpose. Here at the centre and hub of the Empire's life, we desire to thank God together for the splendid devotion of our brothers from Australia and New Zealand, who in the cause whereto we as a people have set our hand regarded not their lives unto the death. It is as Christians that we are here to-night, as men and women, that is, who hold definitely to certain great truths, and are not ashamed to say so. We are firm in the belief that the bit of life which we spend here—be it, on man's reckoning, long or short—is not all. This part of it is of vital moment. It is a great opportunity. It is a high trust. It is capable of splendid use. But it is quite certainly—as we Christians view it—not all. It is part of something larger, something with a nobler range.
"And Christ has to do with all of it, here and hereafter, and He made it clear that in His eyes it matters vitally how we spend and use this part of it, how we devote it, how, if need calls, we lay it down. He spoke of those things to His friends on the night before He died, when the full moonlight was flooding the upper room, and He was bidding them farewell. This is only a part, He told them, but it ought to be a glad and bright part, of the larger life. And its gladness, its joy, would depend, in each man's case, upon whether he had learned the greatness of its value as something to be used, devoted, laid down, if need be, for the sake of other people. That was the key to His life, His joy; it would be the key to theirs. He bid them try to understand it so. That, He says, was why He had been reminding them of what He had come to do. 'These things I have spoken unto you.' Why? 'That my joy'—the joy of ready sacrifice for others, the true test of love—'might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.... Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.'
"You see, my brothers and sisters, how all that bears upon the thought which is just now sweeping across and through us as a people, and which helps to crowd these seats to-night. We want, as Christians, to say together in St. Paul's this evening that we honestly, deliberately, believe these fearful perils, these wounded or stricken bodies of our best and bravest, these saddened hearths and darkened homes, to be worth while. And if they are 'worth while,' they are right. The offering, terrible as it is, ought to be made without reserve for the sake of what is, as we deliberately judge, the cause of truth and honour, the cause of good faith and ordered liberty among the peoples of Europe and of the world. It is a duty grave, inspiring, urgent, which ought to rally us every one.
"I do not pause to ask whether the sacrifice would be worth while if this life on earth were all. I think it would, but I need not dwell upon that now. It is as Christians that we meet to-night, and to a belief in the larger life lying behind and around and beyond what we see, a Christian, however bewildered he feel about how it can all work out, is clearly pledged. Most of us, I suppose, whisper longingly at times, perhaps in hours like this we say out, almost imperatively, 'We want to know more, a great deal more, about the nature, even the particulars, of that other life. They are so difficult to picture in plain words in their relation to what we are familiar with here, and the more we try to work out the vision the more bewildered we grow. Is there nothing in the Bible to tell us plainly how it all will be, or, rather, how it all is?'
"The answer is not difficult. The Bible does not furnish any such detailed answer to our longing inquiry. It gives us unchallengeably the sure and certain faith in that greater life. That faith underlies as a firm basis the whole New Testament. But neither in vision nor parable is the veil wholly drawn aside. As the old seer said, 'The secret things belong unto the Lord our God,' and these are among the secret things. We know little; but what we do know we know for certain. Remember this. We are loyal to our Lord Christ, Whose life was the light of men, and Whose words and teaching are our strength and stay. We believe Him whatever else we doubt.