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!”
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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.”
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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!