A Spirit of Service.
Through the portals of modern times woman has met this great conflict of nations warring with nations with a calm strength and patience. And she has set up a shrine in the activities of her house—a shrine that is a spirit of service to the soldier.
When peace first spread her wings to take flight across seas and continents, she left woman standing on the brink of war with reluctant and uncertain feet. No woman in any period of the world’s history ever faced the colossal task that the women of 1914 faced three years ago. Into the domestic trend of their lives came the shadows of battle and strife and death, and they waved goodbye to their sons, brothers, and lovers, with a vague feeling that they had gone forth to meet danger, and it was for their country. Then came battle news and casualty lists, and the doubting fears broke into grief and sorrow and daily anxiety, from which emerged an unfathomable reverence for the man who will die for his country.
It was then that the full significance of the soldier really dawned on woman in general, and with characteristic femininity she sought to express her reverence for these men in unbounded service to their needs. Nor has that service diminished—rather has it increased.
No man will ever realise the feeling a woman has for the man who goes forth to fight for his country, his womenfolk and the weak. Life is such a precious thing. Women know this too well. So many of them have lingered near the edges of that undiscovered country and known the joy of regaining the shores of Life. So that when a man voluntarily risks his life to defend all that is precious to him, he becomes almost a demi-god in her mind. Her sons seem to have grown something almost too precious. She exists in a daily imagery of their lives, and when they fall in battle something of their great courage seems to be reflected within her. She meets her loss with such a knowledge of the honor of his death that she is fortified with a strange new armor. Girls who grew up with their brothers, and looked on them just as their “brothers,” are at times overwhelmed with the magnitude of what these boys have done and are doing. And from a world of tennis, dances, pleasures, and peace-time sorrows, they have traversed into the great arena of service.
And what an arena it is! From the lowest to the highest rung on the social ladder, from the tropic lands of the North to the wheat grown fields of the Downs, from the out-back stations of the West to the Pacific, women have arisen to do honour to the man in khaki. She who must needs work to earn her daily bread spends her leisure moments in knitting or sewing. She who has lived in the midst of household duties and home cares, gives what hours she may spare—and often, what she is unable to spare—to Red Cross activities, comforts for the men in the trenches, or to practical work to augment the funds of some particular patriotic institution. For these works are not temporary works, they are institutions, institutions built on the foundations of self-sacrifice, and they will outlive many a granite building in the memory of future generations. The society woman—the butterfly—has been one of the surprises of the war. Out of her chrysalis she has come and put aside her life of luxury to do homage to this demi-god in khaki. What matter whether he was her gardener or her lover yesterday—he is a soldier to-day, and as such she will give him homage.
Transporting Wounded Soldiers from Gallipoli.
Mutual Service Club.
FOR RELATIVES OF MEN AT THE FRONT.
Any afternoon in the week, except Saturday and Sunday, between the hours of two and five o’clock, the Mutual Service Club may be seen in full working order on the top floor of Moon’s Building, Adelaide Street. This club is for the relatives, particularly the wives and children, of men at the front. There are two large rooms available for the club, and they are always well patronised by the wives and children of soldiers. Primarily it is a society of mutual service, and the committee who organised and keep up the club endeavour to assist wherever help is wanted. The women of Brisbane who have time and means do not give their energy to the soldier alone, for they realise that in helping his wife and children they are indirectly doing him invaluable service.