"But now these dead are come, to show us what we could not see and realize so inwardly before; that war is an abominable thing, a ghastly thing.
"These bodies floating in our waters, they are no ghostly vision, no story of imagination, but reality and truth. And the same may come again after a time, in reality and truth as now.
"And therefore I ask you in thought at least to follow me out to sea, and learn to know these dreadful things, and fix them in your minds and never forget.
"And you shall bring the knowledge of these things to others, so that they, too, may feel unconquerable abhorrence at the very mention of war; so that the word 'war' shall never more be uttered, but become a sound so intolerable to human ears that none dare speak it.
"There are others, perhaps, who have seen even more dreadful things than this. And they, too, shall speak and write of war, until there is woven about it a ghostly fear and shuddering, a dread that nothing can overcome.
"For how can we know what else may come?
"In a few years the memory of this war's sorrow and agony and destruction may be forgotten, and a new generation may once more set out to war with the joy of battle in their hearts. It lies with us now to fix in the minds of all humanity so great a horror of war that no talk of glory and brave deeds can ever take its place.
"For though great words have been spoken against war, and great examples have been set by men of peace, and the wisest calculations proved its madness, still the war is yet alive.
"But out of the very horror and gruesomeness of war itself we can make ourselves weapons and armour and cure, and leave these as a legacy to our children, that they may overcome the greatest enemy of all mankind.
"And now at last I would say some words of the holiness of Life in the time when war shall no longer exist on earth...."