Canada is dearer to us than ever, because it has been purchased anew at a great cost of precious blood. Those who have fallen are worthy of everlasting remembrance. They will be commemorated by public monuments, by tablets of bronze, or brass or marble in public buildings, by "storied windows richly dight". They deserve this. But, before God, they deserve at our hands a better monument—even the monument of a purer, nobler Canada, more intelligent, more united, more sober, more kindly, more God-fearing. Dying for Canada, they have recreated Canada. Let us be worthy of those whose deaths have kept us free.
Through the experiences of these recent years, we have learned the possibilities of heroism latent in every man. We need not hesitate to make high demands on our citizens for worthy ends. We have regained a right sense of the relative value of things, and we know that the first things are those which are ideal, spiritual, eternal. We know that persons are of infinitely more value than things; that the development and enrichment of personality mark the only true advance in civilization; and that the basis of national progress is the health, efficiency, and spiritual well-being of the people. We have realized the power of organized effort. We shall not forget the bonds of sympathy which common sorrows have created. We have gained a wider outlook on the world and a truer conception of the meaning of Empire. We understand more clearly the national problems that lie before us in this new era. A better Canada will not come of itself. It must be planned for and striven for. But it will come, if there is kindled in the souls of our citizens the same flame of sacrifice and service which burned so brightly in the hearts of Canada's citizen-soldiers of the Great War.
H. J. Cody
Department of Education,
Toronto, April 4, 1919
THE GREAT WAR IN VERSE
AND PROSE
"FOR ALL WE HAVE AND ARE"
For all we have and are,