That death is the end has never been a Christian doctrine, and evidence collected by careful men in our own day has, perhaps needlessly, uphold with weak props of experiment the mighty arch of Faith. Death is real and grievous, and is not to be tempered by the glossing timidities of those who would substitute journalese like 'passing-on', 'passing- over', etc., for that awful word: but it is the end of a stage, not the end of the journey. The road stretches on beyond that inn, and beyond our imagination, 'the moonlit endless way'.
Let us think of him then, not as lying near Ypres with all his work ended, but rather, after due rest and refreshment, continuing his noble and useful career in more peaceful surroundings, and quietly calling us, his family, from intemperate grief to resolute and high endeavour.
Indeed, it is not right that we should weep for a death like his. Rather let us pay him our homage in praise and imitation, by growing like him and by holding our lives lightly in our Country's service, so that if need be we may die like him. This is true honour and his best memorial.
Not that I would undervalue those of brass or stone, for if vigorous they are good and worthy things. But fame illuminates memorials, and fame has but a narrow opening in a life of twenty-six years.
Who shall remember him, who climb
His all-unripened fame to wake,
Who dies an age before his time?
But nobly, but for England's sake.
Who will believe us when we cry
He was as great as he was brave?
His name that years had lifted high
Lies buried in that Belgian grave.
O strong and patient, kind and true,
Valiant of heart, and clear of brain
They cannot know the man we knew,
Our words go down the wind like rain.
O. W. F. L.
T intern, 1915
