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A GLORIOUS SUNRISE 195
and knows everything that can be known about " every
bosky bourne from side to side," and bears a part in the
local self-government of the parish and urban district.
The late Sir Samuel caused the old church (1400 eire.)
to be moved from the edge of the cliff to comparative
safety inland, but not as far as could be wished considering
the onset of the North Sea. The removal was lovingly
done, the order of the big stones being kept. The tower
of the old church, being modern, was left as a landmark
on the cliff side, and now the gravestones have been moved
inland, and the fifteenth-century building saved from the
fate of many another on this unbefriended coast,
After reading some of Ruskin I cannot attempt to
describe the glory of the sunrises seen from Overstrand,
especially in October, morning after morning, speaking of
hope and peace through the long dread tracts of the war.
There is incomparably more suggestion of hope in a
sunrise than in a sunset, and I fancy the only people
who would deny this are those who have never given
the former a fair chance. All through 1917 we noted the
radiant, huge pink orb mounting slowly, silently, up the
slope of heaven, often straight over the Kiel Canal, where
the enemy's navy was cooped up ingloriously. The
rising " sun in all his state," so dominating and so tranquil,
spoke to us of victory at last.
But never have worshippers been so prepared for the
Service of Thanksgiving as were, on Jan. 1, 1918, some ten
Sidcstrandcrs gathered in the chUrchyard and gazing eastward
at the most supreme and triumphant radiance that
any of us had ever witnessed. It spread in its peaceful
and'majestic iridescence from the far horizon to the zenith
of the sky, a wholly unforgettable message from another
world. This took place at 8 a.m. on that day, and we
knew that before the close of the year the war would
be ended.
In connexion with sunrise there is a symbolism suggested
by a very ordinary London view of the eastern
sky. In the foreground, houses, gardens, streets, and trees