HLI Chronicle 1917 - The Royal Highland Fusiliers

130 HIGHLAND LIGHT INFANTRY CHRONICLE.
smile. Its horrors and rigours did not daunt
them, and its terrors won no victory over
their spirits. They made one of the finest
Battalions that ever left these shores, for some
of the best of our rising generation were in
their ranks, and although they were not
soldiers by profession they proved themselves
worthy of a Regiment that has traditions of
honour as old as the British Army. Therefore
in God's house we may well first of all rejoice
concerning them and give thanks to God
who has put so great spirit into man. Though
tears be in our hearts, we must not fail to feel
proud and thankful--proud because they were
our brothers, and thankful because they
finished their course in faith." On concluding,
Mr. Gray said-" "Ve may not only mourn our
dead, or only honour them, we must also
hearken to them. It was a cherished conviction
with them that Britain was worth
dying for. They had a deep-seated faith in
you and your countrymen that you would
yet make Britain more worth dying for.
They had a vision of the British as a nation
of really free men, free not only from foreign
dominion, but from greed, luxury, and lust.
There can be no sufficient memorial to them
but a different and better Scotland. The
monuments to the dead of this war are not yet
up. It may be they will be only brass plates
and marble slabs, but before God they deserve
a better monument, a monument of Britain
turned to God, a Britain temperate, chaste,
and believing, a Britain really free at last.
From a hundred graves in that foreign land,
from the spots' where they fell and which are
now sacred spots for us, from trench and shell
hole where death found them their voices call
-young musical voices, the voices of boys
still in their teens, the voices of martyrs on
life's threshold, and they ask a better Britain
as their memorial."
H.L.I. AND GALLIPOLI.
Yesterday afternoon a service was held in
Partick Parish Ohurch in memory of the J-6th
Highland Light Infantry who fell in. Gallipoli
on July 12, 1915. While the 6th H.L.I.
arranged the memorial service, there were
present relatives and friends representing
other battalions who were engaged on that day.
There was a large congregation. The Rev.
Dr. John Smith, senior chaplain of the I-6th
H.L.I., conducted the service. Oaptain
George Laird, who was severely wounded in
the fight at Gallipoli, read the lessons.
Dr. Smith, in the course of his sermon,
said-" To-day we gather to pay tribute
to the noble dead. It is not for the purpose of
stirring the memories lest we forget that we
hold this service. Of forgetting there is not
the slightest fear. Nothing can dim the glory
of that day's record. We bury the tragic
failure of the whole campaign and resurrect
the undying heroism and stupendous sacrifice
shown by our men. No one can cavil at the
truth that we are saved by the precious blood
of Christ, for it is by blood, the blood of our
best, the blood of our youth, that our country
is being saved-the soul of the nation, the life
of the State, and the spirit of the Empire.
Their memory is blessed and fragrant to us.
They have made us rarer gifts than gold.
We have received beauty for ashes. They
have left us the precious legacy of their
herosim, the solemn obligation to prove ourselves
worthy of the gallant hearts who bled
for us, the scared duty to see that- the red,
sweet wine of youth was not poured out in
vain. The problem of the survival of our
dead heroes presses with too personal a weight
to be left over as though it were a matter of
mere academic concern. And the tremendous
fact that every day adds sheaves to vast
blood-red harvest compels us to face anew
the great query of the Veil -and what may
lie behind it. What shall we say 1 What is
our hope? God is love-owe build our faith
on that. It is a short, simple creed, and the
simplest creed is the most rational. Jesus
Ohrist has declared God as the Father of all
men. An souls are His. From the acceptance
of this article life and immortality break upon
us as the flowers unfold themselves to the
rising 8un."--Glasgow Herald, 9th July, 1917.