t, yet did it seem as if it were less for England than for
that which is the excellence of man's life and the very emergence of
the divine within such life, that they fought and fell. And this great
inheritance of fame and of valour is but ours on trust, the fief
inalienable of the dead and of the generations to come.

And now, behold from their martyr graves Russell, Sidney, Eliot arise,
and with phantom fingers beckon England on! From the fields of their
fate and their renown, see Talbot and Falkland, Wolfe and de Montfort
arise, regardful of England and her action at this hour. And lo!
gathering up from the elder centuries, a sound like a trumpet-call,
clear-piercing, far-borne, mystic, ineffable, the call to battle of
hosts invisible, the mustering armies of the dead, the great of other
wars--Brunanburh and Senlac, Crecy, Flodden, Blenheim and Trafalgar.
_Their_ battle-cries await our answer--the chivalry's at Agincourt,
"Heaven for Harry, England and St. George!", Cromwell's war-shout,
which was a prayer, at Dunbar, "The Lord of Hosts! The Lord of
Hosts!"--these await our answer, that response which by this war we at
last send ringing down the ages, "God for Britain, Justice and Freedom
to the world!"

Such witness of the dead is both a challenge and a consolation; a
challenge, to guard this heritage of the past with the chivalry of the
future, nor bate one jot of the ancient spirit and resolution of our
race; a consolation, in the reflection that from a valour at once so
remote and so near a degenerate race can hardly spring.

With us, let me repeat, the decision rests, with us and with this
generation. Never since on Sinai God spoke in thunder has mandate more
imperative been issued to any race, city, or nation than now to this
nation and to this people. And, again, if we should hesitate, or if we
should decide wrongly, it is not the loss of prestige, it is not the
narrowed bounds we have to fear, it is the judgment of the dead and the
despair of the living, of the inarticulate myriads who have trusted to
us, it is the arraigning eyes of the unborn.

[1] I am aware of Spinoza's distinction of the "clara et distincta
idea" and the "inadequat[oe] idea"; but the distinction above flows
from a conception of the universe and of man's destiny which is not
Spinoza's nor Spinozistic.

[2] Was machst du an der Welt? sie ist schon gemacht;
Der Herr der Schoepfung hat alles bedacht.
Dein Loos ist g