Sec.2

It is in a letter just arrived from my mother that we find Monty's
last word--his footnote to this history. She describes a ceremony
which she attended at Kensingtowe, the unveiling of a memorial in
the chapel to the Old Kensingtonians who fell at Gallipoli. Monty,
as an old Peninsula padre, had been invited to preach the sermon. My
mother writes in her womanly way:

"He preached a wonderful sermon. We all thought him like a man
who had seen terrible things, and was passionately anxious that
somehow good should come of it all.

"Calvary, he said, was a sacrifice offered by a Holy Family.
There was a Father Who gave His Son, because He so loved the
world; a mother who yielded up her child, whispering (he
doubted not): 'Behold the handmaid of the Lord'; and a Son Who
went to His death in the spirit of the words: 'In the volume of
the Book it was written of me that I should do Thy will, O my
God; I am content to do it.'

"And, in days to come, England must remember that once upon a
time she, too, was a Holy Family; for there had been years in
which she was composed of fathers who so loved the world that
they gave their sons; of mothers who whispered, as their boys
set their faces for Gallipoli or Flanders: 'Behold the handmaid
of the Lord' (and oh, Rupert, I felt so ashamed to think
how badly I behaved that last night before you went to
Gallipoli--how rebellious I was!). He went on to speak of the
sons, and what do you think he said? He spoke of one who, the
evening before the last attack at Cape Helles, asked him: 'Will
you take care of these envelopes, in case--' He declared that
this simple sentence was, in its shy English way, a reflection
of the words: 'It was written of me that I should do Thy will;
I am content to do it.'

"That boy, an old Kensingtonian, was mortally hit in the
morning. There was another with him, also an old Kensingtonian,
who was still alive, and might yet come marching home with the
victorious army.

"I lost his next words, for there I broke down. But I seem to
remember his saying:

"'All men and all nations are the better for remembering that
once they were holy. England's past, then, is holy; her future
is unwritten. But Idealism is mightily abroad among those who
shall make the England that is to be. And a