ger. Over all the seas death would soon be riding on the
billows. Faces became stern. Good-byes were spoken.

Ah! that word "Good-bye," which we hear every day, and which, like
those old coins which have passed from hand to hand so long until at
last the image and superscription are gone, had lost all trace of its
original meaning, retaining nothing but a faint aroma of courtesy,
which sometimes vanished in the inflection of the voice until the word
became only a discourteous dismissal--that word was born for us anew.
We heard it on the lips of mothers clinging to the hands of their sons,
who were summoned away to join their regiments, and as white lips said
"Good-bye" to those whose blood was to water the fair fields of France,
we suddenly realised what it meant. The word, meaningless yesterday,
to-day expressed the greatest wish that the lips of man can utter--God
be with thee. On the mother's lips the word was the commitment of her
boy to the charge of the encompassing God. Then, when the harvest was
ripening on the slopes and the drum sounded "Come," and the young and
the strong went forth with a smile to the great harvesting of death, we
learned again the meaning of a phrase. But we were yet to learn the
meaning of a word.

It is in the darkness that the stars appear and the immeasurable
abysses of the infinite universe, and it was when the dusk sank into
the deep night that the word rose high in the firmament of life and
burned red into our souls. And that word was God.

It seemed so incredible to us that we should need that old word. We
were so powerful and so rich. Our faith was strong, but it was in the
reeking tube and in the smoking shard, and in the number of our
Dreadnoughts. Then all these things seemed to fail us. A nightmare
seemed to fall on us--a nightmare which lifted not night or day. Our
soldiers were driven back, back, back. They fought by day and marched
by night, and we heard in the night watches the beating of their
wearied feet, blood stained.

Was there to be no end to that tramp, tramp of men yielding before
death? Was the Empire reared by the heroism of generations to crumble
under our feet? The ghastly deeds of shame--were they to come to our
doors! We looked at our children, and they could not understand the
light in our eyes. These deeds of hell--they might occur even now
under the shadow of our hills. It was then that the word began to
blaze in the heavens. And th