Part 11

When Millerand was elected President of France his supporters insisted always that they had found a man whose public life would be worthy of France _and of her dead_. France's ideal is that through the sacrifice of her sons France should become "greater yet." Our men did not die that England might become greater, but that Europe might be saved from tyranny and greed, and it is for us and our public men to see that their sacrifice shall never seem to grow barren.

It will grow barren unless we who now live are ready to continue the sacrifice. No good comes into the world but after struggle and pain. No new life comes but through death, no common weal is gained without giving and serving. Our common life must have a foundation of human hearts, ready to give, ready to live, for England and for us all.

It hath been said: "He liveth best who is always ready to die."

It can be put in a new way: "He liveth best who is always ready to put all upon the Altar."

Humanity is well served when nations are ready to sacrifice themselves for her good.

She is worst served by the nations who still preserve the tribal instinct to fight and destroy their neighbours.

She is worst served by the nations who are enslaving other nations.

And that nation is most alive which has most people ready to sacrifice themselves and their estate.

That nation liveth worst which contains the most selfish.

Of Christ it was written: He saved others; Himself he could not save. But the selfish man saves himself first and then thinks of others.

The selfish man is quarrelsome and runs easily to law; he exacts guarantees; he counts his costs; he heavily insures; he holds what he does not want and is afraid of another getting it.

That nation liveth best whose men and women are freest for an adventure.

But worst whose men and women are most cautious.

He is most happy who has run to the Altar and surrendered his _all_ there to God and then found a will and a way in which to live.

For most, alas! there is no altar visible, no way to an altar. They do not know what the Altar is nor what it is for.

Business and war and hate and selfish desire have hidden it from men's eyes.

Only when the cloud lifts the Altar is disclosed, and men commonly when they see it leave all that they have and run to it and fling themselves before it in tears.

It is the grand altar of humanity. The altar of _all_ on which the _one_ sacrifices himself.

It is the altar of the sacrifice of Christ.

The Cross.

The quartering of humanity--an altar in the midst of the people.

All education and literature and religious mission should be to one end--that the way to the Altar may be kept clear.

It is work to clear away all the obstructions and the fogs and mists.

Sweet singing, pious exhortation, the reading of books, love of the dim religious light of churches--these should not be ends in themselves.

Humanity has its pious part which goes to church; but it does not need the organisation of the pious.

Humanity has its charitable part but it does not need the organisation of the charitable.

Humanity has its cultures but it does not stand in need of "schools of thought" and "cults" and "intelligentsia,"

But humanity does need sacrifice upon the one great Altar, every day and all days.

The Cenotaph rising in our midst may be our altar. We may leave our flowers there, the incense-smoke of burning hearts, but the flowers should be our lives. The Cenotaph after all is only the visible sign of the great invisible Cenotaph of humanity which stands in the midst of the ages, an empty tomb in memory of all those who have gone before--of those whose sacrifice _without ours_ is not perfect.

* * * * *

At Westminster Abbey they have buried the dead soldier among poets and statesmen. They have dug up from France Tom, Dick, or Harry, one of us, unnamed, unknown, who laughed and talked and marched and fired and suffered in the war, one of the many who are always unknown. He did guard duty no doubt in France. He is put on sentry again. Touching as it is to have a soldier in the dim light of the Abbey where so many can shed invisible tears, it had been better perhaps in a stern era to have posted him at St. Stephen's, at the entry to Parliament, that he might challenge in his silence all who enter there to stand for England--

"Who goes there?"

"Friend."

"Advance and be recognised!"

"Pass, friend!"

Proceed at your peril if you cannot meet the challenge of the dead!

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+-----------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Note: | | | | Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the | | original document have been preserved. | | | | = sign denotes bold type | | | | Typographical errors corrected in the text: | | | | Page 99 Algeerians changed to Algerians | +-----------------------------------------------+

End of Project Gutenberg's The Challenge of the Dead, by Stephen Graham