I found a belief among the soldiers in France that was almost
universal. I found it among all classes of men at the front; among
men who had, before the war, been regularly religious, along
well-ordered lines, and among men who had lived just according to
their own lights. Before the war, before the Hun went mad, the young
men of Britain thought little of death or what might come after death.
They were gay and careless, living for to-day. Then war came, and with
it death, astride of every minute, every hour. And the young men began
to think of spiritual things and of God.
Their faces, their deportments, may not have shown the change. But it
was in their hearts. They would not show it. Not they! But I have
talked with hundreds of men along the front. And it is my conviction
that they believe, one and all, that if they fall in battle they only
pass on to another. And what a comforting belief that is!
"It is that belief that makes us indifferent to danger and to death,"
a soldier said to me. "We fight in a righteous cause and a holy war.
God is not going to let everything end for us just because the mortal
life quits the shell we call the body. You may be sure of that."
And I am sure of it, indeed!
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Minstrel In France, by Harry Lauder
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MINSTREL IN FRANCE ***
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