The Shadow of the Grave

The flower of British manhood lies under the soil of foreign lands today. The shadow of eternity has enveloped them. Young, brave, beautiful in their strength, they are lost to earth forever. Across the sundering seas fond hearts are breaking because they will never come again. A hero’s grave on the battlefield means an empty place at home. In “Return at Once,” in October “Message,” Miss Leakey tells us of a young officer’s leave being stopped by the War Office telegram, “Return at once.” He goes back to his regiment, then to France, and from France to heaven. Thank God he was ready for the call — he was not ashamed of Christ — and although his splendid physical and mental powers are lost to earth, the Lord had need of him, and when the Lord needs us, He calls us to Himself, sometimes from quiet sick beds, at other times from a warrior’s couch of pain and blood.
The last post has sounded for him, and if the question comes, “Watchman! what of the night?” for it is night when our loved ones go, the answer comes as a voice from heaven, “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord... that they may rest from their labors.” He was Christ’s soldier; I knew and loved him well; he rests from his labors. The mystery of his early death we shall know when we see him again in heaven. Why his sun went down before it had reached its meridian God will tell us when He tells us all. Thou hast died on the “field of honor,” for thine earthly king, but in the “grand review” of heaven thou wilt be there, and in the “Book of Life,” where the names of the soldiers of the King of kings are written, thy name will be found. Good-bye, till the morning breaks and the shadows flee away. “We shall meet thee in the morning.”