A Child of the Cloth Read Online Free PDF Page B

anxious days waiting to see if I could spot Arthur’s letter. Then one morning there was no mistaking the letter from Arthur. The handwriting on the envelope stood out above all the others, even to the extent of making my father comment on the handwriting and instantly stopping my mother from speculating on the identity of the sender, he left the dining room with the letter.
    â€œI had become so used to having Arthur close to me and sharing our thoughts and I found it terribly depressing after he left Wimbledon to see his mother. When I look back now on those two weeks, I still find it hard to believe how my world started to fall apart. With the talk at home and in the streets of the impending possibility of war with Germany, I suppose, like thousands of others, I supported Mr. Chamberlain and his policy of appeasement, attempting to maintain peace with Germany. With the talk at home and in the village of the possibility of impending war with Germany, I remember my father’s sermon on the Sunday a week before war was declared. I have kept my father’s draft of this sermon.” She rose from her chair, crossed the room and opened an inlaid wooden box from which she took an envelope containing the sermon. She said it was the most moving sermon her father had ever given and had a vivid memory of him looking so sad, extremely pale and tired, burdened with worry, slowly walking up the steps to the pulpit. He spoke the opening words of his sermon in Latin; quoting from the ancient ode by Horace, ‘Dulce et Decorum est’. She then unfolded the sermon and started to read from it.
    â€œNo, it is not sweet to die for one’s country, these words that were written millenniums ago perhaps they then had some honour in them when men fought toe to toe, sword in hand, for King and Country but we, as Christians, must never forget the words of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, ‘Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword’ (Matthew 26:52).
    â€œNo! These words must not be used to give credence to such carnage that took the lives of thousands of our young men, killed in a war that they were told and, believed, was a war to end all wars. We now know it was a war of attrition prosecuted by men of business whose only interest was profit and who were safe many miles from the terrible abattoir that their investments had helped to create. In my mind I still see the images that fired the patriotism in the youth of our country, with highly emotive posters showing Lord Kitchener, an arm outstretched, with the caption, ‘Your Country Needs You’ thus making cowards of all those who would not enlist and the cries throughout the country ‘To arms to arms’. What was not generally known was that there were some strong Christian voices in the German government petitioning our government for a peaceful settlement, but our government had created so much monstrous hatred of the Germans and their Kaiser, that they could not pull back from the abyss. We must all pray for the good men of peace like our Prime Minister Mr. Chamberlain. I suspect that once again we will be told that this war will be the war to end all wars! Someone must tell them that we are still looking for our dead in Flanders Field to give them a decent Christian burial.” She then paused to wipe tears from her eyes and carefully folding the pages of the sermon, replaced it in the envelope and handing the envelope to me, asked if I would like to take it with me to read. Written on the envelope were the words ‘Dulce et Decorum est’. I said I would be very pleased to have the opportunity to read the full sermon.
    â€œI was also concerned that I had not received a letter from Arthur and I had no address to write to him. I also knew with absolute certainty that my father had received Arthur’s letter but he had still made no comment. I was loath to question him as he did