THE GREAT PILGRIMAGE.
36 The Ypres Times.
THE KNOWN.
In olden days it was held that there was peculiar virtue attaching to a pilgrimage
to the Holy Land, and many, with great boldness and through much endurance, attained
that virtue. History tells us that Robert the Bruce had vowed to visit the Holy
Sepulchre, but, prevented by illness, which terminated in death, he requested Douglas
to carry his heart there. Douglas, tradition asserts, faced by foes, threw the heart of
the Bruce in its casket as far as he could towards the Sepulchre. Thus the heart lay in
the Holy Land while the body was in Scotland.
To-day many a heart lies in France while the body lies in Britain. To many the
pilgrimage to the holy scenes of the battlefields is an impossibility, but the heart goes
out in yearning to that little spot where lies buried all that is left of a dear one, and the
heart remains there. It may be of some comfort to such people to know how the remains
of their loved ones are cared for.
MUD CORNER CEMETERY (WARNETON).
[By kind permission of The Imperial War Graves Commission.
A road patched up and re-surfaced after its upheaval in war, twists its wav through
the French countryside. We come to the cross-roads and find four sign-posts, two on each
side, each indicating the proximity of a British cemetery. And strange names they bear!
Yet none strikes me as carrying within it greater pathos than this oneBlighty Valley
Cemetery." Think of all that Blighty meant to the men who lie buried there and, if
you have any soul at all within you, any heart to beat in sympathy with the sufferings of
others, the full pathos of that name, Blighty Valley Cemetery," will sweep over you.
