The Ypres Times.
119
We that stand here together on this miraculous autumn day do so because twelve
years ago men most dear to us stood together for the first miracle of Ypres. Among
them, as among us, the common Christian faith held good as a binding force and we
may be very certain that the memory of Ypres will never die while England is England
still.
It is easy to be deceived and discouraged by many transitory phases which seem to
spell forgetfulness. As we have reason to remember, so there are others who have much
reason to desire these less spoken of things but, as a whole, it is surely true that this
great battle of decision will stand when those who now forget it are themselves forgotten.
Ypres will rank with Thermopylae, age after age. Historians may come to count it as
the sixteenth decisive battle of the world, nor is it any blasphemy to think cf it as a lesser
calvary for the motive of true love was there.
THE REV. P. B. CEAYTON ADDRESSING THE PARADE.
[By kind permission of Central Press.
They who were brothers in this first great sacrifice were of the old Army, regular
-soldiers, the finest and the fewest in Europe. They were drawn, for the most part, from
the extremes of privilege and of poverty. The officers between them were the heirs of
great houses and proud acresthe men owned not an inch of English soil, but proved
their faith no less. (God grant that England may learn to be more kindly to such men
as these.)
Together, in unbreakable unity, they held the stage against all comers, while we,
the amateurs, were as vet unready in the dressing rooms of war.
Had they not done so all our lives would now be lived under conditions we can scarce
imagine. You would have assembled here this afternoon, if at all, in a spirit of heart
broken despair. In every street, as you came, you would have been compelled to give
the pavement to the soldiers of a foreign army of occupation, and the Imperial Conference
