462 THE ADVOCATE
VOL. 78 PART 3 MAY 2020
extent that we go about our routine business in a strange detached way, and
ordinary affairs seem unimportant and only superficial. We try to realize to
how much greater an extent you men and women in the services must
regard the community life from which you are separated as being far away
and long ago. But for all of us—you over there and us here at home—the
expectation of the end of this terrific struggle to preserve a free way of living
in the world from the black desolation that has hung over us, begins this
month to break like the light of dawn.
Preservation of liberty in this land has been the constant care of those
whose profession has been that of guidance and advocacy, as well as those
who have been appointed to the grave responsibility of the administration
and execution of justice.
May we here at home join with you in the hope that must be even more
fervently yours, that not only will the evil forces that would have enslaved
the world be put down but that this time they will be forever subjugated. It
is this hope and belief and the steady aspiration towards its attainment that
alone lightens the darkness of a world at war.
For you who fight as well as for those of us who can only stand and wait,
I recall the words of King Henry V to his soldiers on the morning of the day
on which the Battle of Agincourt was fought:
… some making the wars their bulwark, that have before gored the gentle
bosom of peace with pillage and robbery. Now, if these men have
defeated the law and outrun native punishment, though they can outstrip
men, they have no wings to fly from God: war is his beadle, war is
his vengeance; so that here men, are punished for fore-breach of the
King’s laws, is now, the King’s Quarrel; where they feared the death, they
have borne life away; and where they would be safe, they perish … Every
subject’s duty is the King’s; but every subject’s soul is his own. Therefore
should every soldier in the wars do as every sick man in his bed—wash
every mote out of his conscience; and dying so, death is to him advantage;
or not dying, the time was blessedly lost, wherein such preparation
was gained; and, in him that escapes, it were not sin to think, that making
God so free an offer. He let him outlive that day to see His greatness, and
to teach others how they should prepare.
And now with the hope that we will meet soon, not, it is clear, to take up
the old life in the old world which came to an end five years ago, but to
adventure confidently forward into the untried conditions of a new and better
world.
With all good wishes,
Yours sincerely,
Ed Lucas