On Anzac Day 1918 – just three years after the Gallipoli landings, and while the war still raged in Europe – the Dean of Nelson, Dr Weeks, delivered the following address during the local commemorative service:
The keynote of this service has been struck by the recent resolution of the Returned Soldiers' Association: "This Association views with strong displeasure the action of various bodies in holding fetes, performances, etc., on Anzac Day, which day is considered by Anzacs to the memory of their fallen comrades".
Unquestionably, they are right in this interpretation of its significance. The frivolous spirit which can make of such an anniversary merely a pretext for further pleasure seeking is identical with that which, regardless of its sacred memories, makes Good Friday but one more holiday among the many of the year.
We meet, then, not to celebrate a triumph. True, every ridge secured, every objective reached amid those iron hills and gaunt ravines was itself a success of no mean order. But in the full, technical sense of the word, victory was denied our heroic lads. In the working out of the purposes of God it was not theirs to march with victors' step through Constantinople's tortuous ways. Certainly we do not bewail a defeat. None can read the story of Gallipoli and think otherwise. The epic of the landing; the endurance of the trenches; the superb generalship of the evacuation alike forbid the thought.
We commemorate those who, come victory or come defeat, loved not their lives unto the death. We think of them going forth from farm and station, from school and counting-house, with large promise of life before them, yet deaf to all the voices that lure young hearts, hearing only the urgent call of the .Motherland. We think of them facing the grim realities of war, with cheery indomitable spirit; we recall the Landing, with the terrible toll of life and limb; we remember the long months on the Peninsula, when British tenacity was tested to the extreme limit of endurance. And today, while we salute the little band of survivors, we offer our tribute of reverent memory of the gallant dead.
Two thousand four hundred years ago the Greek people were threatened with overwhelming disaster. On their northern frontier dense masses of the Persian foe were mustering for a final descent upon the fair land of Hellas. At one pass in the mountain barrier the final stand was to be made. There, at Thermopylae, Leonidas and his 500 Spartans withstood the onset, and there, betrayed by a traitor, every man of them fell at his post. There, in after days, a Lion was carven in the rock and, beneath, the inspiring words: "Stranger! report this word, we pray, to the Spartans, that lying here in this spot we remain, faithfully doing their behest."
Did they fail? In the immediate purpose of checking the Persian rush, yes! Through the treachery of Ephialtes, the enemy swarmed round their flanks and in their rear. But in the larger issues of their service, a thousand times No! Through 24 centuries their heroism has inspired successive generations of warriors, and the glory of their devotion still abides.
So with the men we commemorate today! So long as our rough island story is recorded, the epic of Anzac will be blazoned on its page. Today the battle-line in France resists the titanic efforts of the enemy the more persistently by reason of the inspiration "Anzac" brings. Unfaltering devotion to Duty; unhesitating sacrifice of Self; unfailing loyalty to Comrades—these are the undying glories which defeat can never soil.
I suggest a deeper lesson still. Nineteen hundred years ago a seeming disaster darkened a low green hill outside a city wall. There a Life, by common consent, a Life unique among the lives of men, sank to its tragic close, deserted by those who most professed devotion, and to all appearance foiled of its fairest hopes. He, too, loved not His life unto the death, and yet the sacrifice seemed of small avail.
But the mists that hide the distant future are dissolved, and the almost limitless scope of the victory is revealed: "Thou wast slain, and didst purchase unto God with Thy blood men of every tribe and tongue and people and nation. . . And I heard a voice of many angels round about the Throne, and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, saying with a great voice, "Worthy is the Lamb that hath been slain to receive the power, and riches, and wisdom, and might and honour and glory and blessing and dominion for ever and ever."
NELSON EVENING MAIL, VOLUME LII, ISSUE 95, 25 APRIL 1918
Reproduced under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0 New Zealand licence
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