“The blood that he hath lost, he dropp’d it for his country, And what is left, to lose it by his country, Were to us all that do’t and suffer it A brand to the end of the world!” EYES OF THE SEA (_Written by special request of the Directors for the British and Foreign Sailors’ Society_) A TRIBUTE TO THE GRAND FLEET AND ADMIRAL BEATTY “Then said David to the Philistine, ‘Thou comest to me with a sword and a spear and with a shield, but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of Hosts.... This day will the Lord deliver thee into mine hand!’” We all know that in Bible history there was a certain Goliath of Gath. His height was six cubits and a span,--that is to say, about ten feet. He had a helmet of brass, and he wore a coat of mail weighing five thousand shekels of brass,--about a hundred and fifty-six pounds. He had brass on his legs, and brass between his shoulders, and his spear’s head weighed six hundred shekels of iron. Taking him altogether he was a fine prototype of the Hun, who is similarly a monster of Brass, Iron, and Brag. And then DAVID, “ruddy and of a fair countenance,” drew near to this Brazen Being, and smote him with a stone in the middle of his forehead, so that he “fell with his face to earth.” And this is just what _our_ “David” has done. A matter for national rejoicing! Especially for “they that go down to the sea in ships and do business in great waters” do we rejoice that the “David” of the Grand Fleet,--high-souled, brave-hearted DAVID BEATTY,--commands the Sling and Stone of our straight-hitting Naval Power! What better man than he to take the place of Nelson?--to carry out with zealous ardour Nelson’s one wish, Nelson’s last desire that “every man should do his duty!” Look at the strong face,--the keen, clear “eyes of the sea,”--the resolute yet tender lines of the mouth,--the whole bearing of this bold and dauntless commander, and then think of the lofty and devout spirit of him expressed in his recent “message” to the nation:-- “Until religious revival takes place at home, just so long will the war continue. When England can look out on the future with humbler eyes and a prayer on her lips, then we can begin to count the days towards the end!” There’s a challenge for you! Flung out unhesitatingly and manfully in the very face of a swarm of atheists in Church and State, who for the past decade at least, have copied Germany in mockery of all things holy and divine, and have spread their “literary” blasphemies throughout the land, assisted in their work of “tearing down” Christianity by a corrupt section of society and a decadent Press! It’s a challenge we are bound to hear,--given in simple, manly words which echo the high faith of him who won the Battle of Trafalgar, and who, on the eve of the fight retired to his cabin and wrote this prayer:--