“No! I am not ashamed of my boy! If he was led astray at the last moment by his evil, human passions, who shall judge him?—Not I, and not you. He did not desert because he was a coward, because he funked the battle before him. Listen again to Mr. Archie Lamb; he says, ‘Sumption is not a coward—I have seen him in action, and I repeat that he is as plucky as any one.’ And he joined up as a volunteer, too—he didn’t have to be fetched, he didn’t go before the Tribunal and say he’d got a bad leg, or a bad arm, and his father couldn’t run the business without him. He joined up out of free-will and love of his country. The Army was no place for him, for his blood was the blood of the Rossarmescroes or Hearns, which knows not obedience. When he joined he risked his life not only at the hands of the enemy but at the hands of his own countrymen, and it is his own countrymen that have put him to death, ‘that the whole nation perish not.’ “I tell you, my boy died for your boys; my boy died for you, and you shall not look down on his sacrifice. Over his grave is the Sign of the Son of Man, Who gave His life as a ransom for many. To save your boys from the possibility of a disgrace such as his my boy died in shame. When they see the grave of Jerry Sumption they will say: ‘That is the grave of a man who died because he could not obey laws or control passions, because he was not master of his own blood. Therefore let us take heed by him and walk warily, and do our duty as soldiers; and if we must die, not die as he died....’ So my son died for your sons, and my son and your sons died for you; and I ask you: ‘Are you worth dying for?’” Again the minister was silent, staring down at the rows of wooden, expressionless faces, now faintly a-sweat in the steam and heat of the Bethel. Then suddenly he burst out at them, loudly, impatiently: