Nevertheless all will not perish from the earth. That which hath done valiantly in the host will not glide away into a land where all things are forgotten. Although the sun may go down while it is yet day, it shall come to pass that at evening tide there shall be light. Moses is dead, and Aaron is dead, and Hur is gathered to his fathers also; but, because of their righteous acts in the matter of Rephidim, their memorial and their name live and breathe among us for example and admonition still. So shall it be with this generation. He, our spiritual lord, whose living hands are lifted up in our midst to-day—he shall bequeath to his successors and to their children’s children, the eloquent example and the kindling heritage of his own stout-hearted name. And we, the lowlier soldiers of the war—so that our succour hath been manifest and our zeal true—we shall achieve a share of humble remembrance as the duteous children of Aaron and of Hur. They also, the faithful few, who have lapped the waters of dear old Oxford, and who were the little company appointed to go down upon the foe with the sword of the Lord and of Gideon, and to prevail—honour and everlasting remembrance for their fearless names! If, in their zeal, they have exceeded; if, in the dearth of sympathy and the increase of desolation, they should even yet more exceed—nay, but do Thou, O Lord God of Jeshurun, withstand them in that path, if they should forsake the house of the mother that bare them for the house of the stranger! Still let it never be forgotten, that their voices and their volumes were the signals of the dawn that stirred the heart of a slumbering people with a shout for the mastery. Verily, they have their reward. They live already in the presence of future generations; and they are called, even now, by the voices yet unborn, the giants of those days, the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown! Whosoever shall win the war, whatsoever victories may wait hereafter on the armies of the living God, it shall never fail from the memory and heart of England, who and what manner of men were they that, when the morning was yet spread upon the mountains, arose, and went down to the host, and brake the pitcher, and waved the lamp and blew the trumpet in the face of Midian! God Almighty grant that they and their adversaries and we ourselves also, may look on each other’s faces and be at rest, one day, in the city of God, among the innumerable company of angels, and the first-born whose names are written in heaven, and the spirits of just men made perfect, and Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, through the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ APPENDIX A