This evening he was preaching about a naval disaster which
had lately occurred, the sinking of a great battleship by another great
battleship through a wrong signal. He was describing the scene when the
news reached Chatsea, telling of the sweethearts and wives of the lost
bluejackets who waited hoping against hope to hear that their loved ones
had escaped death and hearing nearly always the worst news.
"So many of our own dear bluejackets and marines, some of whom only
last Christmas had been eating their plum duff at our Christmas dinner,
so many of my own dear boys whom I prepared for Confirmation, whose
first Confession I had heard, and to whom I had given for the first time
the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ."
He spoke too of what it meant in the future of material suffering on top
of their mental agony. He asked for money to help these women
immediately, and he spoke fiercely of the Admiralty red tape and of the
obstruction of the official commission appointed to administer the
relief fund.
The preacher went on to tell stories from the lives of these boys,
finding in each of them some illustration of a Christian virtue and
conveying to his listeners a sense of the extraordinary preciousness of
human life, so that there was no one who heard him but was fain to weep
for those young bluejackets and marines taken in their prime.
Pages:
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255