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NO MILITARISM.
A Remembrance of Courage.
'Personally, I hate war. I think it is
illogical and barbarous, and I believe
nearly all civilised men and yomen have
similar feelings and ideas about it. But
x am proud to taue part m Anzac ser
vices,' said the Rev. E. H. O. Nye, speak
ing yesterday at a 'Pleasant Sunday
Afternoon' concert at the North Perth
Town Hall, on the subject 'The Spirit of
Anzac in Times of Peace.' The address
was broadcast by station 6WF.
Mr. Nye said that some people were
afraid of Anzac services. They Baw in
them something sinister and menacing—
the glorification of war and of armed con
flict, an encouragement of the spirit of
militarism, the gratification of a desire for
military display. These fearful folk won
dered how it was that Christian ministers
and others, who did not believe in war,
could take any part in such celebrations.
Of course, such people had altogether false
ideas in regard to the day and its ser
vices. Anzac gatherings were the out
ward expression of the nation's grateful
remembrance of the self-sacrifice and cour
age of some of her sons and daughters, and
of the nation's pride that in the hour of
trial and danger these sons and daughters
thought not at all of themselves but only
of their country and her need. No mat
ter how intense one's hatred of war, no
matter how convinced one might be that
war was an illogical and barbarous way
of settling international differences, there
could not be any difference of opinion as
to the virtue of self-sacrifice and courage,
nor any question of the quality of this
high virtue in the men and women who
Rave their lives in those' tragic years, 1914
to 1918.
There was nothing 'jingoistic' in these
services of remembrance, Mr. Nye pro
ceeded. There was nothing boastful in
these celebrations. .In every one of them
the people stood in imagination before
the tombs of warrior friends, and said in
simple truth, 'They died that we might
live.' This was surely an ennobling
thing. As the people recalled their self
sacrifice, they became more capable of
self-sacrifice; as they remembered their
high courage, they resolved that they
should be more courageous.
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