War Letters of a Public-School Boy Part 26

"It is such n.o.ble sacrifices as your son's," wrote a well-known M.P., "that almost alone redeem the horror of this world-wide catastrophe."

From M. Marsillac, London correspondent of _Le Journal_ (Paris):

What a truly magnificent spirit was shown in that letter of your son! Indeed, we who remain behind are more to be pitied than those who go forth into Eternal Peace by such a n.o.ble and luminous road.

Mr. Alexander Mackintosh, its Parliamentary correspondent, writing in the _British Weekly_, said:

Lieutenant Paul Jones, as an occasional visitor, was familiar to the Press Gallery. Oxford has lost another young man of unusual gifts, a scholar and an athlete, as modest as he was brave, and the Gallery has a sense of personal loss. Yet it bids his father say, in the beautiful apostrophe which Rustum puts into the mouth of the snow-headed Zal:

"O son! I weep thee not too sore, For willingly, I know, thou met'st thine end!"

Mr. Arnold White ("Vanoc") in the _Referee_ for August 12, 1917:

Just before his death Lieutenant Paul Jones wrote a letter which deserves record on imperishable bronze. This young officer has given a new l.u.s.tre to the name of Paul Jones.

Messages of condolence were received from the King and Queen, the Prime Minister, Cabinet and ex-Cabinet Ministers, the Army Council, members of both Houses of Parliament, clergymen, London and provincial pressmen, scholars, soldiers, labour-leaders, newspaper and journalistic societies and political a.s.sociations. Letters came not only from the four countries of the United Kingdom, but also from France, Palestine, South Africa, India and Canada. These sympathetic expressions from far and near, from the exalted and the humble, prove, if proof were needed, that the memory of brave soldiers like Paul Jones, who have sacrificed their lives in a great cause, is cherished with grat.i.tude and reverence by their countrymen.

They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old; Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.