Article November 16, 1918 Issue

Arms and the Lad

WILLIAM BRADFORD TURNER

Our lads when leaving for the front not infrequently put the following questions: "How am I to handle this matter of arms? How can I consistently take weapons in hand, knowing that I am expected to inflict injury on others, and at the same time pray that injury may not be inflicted on me? Let us look first at the reason for the query, and then at the answer.

The question is, at base, an unselfish one. The lad may have little fear of bodily hurt as such; and he may not shrink from the thought of laying down a human sense of life for his country. What he realizes is that in going "over there" in defense of an ideal, he can accomplish more for that ideal, uninjured and alive, than he can by display of fortitude in hospitals, or an untimely descent into "the valley of the shadow." To live for his country and its ideals, and to keep on living for them, rather than to die for them, is his earnest prayer.

The young recruit feels he has enlisted on the side of right and liberty, and he wishes to see these things both triumph and abide. As he sets forth, he does not philosophize much with himself concerning the Decalogue and the Sermon on the Mount. He knows instinctively that the moral worth of these two great impartations of God to man has been cherished for centuries by the Anglo-Saxon race, the world around; and that to these Scriptural standards have looked all morally impelled individuals and groups from among the peoples of the earth. These standards he does not wish to see go down in the land; and these standards he has vowed within himself, if he can help, shall not go down in the land. And so, in answer to his country's call, he accepts a military training and prepares to go "across."

Send a comment to the editors

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit

Arms and the Lad

We'd love to hear from you!

Sign up for unlimited access