ittle and any danger
threatened, I was always the shy one who ran and got behind your
skirts? And do you remember you were always saying to John and me, and
especially to me, 'Lads must be brave?' It was not so bad, I remember
your saying, if Ellen or Mary were to take fright when a stranger came
to the house, or Mr. Sinclair called to hear our Catechism, but it was
a real disgrace for a boy. 'Lads must be brave' was your slogan. And
many a time it has braced me in hard places since. Out on the prairie,
for instance, when it was deadly lonesome, and the work seemed to be no
use, and down here in the city when I gave out my text the night I
preached in Hamilton Street Church, and looked up and saw old Professor
Johnstone sitting straight in front of me, looking at his boots. I
tell you, Mother, the consolations of religion were not so upholding at
such moments as your 'Lads must be brave.'

"And how it has been 'dingin' in my ears these days to fairly deeve
me," as Tremendous K. would say. "The bugle calls it every morning
when the boys march out on the campus. I see it in every headline of
the paper; I hear it in every call for men, and I'm afraid I haven't
wanted to listen. I have wanted my life to run along a smooth road,
the one I have planned for myself; a fine church with a big salary,
plenty of time to study and a little to travel, and you sitting in the
Manse pew with the best silk dress in the church. That has been my
programme. But the pleasant road was not the way the Master went, and
the servant cannot choose. He trod the hard way, and there is not the
slightest doubt in my mind which way He wants me to go. I know you are
guessing already at what I am going to ask of you. And now I must turn
upon you with your own slogan and say, 'Mothers must be brave!' Oh,
how brave and gallant they must be in these days, only they can know.
But I know you, Mother, well enough to tell that you will say yes when
I ask you to be brave enough to let me enlist. It is not a matter of
choice with me, I am constrained. Woe is me if I go not to Belgium!"

"I wish I could say this is all I am asking you to give up. Is it too
much that we ask you to let Sandy go, too? He is more eager than I and
saw his duty clearly from the first. We both realise that yours is the
hardest part. But your sons couldn't be slackers. And after all the
war may not last so long, and we'll be home before you know it. Sandy
will like