man ever did on earth. Ah! it must
be fearful work to _sit still_, and shiver and starve in a foreign land,
and to think of those who are in comfort and plenty at home; and worse,
to think of those, who, even if they are in plenty, cannot be in comfort,
because their hearts are breaking for your sake; to think of brother and
sister, wife and child, while you are pacing up and down those dreary
trenches, waiting for your turn of sickness, perhaps of death. It must
be bitter and disheartening at times; you would not be men, if it was
not. One minute, perhaps, you remember that those whom you have left at
home, love you and pray for you; and that cheers you; then you remember
that all England loves you, and prays for you in every church throughout
the land; and that cheers you; but even that is not enough, you feel
ready to say, "What is the use of my going through all this misery? Why
am I not at home ploughing the ground, or keeping a shop, anything rather
than throwing away my life by inches thus. My people at home feel for
me, but they cannot know, they never will know, the half of what I have
gone through. The nation will provide for me if I am crippled, but they
cannot make up to me for losing the best years of my life in such work as
this; and, if I am killed, can they make up to me for that? Who can make
up to me for my life?"

Have you not had such thoughts, my friends, and sadder thoughts still
lately? You need not be ashamed of them if you have. For hard work you
have had, and it must have told at times on your spirits as heavily as it
has on your bodies.

But, my friends, there is an answer for these sad thoughts. There are
brave words for you, and a noble message from God, which will cheer you
when nothing else can cheer you. If your own people cannot know all that
you go through, there is One who can and does; if your own wives and
mothers cannot feel enough for you, there is One above who does, and He
is the Lord Jesus Christ. You have hungered; so has He. You have been
weary; so has He. You have felt cold and nakedness; so has He. You have
been houseless and sleepless, so has He. While the foxes had holes, and
the birds of the air had nests, He, the maker of them all, had not where
to lay His head. You have felt the misery of loneliness and desolation;
but never so much as did He, when not only every earthly friend forsook
Him and fled, but He cried out in His very death pangs, "My God, my