th iron-studded leather
straps over their knuckles. They fought lions brought across the
Mediterranean (the Great Sea as they called it) from Africa, and
tigers carried up the Khyber Pass across Persia from India. They flung
spears, threw quoits and ran foot-races. Amid the wild cheering of
thirty thousand throats the charioteers drove their frenzied horses,
lathered with foam, around the roaring stadium.

One of the most beautiful of these races has a strange hold on the
imagination. It was a relay-race. This is how it was run.

Men bearing torches stood in a line at the starting point. Each man
belonged to a separate team. Away in the distance stood another row of
men waiting. Each of these was the comrade of one of those men at the
starting point. Farther on still, out of sight, stood another row and
then another and another.

At the word "Go" the men at the starting point leapt forward, their
torches burning. They ran at top speed towards the waiting men and
then gasping for breath, each passed his torch to his comrade in the
next row. He, in turn, seizing the flaming torch, leapt forward and
dashed along the course toward the next relay, who again raced on and
on till at last one man dashed past the winning post with his torch
burning ahead of all the others, amid the applauding cheers of the
multitude.

The Greeks, who were very fond of this race, coined a proverbial
phrase from it. Translated it runs:

"Let the torch-bearers hand on the flame to the others" or "Let those
who have the light pass it on."

* * * * *

That relay-race of torch-bearers is a living picture of the wonderful
relay-race of heroes who, right through the centuries, have, with
dauntless courage and a scorn of danger and difficulty, passed through
thrilling adventures in order to carry the Light across the continents
and oceans of the world.

The torch-bearers! The long race of those who have borne, and still
carry the torches, passing them on from hand to hand, runs before us.
A little ship puts out from Seleucia, bearing a man who had caught
the fire in a blinding blaze of light on the road to Damascus. Paul
crosses the sea and then threads his way through the cities of Cyprus
and Asia Minor, passes over the blue AEgean to answer the call from
Macedonia. We see the light quicken, flicker and glow to a steady
blaze in centre after centre of life, till at last the torch-bearer
reaches his goal in Rome.