Their names liveth forevermore, by Phillip Dodds.

Published in the Picton Gazette, 18 August, 1943.

In this County of Prince Edward we are as one great family. Though perhaps not knowing each other personally, we are bound by common ties which make us kin. Through the medium of the Press we have become familiar with family names; interested in their progress and welfare; rejoicing on occasion, sorrowing on others.

It is this spirit of neigborliness, of kindliness and friendship that has made us proud to be called a Prince Edwarder.

Today, sadness has come to many homes. And because of the spirit which binds us, we too mourn. As we write, six of our gallant young men have paid the Supreme Sacrifice in Sicily. Others had earlier given their all. Still others have suffered wounds, and anxious hours must pass before details are received. We share this anxiety, and join in fervent prayer that better news will be forthcoming.

We knew all these grand lads. We have followed with pride their progress. They have not failed us, these young men of Canada. They did not wait for compulsion. They went forward voluntarily, in ever augmented multitudes, to serve a cause and to face deadly perils.

Those who have already laid their lives upon the altar of a nation’s service will not return to us. But the glory of their valorous deeds will shine forever as the stars in heaven.

They will live on in the freedom they have so nobly fought to preserve, in the institutions their sacrifice will perpetuate, in the better world they have helped to create.

For them there is no death. They have achieved immortality.

Said Gordon Johnstone in the words of an unforgettable song:

“I tell you they have not died.

Their hands clasp yours and mine;

They now are glorified.

They have become divine.

They live, they know, they see.

They shout with every breath:

All is eternal life,

There is no death.”

Yet in our sorrow we seem to hear our friends, who have given their all to retain for Canada and the world all that is decent and kindly and just, say to us:

“We have made our sacrifice. We cherished life. But we loved our country more. And for ourselves, we rest content. Still … we hear the bark of distant guns, voice of a nation that has risen. To defend in honour those things for which we died. We speak to you. Not for ourselves. But of others. Others who are now dedicated to this task. They are the living. They know the fullness and color of life. Remember them. Sacrificed for them. That fewer may join us here. We are the dead. If you would remember us — keep faith with the living.”

This sad world of ours has for nearly four years been enveloped in the gloom and tragedy of war, more bitter and cruel and widespread than any that has preceded.

But now we can detect, here and there, the unfailing signs which indicate that the long night of sorrow is passing and that peace will shed its benign influence over the nations once more. Great blessings are won only by sacrificial endeavor. Peace follows war only when lives are laid down. Death is often the price that is paid for liberty.

The Picton Gazette, speaking for the great body of citizenship, extends sympathy to those parents and other members of families who have by this devastating war being bereaved of loved ones, and who will long for the touch of a vanished hand and the sound of a voice that is still.

At the same time, The Gazette feels that the friends of our fallen heroes will derive comfort and consolation from the certain assurance that their valiant sons will live on in the New Day to be ushered in.

Their devotion, even unto death, to a great cause will not have been in vain. Their memory will be eternally enshrined in the heart and consciousness of that New World where good will and human brotherhood will have replaced the hatred and rapacity of a discredited and defeated idealism.

“Their name liveth forevermore.”