A Memorial Service in honour of the officers, non-commissioned
officers and men of the 17th Highland Light Infantry, who fell in the
battle of the Somme and elsewhere was held at Glasgow Cathedral, on
July 8th, 1917. Fully 1,200 people were present, and many soldiers of
all ranks were among the congregation, including a number of wounded
men belonging to the Battalion. The "Dead March in Saul" was played at
the commencement, and the service was most impressive throughout. The
preacher was the Rev. A. Herbert Gray, one time Chaplain of the
Battalion, and the service included the anthem, "What are these?" sung
by the choir.
Preaching from the text--"We also are compassed about with so great a
cloud of witnesses," Mr. Gray said: "It must not be to mere mourning
that we give ourselves this afternoon. We are met to recall a very
great page in the history of our city and district. In the year 1916,
the hundreds of young men of whom we are thinking dared to die in a
great cause. Young, strong, and free, full of high hopes and great
purpose, in love with life, and in a hundred ways fitted for mastery
in it, they yet consented to deal with death. A hundred other
ambitions had flushed their hearts, but because humanity called they
laid them all aside and went to the great war. No such life was their
choice, but because it was their destiny they accepted it with a
smile. No compulsion save that of honour constrained them. They were
recruited simply by conscience and the claims of humanity. They made
one of the finest Battalions that ever left these shores, for some of
the very best of the rising generation were in their ranks. And though
they were not soldiers by profession they proved themselves worthy of
a regiment that has traditions of honour as old as the British Army.
"Wherefore, here in God's House, we may well first of all rejoice
concerning them, and give thanks to God who has put so great a spirit
into man. Though tears be in our hearts we must not fail to be proud
and thankful--proud because they were our brothers, and thankful
because they finished their course in faith."
After mentioning the subject of a suitable memorial, and suggesting
that there could be nothing more worthy than the monument of a Britain
turned to God, the preacher concluded with the following impressive
words:--
"From a hundred lonely graves in that foreign land--from the spots
where they fell, and which now are sacred spots for us--our dead are
asking us when we mean to erect that monument. From trench and shell
hole where death found them, their voices call--young, musical voices,
the voices of boys still in their teens, the voices of martyrs on
life's threshold. Scarce a wind can blow that will not waft to you
these voices. And they ask a better Britain as their monument. They
ask it of you and me. Shall we not go from this place resolved to
build it?"