WELCOME.

What a beautiful word is the English word "Welcome!" What a world of

sympathy it expresses! It does not matter whether the welcome comes

from a father, mother, brother, or sister, or from the girl of your

own heart. It is always the same. I have arrived at the time of life

when I can not expect an eye to look brighter when I come, but many

eyes are brighter when they fall on these volunteers who left their

homes, not when they thought the war was over, but in the time of

England's darkest hour. That was the time when our gallant Yeomanry

and Service Companies went to assist their country in its distress.

They went to redeem again the honour of England, which at one moment

looked as if it were rather smirched. They must have seen suffering by

disease and bullet wounds, and in other ways, and must have been

brought face to face with all kinds of distress, and witnessed the

agony of death from disease and bullets. All that tends to make a man

more sympathetic to those whom at other times he might be inclined to

blame.

_Presentation to returned Volunteers (Boer War), Rogerstone,

July 26th, 1901._