One August morning I was in the wheat fields near Roye. Somewhere in
that field the body of a noble American boy was lying. He was a graduate
of the University of Virginia; his mother and his sister had a host of
friends in my old home city, Chicago. Guided by a white-haired priest,
out in the wheat we found at last a little mound with a part of a broken
airplane lying thereupon. I pulled the rest of his machine upon his
grave and learned that when the French boys picked him up they found
that four explosive bullets had struck him while flying in the air after
his victory over many German enemies.
With my knife I cut a sheaf of golden grain and an armful of scarlet
poppies and said a prayer for the boy and his mother and his sister.
Standing there in the rain I wrote a letter to those who loved him,
saying: "When you see this head of wheat, say to yourself 'One grain
going into the ground shall in fifteen summers ripen into bread enough
to feed sixteen hundred millions of the family of men.' When you look at
this pressed poppy, say, 'His blood like red rain went to the root to
make the flowers crimson and beautiful for all the world; soon the
fields of France shall wave like a Garden of God, and peace and plenty
shall dwell forever there. "Without shedding of blood there is no
remission." Wine means the crushing of the grapes. At great price our
fathers bought Liberty.'"
Two thousand years ago Cicero, sobbing above the dead body of his
daughter Tullia, exclaimed: "Is there a meeting place for the dead?"
What becomes of our soldier boys who died on the threshold of life? This
is life's hardest problem. Where is that young Tullia so dear to that
gifted Roman orator? Where is that young musician Mozart? Where is young
Keats? And where is Shelley? And where are young McConnell and Rupert
Brooke and young Asquith? And ten thousand more of those young men with
genius. Where also is that young Carpenter of Nazareth, dead at thirty
years of age?
The answer is in this: They have passed through the black waters and
have come into the summer land. There they have been met by the heroes
coming out with trumpets and banners to bring them into a world
unstained by the smoke and din of battle. There they will write their
books, invent their tools, complete their songs and guide the darkling
multitudes who come in out of Africa, out of the islands of the sea,
into the realm of perfect knowledge, love and peace.