I envy you young people your opportunity.  They have put up the age limit for the army, but I am sorry to say I have marched a good many years even beyond that.  It is a great opportunity, an opportunity that only comes once in many centuries to the children of men.  For most generations sacrifice comes in drab and weariness of spirit.  It comes to you today, and it comes today to us all, in the form of the glow and thrill of a great movement for liberty, that impels millions throughout Europe to the same noble end. [Applause.] It is a great war for the emancipation of Europe from the thralldom of a military caste which has thrown its shadows upon two generations of men, and is now plunging the world into a welter of bloodshed and death.  Some have already given their lives.  There are some who have given more than their own lives; they have given the lives of those who are dear to them.  I honor their courage, and may God be their comfort and their strength.  But their reward is at hand; those who have fallen have died consecrated deaths.  They have taken their part in the making of a new Europe—­a new world.  I can see signs of its coming in the glare of the battlefield.

The people will gain more by this struggle in all lands than they comprehend at the present moment. ["Hear, hear!”] It is true they will be free of the greatest menace to their freedom.  That is not all.  There is something infinitely greater and more enduring which is emerging already out of this great conflict—­a new patriotism, richer, nobler, and more exalted than the old. [Applause.] I see among all classes, high and low, shedding themselves of selfishness, a new recognition that the honor of the country does not depend merely on the maintenance of its glory in the stricken field, but also in protecting its homes from distress. ["Hear, hear!”] It is bringing a new outlook for all classes.  The great flood of luxury and sloth which had submerged the land is receding, and a new Britain is appearing.  We can see for the first time the fundamental things that matter in life, and that have been obscured from our vision by the tropical growth of prosperity. ["Hear, hear!”]

“The Vision.”

May I tell you in a simple parable what I think this war is doing for us?  I know a valley in North Wales, between the mountains and the sea.  It is a beautiful valley, snug, comfortable, sheltered by the mountains from all the bitter blasts.  But it is very enervating, and I remember how the boys were in the habit of climbing the hill above the village to have a glimpse of the great mountains in the distance, and to be stimulated and freshened by the breezes which came from the hilltops, and by the great spectacle of their grandeur.  We have been living in a sheltered valley for generations.  We have been too comfortable and too indulgent, many, perhaps, too selfish, and the stern hand of fate has scourged us to an elevation where we can see the great everlasting things that matter for a nation—­the