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It is the first day of the New Year. Last night the Old Year, the saddest and most terrible that the world has ever seen, came to its appointed end.
Five or six miles from where I am writing French and Germans were facing each other in unwonted silence under the dark night in the unending vigil of the trenches. A few days and nights ago the roar of the guns at Hartmannsweilerkopf, at Thann, at Altkirch, at Pfetterhausen, at Moos, was more violent and more continuous than anything that has been heard here since the war began. Now there was not a sound. Only in the last few minutes of 1915 a sudden squall of wind and rain swooped down from a cloudless sky. Moaning and weeping like a suffering child that cannot sleep, like a broken-hearted old man worn out by the anguish of life, the Old Year passed away to make room for the New. To-day in a glorious burst of sunshine, the New has come—and every second the air quivers to the shock of the heavy guns. For the weary fight has begun again. The end is not yet. Perhaps even here, through this peaceful valley, so little removed from the actual field of battle, the German hosts may make their last despairing unavailing effort to reach the heart of France. But they will never reach it. The way is barred by the dead, the uncounted glorious dead whose graves stretch from here to the English Channel in an unbroken line. For their sakes, and the sake of all they fought and died for, France and England can never put up the sword till the victory is won. “Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death isswallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Delémont,January 1st, 1916.
Delémont,January 1st, 1916.
Delémont,January 1st, 1916.
Delémont,
January 1st, 1916.