The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-10-25
|DR. MACSPORRAN ON
 SOLDIERS. DREAM
Bronze Tablet In Honor of :. Service Men Unveiled at
 Presbyterian Church

A beautiful memorial tablet |of bronze was unveiled yester- day morning at the First Pres byterian Church, containing the "honor roll" of those who had volunteered in the late conflict from this congregation. N
 A simple but beautiful service marked with a brief and happy statement of the activities of the members of this church during the war, made the presentation on behalf of the committee appointed to secure the tablet Dr. J. H. Phillips on behalf of the officers Of the church made the speech of acceptance.
 The subject of Dr. John A. MacSpor- rans sermon fer the morning was The Soldiers Dream" He said in part: We are assembled today to consecrate this hour by a thought and deed of solemn remembrance. We would do all in our power to recover in our own souls and safeguard from the wastage of the years the memory of supremely great and glorious spiritual experience
 Coming generations will covet and prize, above everything else we can be- queath, the permanent records of the great and terrible day of the Lord through which we lived And the prayer of our hearts is that these things we commemorate today will never be forgot ten. It is high time we attended to this important matter. for already, though scarcely two years have passed since the closing act of the war, we have slipped from heights of faith and loyalty and visfon; the glory and the gleam are fad ing; the fires dying and the light failing. This must not be.
 These divine visions were not born to die so soon. They were pegotten at too great a cost. We will remember them because we worship and serve a Master whose spirit bringeth these things to our Remembrance and will not let us forget AT ARMAGEDDON What we do in this church today will have it's counterpart in every other sphere of human life. We will dedicate a me- morial to the men and women of our household who, at the call of their coun- I try and their God, were at Armageddon. But our interest will be solely in the re- | 1igious value and significance of their ex- perience and their deeds
 .The politicians of the world will keep | their records for the lesson it teaches in practical politics. The financiers, the dip- | lomats, the historians, the strategists, the economists, each for their specialized branches But ours will be for the best. for the most holy of all Let others tell | of what our brave soldiers did in camp and field, and set up monuments in every place. But we have another story to tell, another triumph to celebrate, another kind of memorial to set up. The thing | that inspires our reverence and moves our hearts. the thing for which we give grati- tude to God and must pass on to our chil- dren's children is the soldiers dream. l T feel sure that is what our soldiers value most. They are sick of empty words of platform and pulpit patriotism. | No flowers. please, is their earnest wish. They want to forget the awful monotony of hut and trench, the lurd scenes of tor ture. But one thing haunts them that | they would hold fast forever-the dream they had that lifted them above tnem-
 selves, that made them love their com rades and believe it glorious thing tc sacrifice themselves for a cause worth laying for. By this dream they kept their souls alive.
 l DREAM VANISHED
 Then we know what happensd The dream suddenly vanished. It could mol live in the moral and politIcal atmosphere IOl All ol uS WCiC oiodAAuSlOlcd but the soldiers was the bitterest of all He came back leaving his comrades ovel
 there. What was it for? Was 1t all 1T
 vain? What a shock to our faith. wha1 la blow to our ideals, the sordid, seltisf
 grovelling. aftermath of the war has tbeen. We must recover the dream that
 has faded We must raise permanen
 soldiers dream.
 Tt D always tragic to forget oul
 dreams For when the glaring light O.
 common day crowds them out of oul
 souls, when they have been stiffled by
 neglect or murdered by disloyalty, the,
 leave ghosts behind to haunt us. and thu
 world becomes cold and joyless.
 How pathetic are the successes o,
 many men Their success takes thu
 poetry, the religion out of them and leaved
 them disillusioned, worldly wise This Il
 the tragic thing in our world today. W.
 are discouraged. hostile and suspicion.
 because the vision of the ideal has van
 ished
 'The one who can recover our dream.
 and open our eyes again to the glory ant
 the wonder that visited us in the grea hour of destiny is the One who inspired . it. The soldiers dream was his expert
 ence of the presence of the crucified Sor of God, his vision of the Kingdom of jus
 tice and peace and brotherhood, his rec ognition of the power or the cross or th' worlds Saviour. That is why it wa real and precious. and he was persuaded that Christ was leading him.
 "The reason President Wilson stirred the hearts of mankind as they had no ) been moved for centuries was not becaus } oe logic or eloquence. but because the, , interpreted the dreams of the common ), people everywhere.
 ITO the Beloved Captain of the host the Physician by the bed of pain. tn , Saviour who welcomed passing souls, tn
 Inspirer of our visions we turn today ,The same Jesus is showing us the ruire'
 house of our proud civilization that mus be rebuilt if i've will commit ourselve in loyal obedience and redeem the vow we have given.
 '.He is showing how our dreams shal Hive after us and be a memorial as loni : as this old church shall stand
 II Important Discovery
 Glasgow. October LA party of arch I aeologists which have been searching fo | soma ti,,,o in fhe Isle of RiSga in LOG