"Now, my dear lad, I have a proposal to make to you. We received some money to send things out to the lads at the front, and there is some left. Besides, George sent some home, so that he might get what he wanted sent him without asking if I could afford it, I suppose. Well, I am to send you some little thing every now and then; you are to get another friend and share with him, and you are to make every endeavour short of cowardice (of which you are not capable) to save your life, valuable to all who have the privilege of knowing you, doubly valuable to your mother, and precious to your many friends. We feel we have a personal claim on you, and I am writing you just as I would were you indeed my boy, and we entreat you to bear up, to do your duty, to be a brave and true and Christian lad, and to come back safe to us all. Oh, what a happy day it will be when we welcome you back home!
"We shall always think of you as partly ours; and for what you were to and did for George we will ever bless you. Dear lad, get another friend to lean upon and be leant upon. It is a glorious thing--friendship. You risked your life to try and save George's. God bless you for it. I think He will. If you could read our hearts, you would feel afraid. I cannot write as I would like. It is in my heart, in my brain, but the pen won't put in on the paper. It couldn't. But it is there, a deep love for you, a great admiration for your bravery, and an earnest prayer that you may be preserved to live a happy and useful life for many years to come.
"Mummie wishes me to say how her heart goes out to you, and how she feels for you in your loneliness. Be assured of a place in a good woman's prayers, and be assured also that all of us continue constantly in prayer for you. We did not know how constantly and continually we could petition the Great Father till you lads went away. We will not cease because one needs them no more. Rather we will be more constant, and perhaps that may be one of the results of this war. Think what a power the prayers of a whole world would have with God! If only they were for the one thing--that His Kingdom would come, it would be accomplished at once! May the knowledge of His all-pervading love dwell more and more in the hearts of the people of the world, so that wars and all kindred evils may cease and the hearts of the people be taken up with the one task of living for God and His Kingdom.