Series 03: John Brady Nash letters, January 1914-December 1915 - Page 293
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[Page 293]
Lieut. Col. Nash replied as follows :–
Mr Director, Christian Brothers, Your senior Student who was so good as to read the address in such first class manner and scholars – To you I return my sincere thanks as an Australian and as an individual.
The parts which your Society of Teachers played in the war of 1870 and 1871 and in this great war, show that though your mission is essentially one of peace, yet when the defence of your country – the best garden of the world, Your fertile France – needs men to fight help, you have been prepared to exchange the teacher's gown for the soldier's uniform, wherein as results have proved, your members have upheld the fighting best traditions of the men of Gaul. It is sad to think that in the so called enlightened age, the twentieth century of the Christian era, the arbitrament of war, "at the heels of which, leashed in like hounds, famine, sword and fire, crouch for employment", should be chosen by those who laid claim to be the exponents of Kultur, to decide an issue 'twixt the peoples of Europe.
Example is stronger than precept holds good to-day, as ever it did adown the lapse of time, and your brethren, gone to the wars, have set a high standard in patriotism whereat your scholars of all ages may look and learn. Bravo! Bravo! Fear not, right will prevail! The blood of Frère Néthelme, and his colleagues, has not flowed in vain, because the outpouring of it has stirred, within the race, desire to do great deeds, which lead to victory.
In the days that are to come another orator for l'Academie Francaise, may have cause to repeat the words of Vicomte de Noailles.
Your community, too, while finding a fair proportion of fighting men has, by placing your schools at the service of the authorities as Hospitals, and sending many thousands of francs to help assuage the suffering of the wounded, kept up the traditions for charity and unselfishness which are the badges of your noble association in various parts of the world. Long may you flourish!
Do you desire me to tell you why tens of thousands of khaki clad men have come from far away Australia, bound for Europe, stopped en route in Egypt? "Yes! Yes!" Well! Because the people of that far away outpost of the British Empire, from their Prime Minister to the humbler in the land, recognised, the moment that Germany threw down th gauntlet, that freedom's sacred cause was menaced by the mailed fist of