Even now he wondered that he could shed no tears.
Rather did an exultant emotion fill his soul as he looked around upon
the little British plot, with its rows of crosses, and he was chiefly
conscious of a solemn, tender pride that he was permitted to share that
glorious offering which his Empire was making for the saving of the
world. But, in this moment, as he stood there alone close to his
father's grave, and surrounded by those examples of high courage and
devotion, he became aware of a mighty change wrought in him during these
last three days. He had experienced a veritable emancipation of soul. He
was as if he had been born anew.
The old sense of failure in his work, the feeling of unfitness for it,
and the old dread of it, had been lifted out of his soul, and not only
was he a new man, but he felt himself to be charged with a new mission,
because he had a new message for his men. No longer did he conceive
himself as a moral policeman or religious censor, whose main duty it
was to stand in judgment over the faults and sins of the men of
his battalion.
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