What does that
mean? We never meant to invade any Continental country. [Cheers.] That
is the proof of it. If we had we would have started our great armies
years ago. We had a great navy, purely for protection, purely for the
defense of our shores, and we had an army which was just enough to deal
with any small raid that happened to get through the meshes of our navy,
and perhaps to police the empire. That was all, no more. But now we have
to assist neighbors becoming the victims of a power with millions of
warriors at its command, and we have to improvise a great army, and
gallantly have our men flocked to the standard. [Cheers.] We have raised
the largest voluntary army that has been enrolled in any country or any
century--the largest voluntary army, and it is going to be larger.
[Cheers.]
I saw a very fine sample of that army this morning at Llandudno. I
attended a service there, and I think it was about the most thrilling
religious service I have ever been privileged to attend. There were men
there of every class, every position, every calling, every condition of
life. The peasant had left his plow, the workman had left his lathe and
his loom, the clerk had left his desk, the trader and the business man
had left their counting houses, the shepherd had left his sunlit hills,
and the miner the darkness of the earth, the rich proprietor had left
his palace, and the man earning his daily bread had quitted his humble
cottage.
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