Show f HOME SWEET HOME NOTHING IN THE RECORDS of or the war department t Is more pitiful than the recent statement that tea ten officers and enlisted men have killed them then themselves themselves selves In the Philippines because bec use of home madness These men were not good soldiers for in their hurried exits from the stage of life they deprived their country of good fighting arms but shall we sorrow for them less lesson on n that account Think what it means to be on duty day after day month after month in an isolated post in a foreign landl l nd Think what it means to see only the black faces races o ot or treacherous natives to suffer with the fevers that infest the tropics to live days as like Uke to one another as leaves leav c a giant oak Then blame if you can the men who died because e they could endure the home madness ma ness no longer These soldiers so lers were killed by nostalgia as surety surely sUr 1 as any man or woman or child who who has passed away anay hia in lit ina lita a foreign country murmuring g words of home Somewhere in every human heart Is implanted the love lo of home It may be a cabin set setup up in a clearing It may maybe maybe maybe be a stately home on a wide plantation a great house in ina ina a city a shelter by the wayside It matters not what the exterior or the interior may be if it t is home the heart of the traveler yearns for it he sees se S it In his dreams he heis heis is Js ever e er telling himself what he will do 10 when he goes home again You Tou have bave heard the young man only a few years Jears per perhaps perhaps haps out of the home net nw t say with a cheap attempt at wit My home Is wherever who er I hang up my hat But in his bis heart of hearts he be knows bettor for in a breath o ot of fragrance from flowers flowers in the sight ight oC or a 1 face he thought was lost to memory memo he finds His native home deep in his soul There Is r no maudlin sentiment in this love of home The wanderer whose heart does not throb at sudden i of his boyhood his mother his home home does not u t deserve a home a mother And so we get back to the poor fellows who found the agony of homesickness greater than they could bear They too dreamed of the homes far away across the sea They dreamed of or moth mothers mothers mothers ers wives sweethearts children loved ones of all de degrees d grees gree In Jn the tropic nights they lay Jay awake with wide eyes staring at the ceiling but seeing no ceiling seeing nothing but the picture of the old home And with no no relief reBel for lor or their agony hoping that God would would be b merciful ul they loosed the cons colls and sought the only home It t lay In theIr poor po r power to find Whether they the did receive a welcome in ill the place of ot many mansions or whether they th y passed into a sweet dreamless sleep no mat man can tell teU We can at least leest believe they are ar are at rest which Is Isto to say at home for home is rest v r |