been allowed to welcome home, recovered or recovering from their wounds or sickness, or whom we may hope thus to welcome—besides some at present missing from the roll, but not unreckoned by the Divine Providence which controls the lives and deaths of all men. Many of those who have served their King and country in the field, including perhaps some who are returning thither, undismayed and undepressed, in the true spirit of patriotic perseverance, to resume their interrupted service, have been honoured by military and other distinctions, which are gained by few, prized by all, and envied by none. We have ourselves no laurels of this kind to add for them and for their comrades, unless they will count as such the tributes of affection from kith and kin and from the commilitium of the piping days of peace, which their valour may, we pray God, help to bring back.
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