AN ADMIRABLE suggestion has been made to the Daily Mail by Lady Troubridge, that there should be erected in each of our village churchyards a cross or crucifix of English stone in special memory of the soldiers and sailors who had left that place for the war and died for their country. “Will not some influential men and women,” her ladyship asks, “take up this suggestion and foster it, so that we might have the comfort of seeing before our eyes in the dreamy peace of our English villages a visible reminder of the heroes who died to keep them so peaceful, and of the Redeemer Who exalted death for the good of a friend as the one supreme sacrifice?” We quote Lady Troubridge’s words, because this beautiful idea of hers could not have been more beautifully presented. There is but one point in regard to which we venture to criticize her proposal. She proposes that granite should be the material used, but, apart from the fact that many people dislike it for its glittering hardness, it would be out of place in most churchyards. Rather the cross should be made of local stone if suitable, or of wood where that is abundant and much in use. Otherwise, we have nothing but praise for Lady Troubridge’s proposal, which has this additional merit, that it would spare us from the terrible unsightliness with which the desire to put wax memorials into the churches threatens us. The simplest and humblest of churchyard crucifixes would always look seemly, which is more than can be said concerning most other forms of memorial.

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