The Army and Navy Hymnal/Orders of Worship/Service of Commemoration

Layout 2

XIV.Service of Commemoration

In Memoriam Service for		Decoration Day
		Patriots Day

Hymn Prelude No. 156 God of Our Fathers (Standing)

I. OUR DAY OF MEMORY

Call to Worship (Read responsively)
Renewed this day be all noble memories,
All high and holy traditions of the past.
Remembered be our Fathers, who founded the nation in integrity and piety,
And died in faith, not having received the promises, but seeing them afar off.

All:
The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.

Choral Response

Where loyal hearts and true Stand ever in the light,
All rapture through and through, In God's most holy sight. A-men

All:	Who through faith	$\scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right.}$	subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, waxed mighty in war, turned to flight armies of aliens.
	Seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of wit­nesses, let us run with patience the race that is set before us.

Choral Response
Where loyal hearts and true
Stand ever in the light,
All rapture through and through,
In God's most holy sight. Amen.
Assembly
We need not go to Mecca or to Palestine to find the Holy Land.
The soul of man can transfigure earth and make it holy ground.
Sacred are the Mount of Olives and the Garden of Gethsemane;
Sacred the field of Thermopylae and the Town Common at Lexington;
Sacred are Plymouth Rock and Bunker Hill.
All are sacred because they bear the stamp of man's immortal soul. James Freeman Clark

II. MAKING DEATH SIGNIFICANT

Hymn No. 9 Abide with Me

I fear no foe, with thee at hand to bless:
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.
Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if thou abide with me.
Hold thou thy cross before my closing eyes,
Shine through the gloom, and point me to the skies;
Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee;
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me. Amen. (Seated)

Leader:
'Why fear death? It is the most beautiful adventure that life gives us.'

For all the boundless universe
Is life there are no dead. Bulwer Lytton

We make too much of the circumstances men call death.
All life is one. All service one, be it here or there. Alice Freeman Palmer

The whole race reaches new heights in the breast of some simple hearted soldier, who so loves life that he has much to give, but so loves his country and his cause that he freely gives it all. Ralph Barton Perry

To die for truth is not to die for one's country, but to die for the world. Jean Paul Richter

That no one who has died for a great cause is ever wasted, that the only right expression of grief is a fresh self-dedication to the cause the loved one loved, is an attitude toward loss that may well pass from the army of warriors to that greater army of civilians. Winifred Kirkiand

Hymn No. 183 For All the Saints
Thou wast their rock, their fortress, and their might;
Thou, Lord, their captain in the well-fought fight;
Thou, in the darkness drear, their one true light.
Alleluia.

O May thy soldiers, faithful, true, and bold,
Fight as the saints who nobly fought of old,
And win with them the victor's crown of gold.
Alleluia. Amen.

III. THE CLOUD OF WITNESSES

All:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.
Leader:
That other generations might possess —
From shame and menace free in years to come —
A richer heritage of happiness,
He marched to that heroic martyrdom. Alan Seeger
Assembly:
One by one Death challenged them. One by one they smiled in his grim visage, and refused to be dismayed. They had been lost, but they had found the path that led them home ; and when at last they laid their lives at the feet of the Good Shepherd, what could they do but smile? Donald Hankey
Leader:
Lord, thou didst suffer more for me
Than all the hosts of land and sea.
So let me render back again
This millionth Of thy gift. Joyce Kilmer
Assembly:
Patriotism is not enough; I must have no hatred or bitterness toward any One. Edith Cavell (just before her execution)
All:
To you from falling hands we throw the torch - Be yours to hold it high;
If ye break faith with us who die,
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow, In Flanders Fields.John McCrae

IV. BLESSED ARE THEY THAT MOURN

Hymn No. 182Hark, Hark, My Soul
Hark, hark, my soul! angelic songs are swelling
O'er earth's green fields and ocean's wave-beat shore:
How sweet the truth those blessed strains are telling
Of that new life when sin shall be no more !

Angels of Jesus, angels of light,
Singing to welcome the pilgrims of the night! Amen.
Assembly:
I am the resurrection and the life ;
He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live,
Whosoever believeth in me shall never die.
Leader:
God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes;
There shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying,
Neither shall there be any more pain.
Assembly:
Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.
All:
Be worthy of your noble dead,
So shall your hearts be comforted.
He is not lost who goes before
But standing in the Open Door,
He waits you there with outstretched hands,
Love's dearest, best ambassador.

V. HOLD HIGH THE TORCH

Leader:
Because you live, though out of sight and reach,
I will, so help me God, live bravely, too,
Taking the road with laughter and gay speech,
Alert, intent to give life all its due. Winifred Letts
Lincoln's Speech at Gettsyburg
Leader:
Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Assembly:
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether- that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.
Leader:
We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live.
Assembly:
It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground.
Leader:
The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract.
Assembly:
The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
Leader:
It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.
Assembly:
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us : that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion:
That we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
prayer
Hymn, 153 Beautiful for Spacious Skies

1 O beautiful for spacious skies, For amber waves of gram, For purple mountain majesties Above the fruited plain! America! America! God shed his grace on thee, And crown thy good with brotherhood, From sea to shining sea!

2 O beautiful for pilgrim feet, Whose stern, impassioned stress A thoroughfare for freedom beat Across the wilderness! America! America! God mend thine every flaw, Confirm thy soul in self-control. Thy liberty in law! Amen-

The Bugle Echoes Shrill and Sweet
(WALTHAM L.M.)
Sergeant Joyce Kilmer*		J. Baptiste Calkin, 1872

1. The bugle ech oes shrill and sweet,
   But not of war it sings today ;
   The road is rhythmic with the feet
   Of men at arms who come to pray,
   
2. The roses blossom white and red,
   On tombs where weary soldiers lie ;
   Flags wave above the honored dead,
   And martial music cleaves the sky.
   
3. Above their wreath-strewn graves we kneel,
   They kept the faith and fought the fight,
   Through flying lead and crimson steel,
   They plunged for Freedom and the Right,
   
4. May we, their grateful children,learn
   Their strength, who lie beneath this sod,
   Who went through fire and death to earn
   At last the accolade of God.
   
5. In shining rank on rank arrayed,
   They march, the legions of the Lord ;
   He is their Captain unafraid,
   The Prince of Peace who brought a sword.
   A-men.

* Sergeant Joyce Kilmer, 165th Infantry, A. E. F., killed in Action July 30, 1918, near the Ourcq River, while observing the German positions for the Intelligence Division.