Revs. Peel, Gooderham and Beresford, D.S.O. 247 



" Seven months as chaplain in the regiment of which he was 

 in command have left an indelible impression upon my mind of 

 one who had a tremendous sense of duty, and I had a great 

 admiration for his personal intrepidity, his passionate love for 

 the honour of his regiment, and his strenuous life. Yet with it 

 all was his sensibility of the fact that he was a priest of the 

 Catholic Church. 



" His personal fearlessness was the continued astonishment 

 and anxiety of his officers, for (though bearing already two 

 wound-stripes on his arm) he never showed the slightest trace of 

 fear, and if possible preferred to walk across the open to the 

 trenches rather than up a communication trench. I have 

 known him stand on the facades of a front line and talk to his 

 men. It is surely a striking fact and a lesson to some of us that 

 he always found time to say Matins and Evensong, and would 

 walk miles with me to the different companies on Sunday." 



He died October 26, aged forty-two years. 



Once when speaking to a friend not far from where he fell, 

 he said, " People so often attend church for what they can 

 get out of it— a good sermon, you know, or good music. If only 

 they came to give instead of to get ! You, for instance, who 

 complain that the service is dull, why don't you take something 

 with you to make it brighter — cheerfulness, thankfulness, 

 humility, any kind of virtue would help ; it would make all the 

 difference if you went to give instead of to get." 



Mr. Le Mesurier in the Parish Magazine, soon after Colonel 

 Beresford's death, spoke tenderly of him. He felt his death very 

 much and liked to think some of the happiest years of his dead 

 friend's life had been spent with him in Westerham. Those 

 years numbered fifteen — quite a slice out of a man's life. In 

 the magazine the vicar said Colonel Beresford was the " soul of 

 honour." 



The Bishop of Rochester said, " Would that I had a 

 Beresford in every parish in the diocese." 



This soldier-priest, a D.S.O. and having been mentioned in 

 despatches, lies in the Gwalia British Cemetery at Elverdinghe, 

 near Poperinghe, and from this quiet resting-place there comes 

 across the sea his last message, " Carry on." 



