GUNNER JOHN ALDER CHESHIRE
ROYAL GARRISON ARTILLERY
5TH JUNE 1917 AGE 24
BURIED: VLAMERTINGHE MILITARY CEMETERY, BELGIUM
The meaning of the inscription is clear - John Cheshire was too young when he died. There is however a stronger meaning than this: it is against nature for the young to die before their time, as it would be if the sun really did set before the end of the day.
The inscription is adapted from Jeremiah 15:9, but the bible says, "her sun is gone down while it was yet day". "Her" in this context is Jerusalem, which has fallen to the Babylonians as a consequence of the city's loose living. Moralists like the Baptist preacher, Joseph Belcher (1794-1859), warned,
"Let the blooming youth who may honour these pages with a perusal, remember that "his sun may go down while it is yet day" and let him seek, therefore, to be favoured with the genial influence of that moral sun which never sets".
There is no implication that John Cheshire was not guided by "that moral sun" before his death but rather that he was in the full bloom of his youth when he was cut down.