With Our Soldiers in France

It has shown us the nation's manhood suddenly stripped of the conventionalities, the restraints, and the outward respectability

aced in the windows of the operating rooms, to guide the surgeon in discovering the hidden

ion it should summon us? In other words, what lessons has the war to teach us? Large numbers of young clergymen and laymen of the churches of England and Scotland have gone to the war zone with the men as chaplains, Y M C A workers, or in the army itself, and have learned

results and findings of this committee are not yet published, the writer has before him the reports of numbers of workers in France. In the base camp where he was last working, the questions were taken up by more than a hundred of the workers and discussed in conferences with groups of the soldiers and officers of the various regiments. These were summarized in find

he men in war time? II. What is their attitude to religion and what is their religious life at the front? I

dical difference between the British and American forces as regards their religious life. As in other thi

ralizations. No two men in the army are precisely alike. All sweeping generalizations are likely to be misleading. Regiments differ from on

s. Of this minority perhaps a half-those who were weak or nominal Christians before the war or have lost the higher standards of peace time or have hidden whatever religion they may have had-would not now be classed as definit

the camp and whose conduct is almost altogether selfish and materialistic. Between these two extremes are the great majority

rs another, which brings suffering to one's fellows or defeat to one's side, is not playing the game. They condemn unmanly actions which bring defeat, and praise the practical and virile virtues. As one chaplain writes: "I believe nearly all live partly by faith in a good God. I have never found men afraid to die, even though they were afraid before battle. As to the standards by which they live, I should say they are the

ty admire in others and practice themselves to a greater

instances in the camps or on the battlefield this rises to heroism or self-sacrifice. Cowardice is scathingly condemned, and the ma

, shows itself in unselfish serv

share their last rations, and to insist that others be attended to on the battlefield before thems

manded; and all cant, hypocrisy, double dealing,

ained by the majority. This is not incompatible with the "grousing" or grumbling which the Englishman regards as

he men-their generosity, kindness, chivalry, patience, and self-sacrifice. The sins which they dislike are those sins of the spirit which Christ d

unconscious virtues of the soldiers than has Donald Hankey, in his chapte

hness, generosity, charity, and humility, without ever connecting them in their minds with Christ; and at the same time what they did associate with Christianity was just on a par with the formalism and smug self-righteousness which Christ spent His whole life in trying to destroy.... The men really had deep-seated beliefs in goodness.... They never connected the goodness in which they believed with the God in Whom

l weaknesses of the soldier in war time, we find

ons under which the men are forced to live, and the policy of the military authorities, who are often concerned merely with the fighting fitness of the men, rather than with the moral issues. However this may be, in nearly every camp or battalion

nkingly and without a full realization of their original meaning. It is also comforting to be assured that there is not much deliberate telling of obscene stories. As one man puts it, "There are few essentially rotten minds." When, however, the name of our Lord is used not only profanely, but dragged into the most obscene and horri

enches, has taught some men to drink who had not contracted the habit before. It is also a fact that the drink bill of England has increased during the war. Lloyd George said: "We are fighting against Germany, Austria, and Drink; but the greatest of these three deadly foes is Drink." The drink trade of England is maintained on the one hand by the powerful v

ry authorities. The game of "House" is tolerated as a mild form of gambling, where the men play for

ed. The sense of personal responsibility and of personal ownership is often weakened. This lack of the sense of private property may partly account for the pilfering which goes on. The men find it exceedingly difficult to take an open stand on

here is a fairly general chaotic unrest, but little or no serious thought. There is a greater tolerance towards vice. Many more men practice sexual vice than before and most refuse to

er who take drink increases greatly. It is wicked, damnably wicked that our lads through ignorance should be allowed to slip into sins which in themselves are deadly, but which also open the door to deadlier sins.... There are many indications t

ed to say that there has been an increase of immorality,

ossible for any single human mind adequately to sum up the good and evil of war, and strike a balance between the two. Most Christians cannot believe that war is in itself good. To those who have seen its hideous reality it is unquestionably a dire evil. Even the best results of war might have been better atta

sequent hardship for the poor which it entails, and the destruction of art, architecture, and the higher material accomplishments of civilization; the outbreak of immorality and drunkenness, which always accompanies war; the hardening of the finer sensibilities of men through the cruelty and barbarit

e results of sin, both personal and national, and the teaching of the terrible lesson that "the wages of sin is death"; the widening of men's horizons, the breaking of old molds, ruts, and restrictions and the opening of men's minds to new ideas; the chastening and mellowing influence of suffering, with its possible development of sympathy, tenderness, and unselfishness; the deepening of the sense of brotherhood within a single nation with the sink

and evil of war. While the good effects of a war are seen more clearly after it is over, certainly during the war the vast majo

ainly ready to listen to a living message and are probably more open than ever before in their lives to religious influences, because of their desperate need. They are between the nether and upper millstones of sin and death. On the one hand they meet the pressure of terrible temptations, and on the other they

n in charge of the religious work in one

were, of their consciousness, are much filled with grumbling and foul language and physical occupations; but beneath lie deep spiritual springs, whence issue their cheerfulness, stubbornness, patience, generosity, humility, and

like House because it requires no thought." However, it would probably be fairer to say that at times all of them think about religion, although they do not talk very much about it. It is not, however, consistent thought leading to action. Rather

first, but rather as a last resort; not as a present Father and constant Friend, but as One to whom they can turn in time of need. They have a vague feeling of unworthiness, although no clear sense of sin. Yet they also have an inarticulate belief or intuition that they have tried, however brokenly or unsuccessfully, to live up to

ve thoughts of home and of loved ones that are sacred. They do not feel that they have come into close personal relations with God, but neither do they consciously feel that they are out of relation with Him. They do not think they are altogether right with Him, but neither do they feel in t

t. Not only will men differ in their judgment, but it is exceedingly difficult to pass judgment upon an individual soldier. He seems to be a different man under different circumstances. In the temptations at the base camp, he would

ch and of memory. He returned from the front with a deep sense of God, but with no personal, vital relationship to Christ. He eagerly welcomed the first real message that went straight to his heart, and the personal word of loving sympathy which le

The war taught him to drink and he finally became a drunkard, but in his extremity he found Christ as a personal Saviour. Next comes the card of a man who had been in a public house for thirty-two years-twenty-seven years as a bar tender and five years as a saloon keeper. He said, "I have sent men to

Thousand Soldiers i

ust lay there, feeling strangely peaceful. Above him he could see the stars. All this bloodshed-what was the good of it? He suddenly felt terribly small and lonely, and he was so very, very weak. "God!" he whispered softly. "God everywhere!" Then into his tired brain came a new phrase-"Underneath are the everl

his life for his friends." But such a passage cannot be taken out of its context either in Christ's teaching or in the man's own life. Our Lord had said that we were to love even as He loved, that is, out of a pure and surrendered heart to lay down our life for our friends; and He added, "Ye are my friends if ye do the th

possible to realize that many a man is unconsciously more of a Christian than he knows, and

or his interpretation of the feeling

at was hit, it was an occasion for tenderness and grief. But if one of them was hit, O Death, where is thy sting? O Grave, where is thy victory?... Life? They did not value life! They had never been able to make much of a fist of it. But if they lived amiss they died gloriously, with a smile for the pain and the dread of it. What else had they been born for? It was their chance. With a gay hea

of God is sometimes taken on their lips in profanity, there is often a deep reverence for Him. Thousands have seen the cross of Christ standing among the ruins in the villages of Belgium and Northern France, when all about seems to be battered and wrecked. The old skeptical theories and captious criticisms of pre-war days are little heard during this awful time. Gen

rcome. They admire the virtues of courage, generosity, and purity, but for the most part they see no connection between these and the presentation of Christ in the lives and words of those about them who profess to be Christians. What is needed is personally

. I am convinced that of the hundreds of men who go into action the majority come out affected towards good rather than coarsened. They come out reali

they admired, that He was their natural hero. I would tell them some story of heroism and meanness contrasted, of courage and cowardice, of noble forgiveness and vile cruelty, and so get them on the side of the angels. Then I would try and spring it upon them that Christ

I

blishment of the Kingdom of God on earth, we all are, or ought to be, members of the Church. "With charity for all and with malice toward none," we see no ground for self-complacence on the part of any branch of the Church, and no part of it which deserves sweeping condemnation from the rest. Doubtless it will seem to many that it is unwise to confess our faults, but the m

ally related to any of the Christian communions. A series of conferences held with individuals and carefully selected groups of men and

athize with the social and industrial disabilities of the men. They feel that the ideals of life for which the Church stands are dull, dim, and altogether unnatural; its standard of comfort and complacent respectability makes no appeal to them and they have no part or lot in it. They

ion to life as they know it, either in peace or war. There is the deeper and sadder fact that to a very large proportion of them God Himself means little or nothing, or means something that is very unchristian. Whe

They believe that its message and presentation of truth are often too feminine and impractical and that its fellowship is too cold and exclusive. They do not understand the vocabulary and

ganizations working in the camps has brought many of the men into vital contact with religion for t

conceive. But they feel that somehow the churches do not adequately represent Christ, that they have become merely the adjunct of the State to second its schemes and aims. Many feel that the Church ha

ou at home. Are we to return home where the spiritual fires have been kept burning brightly, or to the blackened ashes of those great ideals of the early days of August, 1914, which have burned themselves o

of men? There must be more known about suffering and sacrifice now in the hearts of men than at any past time. I thought once, on the Somme, that the two races facing

lves in the wide interests of His Kingdom, instead of concern for the winning of the world and humanity as a whole, the aims of many of the churches are petty, narrow, exclusive, and sectarian. T

le we were proceeding through one of the wards, the Nonconformist chaplain came by. The writer was speaking to a poor boy who was dying. The chaplain seemed shocked and surprised that we were speaking to one of his patients without his permission. The young Episcopal chaplain explaine

fully prevented the holding of any Christian services whatsoever, Catholic or Protestant. Throughout the entire war we have never known of a single instance of any man trying to proselytize or to divert a soldier from allegiance to his own church. We have know

this it would give an unfair advantage to his work as his particular organization would get the credit, and that he, as the chaplain, must "push his own show." To continue in the words of our friend: "Then I asked him if I could send the fruit through the lady workers or the hut orderlies, or the 'Tommies' who were friends of the wounded. But he refused all. So I asked him if he would distribute them if I gave them. This he agreed to, and I have sent them to him since then. But he is too busy." The oranges were not distributed, and our friend concludes: "I am out against the whole principle on which he acts. I don't think he is much to be blamed. He is one of the best; a keen, hard-working, pleasant man, z

cretary was so obviously "out for his own show," and had become so engrossed in the counter of his dry canteen and his work as a money-changer, that he had forgotten all the higher interests of the men, and the high purpose for which he was

The saddest religious spectacle the writer ever witnessed was in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, where five chapels divide that sacred spot where our Lord is supposed to have been crucified, occupied by five bodies, each claiming to be the church. The blood o

ar zone. If it should claim the credit for itself as though it were a wholly independent organization, rather than the united work of the churches which have sunk their own differences to make possible this common work, this would be only a manifestation of the same spirit and more inexcusable

chaplains in France who has himself been in the ranks says: "I feel that in the past churches have been more anxious to get men into the Kingdom of the Church than into the Kingdom of God, with the result that very many are Pillars of the Church who are not near to the Kingdom. Out of the two battalions which I have known

our bringing in the Kingdom of love and peace, which Christ came to establish, does not the war write in flaming judgment against us, "Thou art weighed in the balances and fo

his lectures at Shef

his continent? It is the 'Kaiser' in each one of us that makes wars possible. It is because we have in every nation, and in every class, multitudes of men and women who neglect the service of their fellow-creatures in a desire for self-indulgence and self-aggrandizement, tha

sk of the Church, no one can deny that the State has done its work far better than the Church. In the face of this, the most pathetic spectacle that the Christian world ever witnessed, must we not wring

flaw in our enemy, we can recognize this spirit most readily if we look for it first in Germany, but in doing so let us clearly recognize that every quotation can be paralleled by the press both secular and religious on our own side of the conflict. In all fairness let us state that a large proportion of the sermons which hav

storialrat Dietrich Vorwerk, there occurred the following paraphrase of the Lord's Prayer: "Though the warrior's bread be scanty, do Thou work daily death and tenfold woe unto the enemy. Forgive in merciful long-suffering each bullet and each blow which misses its mark! Lead us not into the temptation of lettin

s of Pastor H. Franc

ghest morality, of the purest humanity, of the most chastened Christianity. They envy us our freedom, our power to do our work in peace. To heal the world by the German nature is to become a blessing to the people of the earth. Wherever the German spirit obtains supremacy, there freedom prevails. Here we come upon the old intimate kinship between the essence of Chris

mp writes in t

ds Russia, inwardly rotten, mouldering, masking its disease under outbursts of brutality. Germany shall be the Israel of the future. The Germans are guiltless, and from all sides testimonies are flowing in as to the noble manner in which our

well.[4] The Archbishop of Canterbury says: "I get letters in which I am urged to see to it that we insist upon 'reprisals, swift, b

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estant, Lutheran and Reformed, of the enemy and of the Allies, at last united in one mess

flood tide of impurity and immorality which war has brought in its train; with the barbarism and cruelty, poison gas, flaming oil, and organized destruction used at present on the battlefields of Europe, is it not time for the Church to set her own house in order, to humble herself with shame in the very dust for her criminal impotence and worldliness and sin, and to return to her crucified

y that failed, it was slavery.... This, too, is a climactic day in history. For so long time the Gospel and war have lived together in ignoble amity! If at last disharmony between the spiri

rds of Admiral Sir David Beatty, the Commander of the British Fleet, "England still remains to be taken out of her stupor of self-satisfaction

fficiency, that the State has put into this war could be thrown into the cause of the Kingdom and of the eternal verities, the world would soon be won. If Christians would but follow Christ, war, as an unbelievably brutal and barbarous anachronism, like its former savage contemporaries

earted, No," "Though Your Heart May Ache Awhile Never Mind," etc. Then there are the songs of home: "Keep the Home Fires Burning," "Tipperary," "Take Me Back to Dear Old Blighty," "Put Me on the Train to London Town," "Back Home in Tennessee," "In My Old Kentucky Home," "The

l expression of a soldier's new e

rrah and Halleluj

n this connection some words of

Times, Ju

f the Present Crisis