CHURCH AND WAR

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2486, 12 June 1915, Page 13

CHURCH AND WAR

CLERGY SONS AT THE FRONT SOME STRIKING FACTS A TERMINUS OR A JUNCTION? At the annual meeting of St. John's School, Leatherhead—the largest clergy eons' institution in. Britain—some remarkable figures of old boys in the Army and Navy were given. Only two boys over eighteen are now in the school, and both are waiting for commissions. _ The first Naval officer to die for his country in the war was an old boy, and between three and four hundred of the old pupils are now holding commissions in the services, 'l'heir number is increasing every day. No day passes without the sons of the clergy appearing in the casualty lists. They are bearing their part nobly (says the "Soottish Chronicle"), and probably boys from clerical homes are serving King and country in proportionately greater numbers than the sons of any other professional class. This spirit of patriotism is not a Bource of tvonder to those whd know the type, and is a reply to the loose talk about olergymen's sons. When one turns out badly much is made of hia offence, because everyone thinks he should be n saint. No one thinks it worth while to recall the great number that do well. They are forgotten on account of their | so-called advantages making it natural for them to succeed I The lists of killed and wounded show that our rectories and vicarages are as fruitful in production of true patriotism as thev have ever been. The record for the Presbyterian Manses of Scotland is equally remarkable. and statements which have appeared from time to time indicate that many sons of the Nonconformist olergy are also serving their country at the front. The following paragraph from Canada appears in the "British Weekly": "Berlin, Out,, April 6. —Of a congregation of fewer than 250 of St. John's Anglican Churoh here, sixty-five men have enlisted in the overseas contingents. The announcement was made by the rector." The "British Weekly's" correspondent asks, "Have you any ohurches that can beat this record?" KILLED IN ACTION. A TALK IN A TRAIN. The Rev. J. Morgan Gibbon, in an article in the "Daily News," entitled "Faith—And Hope," writes:— "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy-" That cautious admission of mysteries might pass in Sh&kepeare's time, but, aB Maeterlinck says, the famous linos have long since become utterly inadequate. "There are no longer more things than our philosophy can dream of or imagine; there are none but things which it cannot dream of: there is nothing but the unimaginable. The bride of a week old is made a widow in a moment, and all the world is ohanged for her by a shot in Flanders. But there must be a catch somewhere. "Killed in aotion" does not cover the immense fact. What we see of death must be less than half, the truth, lien have, always been haunted by the thought of that other hemisphere; there is more faith in the world than we think. TertuUian wrote his famous es. say, "De Testimonio Animae," to show that even among men who ranked themselves as unbelievers there was a great quantity of faith in solution, which precipitated daily in speech and conduct. He deolared that a oreed could be drawn up out of the expression in current use. "If anyone inquires about a person lately dead, it occurs at once to say, 'He is gone.'" That was in the second century. A fortnight ago I heard the words in a third-class carriage on a suburban line. My fellow-traveller, a working man, said to a friend on the platform, "My brother is dead." "Gone, is he?" was the reply. "Yes, ho went yesterday afternoon." When the train proceeded. I said to him. "I like your way of speaking about the dead." "What do you mean, Mißter?" he asked. "Well, you say that your brother went yesterday afternoon. That sounds as if he had made a new beginning rather than an end of life." "Ah, well," he said, "he's dead to thiß world, anyhow, poor fellow 1" "But surely not," I said. "He is not dead to you nor to your friend at the Station back there; and as for me, ho never lived at all for me till to-day. I never heard of him, and even now I don't know his name; but I am immensely interested in him, and from my heart I wish him well on his journey." "Nobody ever came back to tell ub about those things," he said. "Sure of that?" I asked. "I how what you are driving at. Well, only Him, then." "Come," I said, "iB 'only' quite the word there?" With this the train drew in to a fresh station. "Well, so long," eaid my friend. "I get out here." "You are at the end of your journey, then?" "No! No I I have a goodish way to go yet!" "Perhaps he has. too!" I cried after him, by way of having .the last word. Thus, from and before the days of Tertullian men have spoken of death' as a going. If a man die, shall he live again P What if death be the condition of'his living? What if he must, leave tho train in order to continue his journey? The alternative supposition that death is a terminus, not a junction, is, on the face of it, far too credible to be true. There is a greater depth in things than that comes to. I believe with Stevenson in the ultimate decency of things. I hold with Walt Whitman that There is nothing but immortality. All preparation is for it. And identity is for it! And life and death are altogether for itl There is a oatofh somewhere, THE FATEFUL TELECRAM. WOMEN WHO WAIT AT HOME. . "What about the women at home who wait for tho footfall of the telegraph boy who may bring tho dreaded telegram?" said tho Bishop of London, speaking to the City Temple Literary Society, and reported in the "Christian Commonwealth." "I cannot tell you bow I feel for those mothers and wives and sisters. 1 do what I can for tliem. They como to see me and I go to see them. What those women want is fortitude: nothing but. that will carry them through. And think of the mothers wlio have had the fateful telegram. In one day T saw six, each of whom had lost, a bright young son. Two women came to nie one afternoon, each of whom lind lost, husband, brother, and son. On my way to one of my Lent services I railed on a lady who ill twelve months bad lost husband, daughter, and three s<>ns. "On Monday," added the Bishop, "f 3aw tweiitv-two men just homo from (lie war, blinded for life, their eyes shot out —young men. strong young men. men in the Guards. Wo have gathered them out of their homes, and that lovely place. St. Dmist.m's. Regent Park, I has. hern Hone up for them, We are peine ro li.r-'e Ihem taught various fVad< , .'i evcrvthina the blind lAii-it. tt is what th^

blii>d oan do. One of tliem is an expert ealn/on fisher, and even plays golf. AT M'ONS, THE AISNE, AND YPREB. The jjpeedhea of Bislwp Taylor Smith, CliaplaiVrGcueval to tho Forces, and the Rev. R. Saillons, D.D., the distinguished I Vouch prencher, rnndo a deep jmpression at tno annual meeting of the Religious Tract Society held in London recently'.. The Ohaplain-General held in his h.wd a pravor-oard—one of a million circulated under his direction —T'hioh had Wen at Mons, the Aisne, and Ypreß. It was dcfaccd and dirty, and had come back to him from tho trenches. The man who gave it to the Biehop said, "It did all that it was meant to do for me." "I feel sure," said the Bishop, "i\hat if the grateful readers of tho literature sent out by the society could send a message it »vould be this 'It did 1 all that it ivas meant to do for me.' " Dr. Saillens, whose charm of manner won all hearts, said this was hia first opportunity to express in publio his \Mianks for all the good work that the society has done in France during tho past years. In speaking of the war, Dr. Saillens said that the churches in France are crowded. "I mean, of cottrse, all the churches wherever services are held." PRAYER BEFORE ACTION. Admiral Sir George Eing Hall, speaking at the annual meetii.g of tho Religious Tract Society, said that as a naval officer he wished to say how very much they appreciated what was being done by the Society for the Na?y and tie mercantile marine. The war had linked the two Services up in a close fellowship and companionship which he did aot suppose they ever Bad before. The speaker mentioned that in tie Bight .of Heligoland fight a young officer in the oonning tower called his meii together and they had prayer befcre they fired the first shot. THE LECION OF HONOUR. The Abbe Henri Orgeval, who is a diocesan missionary belonging to Paris, and is at present acting as a military chaplain, has been made a Chetalier of the Legion of Honour. The reason is thus officially tet forth:—"He remained three days in a bombarded village in order to give the assistance of his ministry to the wounded. Ever at the most exposed points he helped to maintain at the highest level the moral of the troop with, which lie is and has inspired them with the greatest admiration of him." THE PRINCIPAL CHAPLAIN. "It may seem curious (says the Bishop of London) that a Presbyterian should be the principal chaplain, when about three-quarters of the chaplains were Church of England, but it really answered very well. Dr. Simme is a man who has served all over the world, and is universally loved and ed.""I AM READY." In a touching letter to his mother, & young seminarist of the diocese of Evreux, who is at the front, writes: — "Oortainly I suffer both physically and morally in tho trenches; but I am glad of it, for it is for God and for France that I suffer. I am quite ready to die for my country, at once, if need be. So far God protected me and many others; but if it should please Him to take me I am ready, for my life and liberty are His. Be reidy, then, chere maman, for the sacrifice of never seeing me again. Bo my example; it is no time for weakness; you must show yourself at the full leignt of the situation. God will bless us by giving ns victory in th 6 ond." "THEIR KNAVISH TRICKS." A motion to have the third verse of "CFod Save the King" printed in the ; hymnal waß carried, with eleven dissentients, by the Church of Ireland Synod. Dean Ovenden said when he heard of the Buhmarino dodga of Admiral Tirpitz he priyed with all his heart that "their knavish trioks" might bo confounded.