RELIGION IN FRANCE

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2600, 23 October 1915, Page 2

RELIGION IN FRANCE

"IT MAKES YOU THINK."

Priests and students of the Roman Catholic Churoh in Franco by the thousand are with the colours; ministcrs and' students of t'he Protestant Churches are serving in eqnal propertioa. and of those remaining all are moro or lass engaged in active seivico, either in ministering to tho soldiers fi"hting, to tho wounded, to the families of tho men at the front-, or prov.dinjr for tho "broken 111 til 6 war and the widows and orphans. On® comi)ensation for the cruel Bunonngs or the war will most certainly bo the re- • nioval of a vast amount of prejudice against chnrchos, priests, aud ministers, and the turning of the hearts of men who havo been daily facing tho dread possibility of death, and the stricken hearts of the bereaved, towards faith in God and the consolations that only roligion can give. A French journalist, M. Paul Pansy, has stated that soldiers marching through villages and hearing the sound of tbe churchbolls have doffed their caps with a novel reverence, • long-latent religious feeling being revived. Professor Paul Passy of tbe University of Paris— w i w said tho similarity of name led to himself and tho journalist being often credited with each other's publications —told mo' he had talked with many soldiers, wounded or on leave, from tho who when_ tho war began wore confessed agnostics and strongly prejudiced against religion. Ofton tlieso men havo said to him, "Monsieur when you aro looking straight, into the eyes of death, it makes you think. A man is not so certain that there'is nothing in roliigdn. If he falls, is that to bo tho ond of it? May there not, after all, bo a God and something beyond?"—" Christian 'World."