"A SOLDIER'S PRAYER."

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

"A SOLDIER'S PRAYER."

The following verses, entitled "A Soldier's Prayer," wcro writton in pencil by tho late Captain Thomas Maunsell on healing that his younger brother had been killed in action in France. I'hs yarses .were foyid shortly, after-

wards on his dead body at the Dardanp dies. His comrades laid him in & soldier's grave by the seashore, and sent his pocket-book to his father, Genoral- Maunsell:— Hark! 'Tis the sound of drums Heating in muffled tonos, Hare thou thy head! Death in tho midst of life, Peace in tho midst of strife, Honour tho'dead I Killed in the battle's heat, So is it right and meet, Grand such release! No need to shed a tear Over his glorious bier, Ho is at peace. 0 Lord I hear Thou my prayer, When my time draweth near Lord: hoar my cry. j Such a death grant to-me, I'aoing the enemy, Lord, let mo die!

PRIEST IN FRONT TRENCHES. Writing from France to a friend in Ireland, Rifleman S. O'Neill describee the chaplain of his rcgimont, tlio Rev. S. S. knapp, an English priest from Winchester, as a "regular saint." "I think hp is of Irish descent," say« O'Neill, "and lie haa faced deatli at least forty times sinco we came out. No otlicr priest liavo I eeen _in the front trenclios but himself—hearing confessions, and bullets in showers, like hailstones, passing over the heads of tho penitents. This is what makes soldiers fight well and die calm."

"A TERRIBLE TRAVESTY." Speaking at a great service at Edinburgh recently Dr. John Kelman said ho would leave with his audience a verse that seemed to sum up the many thoughts whio'h this war had raised in their minds as perfectly as tliev could be summed up in so few words: "By terrible things in righteousness wilt Thou answer us, 0 God of our salvation." They had prayed for peace and they had asked it. There had been a terrible travesty of God growing up. It had spread over Germany, and from Germany over Europe. Had there been no war, who knew how far this ghastly, heresy, with all its brutalising effects, might havo spread? This war v.-ould end the influence of Nietzsche. It had sounded the death-knell of the super* man.

A GREAT FRENCH PREACHER.That famous Paris preacher, the Abba Sertillaiigesj recently completed the course of sermons ho has delivered at the Madeleine since the war began. From tho reports in the Paris "Figaro" it is clear that the series entitled "Heroism" lias had an amazing suocess. Although 'the Abbe forbade applause,' the immense congregation could not refrain from bursting forth time after time in enthusiastic cheers. The "Figaro" says that no sermons _ have done so much to confirm patriotic devotion among the people of Paris.