CHURCH AND WAR

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2624, 20 November 1915, Page 2

CHURCH AND WAR

CHRISTIAN WARRIORS A POWERFUL JUSTIFICATION FOR RECRUITINC. Bifihop Frodsham, speaking at a drumhead service in Gloucester Park, made a powerful appeal to Christianity as a juiitification lor the work of ing. If it was wrong for a Christina, to fight, ho said, then it was wrong to recruit.

"J. stout young minor in tho Forest of D:an told mo that ho did not enlist becauso ho belonged to Christ," tho Bishop wont on. "1 answered without premeditation, 'Christ died willingly to save otheiisj apparently you are not ready to do this!' Ido not see how I. can better that reply. If we could speak of a whole nation acting as though it belonged to Christ, inasmuch as it did what we might expect Christ would have done, wo should instance Belgium. The Belgians had .the chance of escaping scot free if they had consented to Germany going through to Franco. Then the horrors of Liege, of Aacrchot, and of Malines would have been perpetrated in Franco, and in England. But Belgium would not, .and Belgium suffered. AVns not that a national act worthy of Him of Whom it was said, 'He saved others; Himself He cannot save'?

"The man who makes no particular claim to be religious and who enlists, is acting as if he belonged to Him Who said, 'Greater love hath 110 man than this, that ho lay down his life for his friends.' "Important as tho supply of munitions and recruiting are, yet the most important British asset is tho moral consciousness that we have upheld the supremacy of truth and justice, that we have not savaged the 'wounded, or made war against women and babies." REV. R. J. CAMPBELL'S TOUR. VIVID STORIES AT THE CITY TEMPLE. • The Rev. R. J. Campbell fascinated a crowded City Templo congregation oil a recent Sunday evening by an account of his adventures among tho men at tho front. Many of his stories amusingly illustrated the pluck and cheeriness ot tho men, and the audience audibly enjoyed them, though the grim aspect of things was fearlessly and vividly brought homo by Mr. Campbell. He described some of the fearful sights in hospital, notably tho .ghastly effects of liquid fire. Our soldiers found no chivalry among the Germans.

"You don't play tho game," said some of our men to a captured German officer. "Game! We are not playing a game," was tho reply. "Wo are out to win. Tho English have played at games too long." The Saxons were finer fellows altogether than the Prussians. Mr. Campbell told an amusing story of how some Saxons offered a party of Tommies a supply of cocoa, in exchange for ham. Our emissary, leaving his trench with the ham,.was shot bya sniper; but tho Saxons ran out and carried him back to his own trench, afterwards bringing the sniper (who had not heard of the "treaty") to apologise for his mistake. Another pleasant story concerned the efficiency of,our field hospitals. "How do you get such an excellent hot-water supply r",, Mr. Campbell asked one of tho matrons, and her reply was, "Really, I don't know I I just turn the tap and the hot water flows." Mr. Campbell was pleased with the religious unity shown m the camps. It was not uncommon to see on a Y.M.C.A. notice-board announcements of an Anglican Communion, Catholic Mass, and Free Church preaching service, all on one Sunday morning, and perhaps a Jewish service on the Saturday. "God bless them all, I say," Mr. Campbell added. "I wish they could be as friendly and united at home!" Mr. Campbell seems to have been much impressed by the attentive and intelligent hearing ho himself had among the mon. After he had addressed them he was sometimes tackled and questioned for as long as two and a half hours at .a time. He hopes to go out shortly for a longer visit than either of his two previous ones.

Early in tie service Mr. Campbell spoko of the possibility of an air-raid during service time on some Sunday evening. He had' no fear of one, but in caso it did liappen his advice was that everybody should sit still, and, as the meu at the front often said, "Let them bang away I"

RELIGION AND WAR. MR. LLOYD GEORGE'S TESTIMONY. The Rev. T. Charles Williams, preaching at tho midday sen-ice in the Central Hall, Manchester, on "Religion and War," said that he had spent the previous week-end with the Minister , of Munitions, who had told him'that "in his opinion a revival of religion, and not a reaction from it, would follow the war. It has been so with many wars, and he wanted, when ho had time, to trace the influence of tho Civil War in America, and other wars, upon the fajtli. In France already there seemed to be more religious feeling than there apparently had been for a long time. Sometimes sorrow hardened a nation. It was so with individuals. A prominent statesman hardly over went to any placo of worship for the rest of his life after a great domestic sorrow. The rule, however, was otherwise. War emphasised the limitations of man, and brought an element of seriousness into life. It might prove the death of some theological opinions, but it would mean a re-birth of true religion through the land." This testimony from Mr. Lloyd George was listened to with considerable interest. \ A SHELL AT MASS. The ,'Abbo J. B. Hamon, vicairo at Boiirg-dcs-Comptes, and now a brigadier stretcher-bearer at the front, in a letter to the Bishop of Rennes, tells of a Mass under shell hre: — "I was saying Mass in tho courtyard of a Belgian inn with some 30 people present, several of whom were going to communion. I had consecrated the Host and laid it on the corporal, when a big German shell fell 011 the pavement of the court, about fivo metres from the big 'window before which the altar had been erected. The explosion was frigHful; tho paring stones wove flung in bits on the worshippers, who ran indoors to tako refuse in the cellars. I thought that my last hour was coin© and that I was going to die at the altar. Instinctively I threw a rapid glance at the spot wliero the explosion had taken place, and saw quite close to me our old major with several officers standing immovable as cue of the rocks on our Breton coasts. That was sufficient to reassuro mo; I took the chalice, consecrated • it,' and went on with the Mass. Gradually the others come- back out of their hidingplaces, to find everybody all right. Wo ought to -have been overwhelmed short a distance with bits of shell, and yet nobody .was touched. Our Bretons look 011 it as a miracle." THE SALVATION ARMY. Chaplain-Captain Mackenzie, tho Salvationists' chaplain at tho Dardanelles, in a letter to Commissioner Hay, says: "Such is my overwhelming esteem for tho bravery and daily courage of the Australian boys in tho trenches that I count it the honour of my life to servo them, and I would willingly be buried in a nameless grave that- I might 6erve them to tho end. I have not myself heard nor has anyone over told me of a man who has sooffed at religion, God, or the Bible since we came to Gallipoli. It is otherwise. _ They are seeking to hear about religion and God's will and ways, and many of them read their Testaments aud say a prayer. I have had all manner of hairbreadth eeoapes.

tntil this day I am preserved by God'S ftieroy to serve our brave men."

THE IMPERIAL BABY-KILLER. Referring, in a recent 6ermon at St. Paul's Cathedral, London, to the recent Keppolin laid, the Archdeacon of London 6aid: "I need not go further back than last Wounesday, to tell you that liattle ]ia6 changed into murder. Speaking with all the restraint that is due, from every preacher as well as the Press, and with the knowledge and consent of the censor, I toll you that to one_ hospital alone were taken the dead bodies of children of fifteen, ten, seven, and five, and one little b>bv —so that the nursery became a slaughterhouse. Of the Imperial murderer who allowed it, if he did not order it, all be can say is, in the words of the Psalmist— the most awful punishment ever given to a man —"I will set before thee the things that thou hast done." DEAN FOR COMPULSION. Speaking at West Hartlepool, the. Dean of Durham, Dr. Hensley Henson, said that never again could wo run the risk of having tho fortunes of our land and Empire left to voluntary effort, however widely distributed and magnificently rendered. H© thought that in. the wake of the war there must come to Britain tho universal obligation to national service, and it was to Switzer* land, not to Prussia, that we piust look for our modol.

NATIONAL SERVICE. Arohdeacon Wilberforce, speaking at St. John's Church, Westminster, said that we must be prepared, if necessary, to submit without the slightest hesitation to the suspension of individual li* berty in tho direction of National Ser* vice, not only for our forces in tho field,but also in the munitions and other work at homo. We must also practise an ever-increasing economy in luxuries and even in necessities. Traders, com. mercial men, speculators, and middle? men of all kinds must l be prepared foj completo abolition by Act of Parliaf ment of all possibility of making proi' fits out of the war.

50,000 GONCRECATiONALISTS ON SERVICE. At the closing assembly of tho Congregational Union autumnal meeting held at Leeds, the secretaa-y presented a statement on the work of the Army, Board representing four denominations,' in France, in Flanders, at the Darda« nelles, and at home. The War Office, it said, had from the outset shown them the greatest sympathy and consideration. Taking as a basis returns sent before Christmas last, including Welsh Independents, it was more than probable that the number of Congreg.v tionalksts in tho Army to-dav was little if anything short of 50,000 men.

WHEN HYMNS OF HATE CEASE. ' Exeter Cathedral treble bell, which' was recently recast, bears an insornx tion suggested by the Bishop of Marl* borough; the Dean Recast in war, I hope to herald Peace, When all mankind shall lovo and Hynmd of Hatred cease.