RELIGION IN FRANCE.

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2890, 30 September 1916, Page 13

RELIGION IN FRANCE.

I• ■ ■ . NO SHADOWY SUBSTITUTES.. ■' Mr. Lan Malcolm, M.P., speaking at the annual congress of the General Association of Churoh School Managers and Teachers at Brighton, emphasised the need anil value of definite religious instruction by reference to what is happening in France_ I War, he 6aid, does one of two things I to a man, , either it deepens his religious sense or it expels it altogether. Which it does depends enormously upon early training: Ho had noticed the .occurrence of both of these in tho Fronoh Army since the beginning of the war, and among French people behind the lines, but immeasurably the greater number of the oases' that he had heard of had been of men deepened in their convictions, or returned, perhaps, after long desertion, to the colours of Christ. Before August, 1914, Franco as a nation Boemed to be straying very far from the fold of the Church. But the war had changed all that, changed it for good. Now there were quite 40,000 priests serving in the trenches; Mass was celebrated daily undor fire, in forests or dug-outs, or stables, in all parts of the fine; the churches in the rear wore never ompty; the cathedrals and churches in all parts of France aro now filled, which used to be practically deserted. There was no mistaking the signs of tho times in France; there was a tremendous religious revival, for tho French have realised that glory to God comes before peace on earth. He fyad seen regiments and battalions bowed in worship, silent, shrouded congregations at all hours, prostrate in prayer and intercession. They were not moved to such devotions by any ethical, indeterminate, undenominational, new-fangled theories of a higher life. No, they were just practising the religion taught them by thoir mothers and their village priests in their childhood—a religion bti6cd upon tho most definite, the most dogmatic principles of Incarnation and tho Atonement; that was what they wanted' in timo of trouble. No shadowy substitutes, or short' cuts, or compromises could give them tho courage that they needed in tho trenches or in the home; so, under the thunder of the guns or stunned with grief,'they turned again, like children to their mother's knee, and clasped in faith the outstretched hand of tho Man of Sorrows.