THE SOLDIERS' CHAPLAIN.

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2932, 18 November 1916, Page 6

THE SOLDIERS' CHAPLAIN.

A TRIBUTE FROM THE TRENCHES. A remarkable tribute to the work of the clergy during the present -war appeared in "The Times." Writing on "The Soldiers' Chaplain," the Special Correspondent of that journal at British Headquarters observes that no one can be much at the front without hearing of the good work done by the chaplains. Achievements such as that by which the Rev. E. N. Mellish won the Victoria- Cross "shed lustro not only on tho cloth, but on tho whole Army." But apart from such brilliant incidents the chaplains have seized their opportunity: — "The Higher Command has come thoroughly to recognise 'their value as an integral part of the war establishment in the maintenance of the moral and the good spirits of the men. The officers have come to know the individual padro in the daily friction of life in the field and in times of danger, and they have found him a good fellow and a brave man. The men have learned his value as a comrade who has a power to help them and minister to their comfort as only one who has au officer's rank can, but with whom, at the same time, they can talk, much more intimately than with any regular officer. It is iu this that, for the practical purposes of war, tho chaplain's chief value lies." The writer goes on to show how, in spite of the mixture of creeds, the utmost good fellowship and comradeship prevails among the chaplains of tho different Churches; and with regard to the "spiritual ' revival" which is reported to havo occurred in 'the Army we quote tho following striking passage:— "Out here' men -undoubtedly see life in a truer perspective and with a larger vision. Small things have a tendency to assume their proper unimportance, and great and fundamental things come by their own. Inevitably the men of the new Armies are in the mass more serious-minded and more disposed to roligious awe than they. were when they were at home amid the trivial familiar things. But' few chaplains here would care to represent, that as evidence of a great fpiritual revival. It would be as inaccurate to go to the other extreme and call it merely_ the cowardice which prompts the Devil to be a saint when he is 6ick and fears to die. It is merely that in the presence of such conditions as prevail here the deeps of a man's nature are stirred, and he inevitably becomes spiritually and emotionally more responsive. Even so, it is all to the good. The men, however far any, individual may be from an abrupt 'conversion,' will all be the better for it. And when the men come home bettor than they came out the padre must be given much of the credit"