A PADRE'S REFLECTIONS

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 234, 21 June 1918, Page 5

A PADRE'S REFLECTIONS

« TH.B THINGS ONE REMEMBERS! (By a Chaplain.) One is not allowed to keep o. diary— and one has not time. Butinlnia strange, i wild world, which seethes with life and death—this world twenty miles wide and fivo hundred miles long, which is ■ absolutely cut off from all outside human existence and experience—the mind moves in ways of its own. One lives from moment to moment. Tho afternoon may be three hours of hell and mud and the imminence of violent death; the evoning a better dinner than usual, a cigarette, and a magazine. Momory and anticipation aro dispensed with. Yet when wounds, sickness, or lcavo come tho memory eagerly traverses tho crowded months and dwells upon, strives and tries to restore to us hours which havo taught us the terrible and intimate lessons of war. For myself it is not so much tho picturesque'or dramatic, or even the acutely unpleasant, memories which stand out from the crowded and varied chaos of experiences as those in which I find afterwards I havo discovered some now truth or tho full meaning of something I knew before. That is the greatest shock to the soul—when some truth which we havo known and used suddenly flashes into a new revelation. "The' things that have stuck" in my case are fairly commonplace. They came in tho ordinary round of duty, and at tho timo I exuerienced no extraordinary emotion that lean recall. But they havo become symbols to me. They were moments and happenings when I seemed to catch a glimpse of the mind of God. I remember being awakened one morning in my dug-out at "Casualty Corner" by a stretcher-bearer, with a request from tho medical officer commanding tho section of n field ambulance which had an aid-post next to ours, asking mo to go up nnd bury. ono of his stretcherbearers. I wrote my reply on the foci of the dispatch, with the time I wouldbe there; the bearer saluted and withdrew. I rolled carefully out of tho blankets, not wanting more mud than need bo next to my skin. I climbed into some •clothes, put on my gum boots and leather waistcoat, and walked up a few steps on to tho road, tipped carefully my allowance of water from the common kerosene tin into a canvas bucket, washed and shaved in cold water, propping up a bit of cracked glass- against the top of tho dug-out. There was fairly constant traffic in the very heavy mud. Men wero going up in numerous small single-file processions, heavily laden witli. duekboards, rations, and water. Some of them envied me my safety-razor, no doubt—most envied mo the chanco of shaving at all. It was a glorious morning. Far up in the blue, liko tiny, beautiful little silver, birds, .the aeroplanes floated, and tiny flashes of flame, stabbing the blue, danced round them. The momentary flash would be followed immediately by a fleecy ball of dmoke. The scene, aesthetically, was beau:iful. Youth, in its beauty of daring and sacrifice, scaling the heights of this glorious morning, was defying those flashes of death hurled into God's heaven, '.(ho work-of the aeroplanes is as methodical, definite, and matter-of-fact as any of the other organised onorgies of war. But ftiifehow the idea of knight-ornntry is inseparably associated, with it. In th'ise days a lovely morning lr.cmt a t'vriblf busy day. Tho field-guns on tho bunk' above woko up and began to fi'e with sharp, car-splitting reports. (They had only arrived the day M'<ro, find wo "eld inhabitants" had rather resente.l the intrusion.) I had a rather hurried breakfast of tea and very thick bajin, put on my tin hat, and went aicng to .my sad duty. I i'oun.d everything ready. The medical officer gave the ■ necessary oidirs. The litlle cemetery was on the right of th) road, just before you go down io tho chalk-pits. Tho Ist, 2nd, and Ith Divisions know the spot. Behind us cracked thd field batteries, and tho heavier guns in "Sausage Valley" were awakening, in measured thunder, to tho day's work. I pt'lted out of my pocket a long surplice of very fine material, made to roll up small, and a siniplo cloth stole, and, tho comrades of the fallen man standing roun-i, I began the service. They hr.d only been relieved tho night before, and had almost certainly not slept for several da/5 Wo all kept on our steel nals. Tim lEuii was at his usual game (,f burraging the chalk pits, two-minute intervals, and w- might have the bad fuck to get ijoate splinters. "I am the ltesurrodtion and ;be Life, saith the Lord; whosoever livetii and believeth in Me, though lu die jet shall he live, and whosoever liveth a-: 1 believeth in Me shall never die." And around us rolled the vast chore? of death. Was it merely irony, or was it tho battle-cry of the humut. spirit in love and sacrifice proclaiming its eternal victory over circumstances, a'ld death by the voice of tho Son of Man? "Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live" (whe-e-ee-w! Crash! —one in tho valley. Enemy registering on a battery over near Uontalmaison commanded by a. schoolmate of mine), "and is full of misery. Ho cometh up and is cut down- like a, flower"—l look' at the little, cross; tho boy's ago is 20. Tho servico draws quickly to its close. Tho enemy batteries are now shelling tho opposite slope, and our gunners there have evidently got permission to ceaso fire and get under cover. But I had been told that this boy was beloved by his comrades. He had fallen most gallantly while carrying across a bit of open ground, behind the front line, to tho Albert road. They expected mo to say something, I thought. Thoro was only one thing to be said—the truth that writes itself across so many of the finest young lives— "Greater love hath no man than this— that a man lay down his • life for his friends." And t put it all to them that, though we believo we. are all' carrying out God's command, and vindicating His law and will against thoso who would sweep them away, and carry violence and , oppression against .thoso who cannot help themselves, yet in tho nature of their work tho stretcher-bearers are doing that which, maybe, is nearest to God's heart, that which is Christ's own. To others it is given to be instruments of God's anger and His justice—to them, fiervants of His love. Now ours to share the victorious pain whereby Christ is redeeming the world. "Como unto Me, all yo that travail and are heavy laden." And behind us, from "Sausage Valley," nroso tho thunder of God's anger; but upon, the little cemetery was the "peace of God which passeth all understanding" —tho peace that comes to men who havo given thoir lives that they may win them, to living men who havo conquered the fear of death. Tho service ends. "Fall iii! C section!" The speaker is a heavy-eyed, unshaven sergeant, in a. blue sweater. The barrage is falling on the road up to the trenches, but tho trumpets of God are calling His servants to duty and beyond.