NOTABLE BTSHOP

Evening Post, Volume LXXXV, Issue 32, 7 February 1913, Page 2

NOTABLE BTSHOP

DR. BRINDLE'S JUBILEE HIS WAR REMINISCENCES. (From Our, Own Correspondent.) LONDON, 27th December. The Right Rev. Dr. Brindle, D.5.0., Roman Catholic Bishop of Nottingham, completed today fifty years of priesthood in his church. A week ago ho returned from Rome, where he was received in special audience by the Pope. In giving the Daily Telegraph some reminiscences Of his long and active life in peace and war, Bishop Brindle said : "The earlier days of my priesthood were spent at Plymouth. I went to Devon in the summer of 1863, and lab* oured there until 1874. It was then that the Bishop reluctantly consented to give me permission to obtain service with Her Majesty's Foyces as an army chaplain. Afterwards I was at Woolwich in that capacity,, and in 1876 I was transferred to Halifax, Nova Scotia, to replace Father Moore, who died of consumption shortly after his return to England. ARABI PASHA'S REBELLION. "My first visit to Egypt was in 1882, subsequent to the rebellion of Arabi Pasha. It was not my turn to go over, but fortunately I was known to Sir Evelyn Wood, and I went 'by Portsmouth to Port Said, accompanying a battery of artillery. The place was crowded with transports at the time. There was a striking incident when it came to the turn of our transport to go into the Suez Canal. A Russian caused annoyance by moving about and interfering with the transports. The situation became so impossible that at last the Admiral sent the Russian a message that if he did not stop it at once he would sink him. The threat had its effect. , "My first view of Egyptian life was, obtained at Renaillia. The scenes pre ' sented were most interesting. Ship after ship unloaded, not only men, but horses, guns, and material of every description. Big bundles of compressed hay, cannon, cannon-carriages, and everything one could possibly think of were thrown out upon the sands, but order was soon brought out of chaos. Soldiers and sailors removed the congestion of mate rial, which Was taken to the railway station about a mile away. The whole business was not always without its entertaining side. It was curious to watch the varioils methods by which men would Jay hold of their work. A sailor was , carrying a big pile of compressed hay rather clumsily when he stopped to rest it at a little bridge over a canal. Whilst he was there a young officer, proud, I suppose, of his new regimentals, asked him 'My man, w.hat are you doing there?' The reply cajne: 'Well, I- used to think I was a British sailor, but now I think I've been turned into a confounded mule.' "I reported myself to headquarters, and asked the general to lend me a horse to go ahead. I was given one, without siiddle or bridle. It is not actually dark there at night, a sort of crepuscular light prevailing. At the first station I reachod, I was glad to meet men I had known at Halifax, who gave me some foo£, and the use of a tent, in which was a sofa. They preferred to lie outside on the Hands. 1 had not been five minutes on that sofa before I found that I had never been in tbe midst of so much animal life before." , j GORDON RELIEF EXPEDITION. • ! ■ Bishop Brihdle. went on to describe the events which led uj.' to Kassassin, El Teb, and Tamai. "At the last-named place our troops were moving in Two squads had gone I over rough ground when a body of Sudanese suddenly - sprang up and cut off one corner of a square, which meant the loss to us of a hundred men." • The expedition of 1884-5 was to be fqr the relief of Gordon, but Bishop Brindle expressed the belief that it was j never intended to relieve him . "We started on a falling Nile, and the higher we got the worse the river Was for such a purpose. We came back, Hnd the natives believed that we were j compelled to retire. One of them asked, 'Why are you going back?' , He could not understand it all. ' I replied, 'It is because of superior orders.' 'No,' he said, 'that is nonsense ; it is because you are beaten.' "In 1886 I returned" horn«, and stayed at Aldershot until 1895. Then I went to Egyjt again, and afterwards I accompalued Lord Kitchener's expedition to Khartoum.' The tribes had taken Dongola, and we had to move them out. We did so— thoroughly. They ran for their lives, mothers throwing down their babies on the sands, leaving them as hostages.. "Kitchener made his headquarters at Dongola. In 1898 he stayed there for a long time, and his next headquarters were at 1 Atbara. He had told me months before that he intended to be in Khartoum on Ist September.* He made all hi 3 arrangements with the utmost foresight, and they were as complete as skill or genius could have made them. The marching across deserts was most weird. In 1886 the land traversed was one flowing, so to spe^k, with milk and honey. The people were happy, crops were flourishing, and there was peace. Now, in 1898, from end to end, the land was but a desert. There was not a, sign of cultivation anywhere. Formerly every man in this country had -his dog, which warned a stranger off his master's land, and passed on that duty •to the dog of the neighbonr. DERVISH CHARGE AT OMDURMAN. "It was wonderful how matters were organised at Omdurman. You never see big bodies of troops without somehow imagining that there is that in the air to suggest something is going on. We found ourselves linea up at Omdurman— British, Egyptian, and Sudanese — numbering 20,000 men. All distances had been marked, and when the Khalifa's men charged magnificently as they did at the first blush ofdawn, we knew the day was Kitchener's. "In war one meets with many most pathetic cases. For example, a young officer Was talking to me once with cheerfulness about returning to his native county of Devonshire, and the welcome that awaited him there. On the next day the first man I found lying on the field was my young friend, with the blue mark of a bullet on his forehead. Again, after Tel-dl-Kebir, a big Irishman, who was dying, said to me, ' Father, I should not mind if it was not for the wife and the little children.' Another instance: A young soldier who was bleeding tp death never referred to his wife and children ; his one thought was for the honour of his regiment." Bishop Brindle added that after he returned to England at the end of Lord Kitchener's campaign, " for my sins his Holiness made me a Bishop." The Bishop expressed the conviction that our people are growing loss and Jess religious. Some of this, however, he believed might be due only to a change of aspect. Men and women d'd not think so seriously upon religion nowadays as they did formerly—less than fifty years ago.