PARSONS WHO ARE SPLENDID FIGHTING MEN.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 133, 8 February 1915, Page 2

PARSONS WHO ARE SPLENDID FIGHTING MEN.

CLERICAL HEROES ON THE BATTLEFIELD

“Cloth and cassock cover many a stout, valiant, >uid patriotic heart,” the Bishop of London, chaplain of the London Ride Eiigade, said not long age, referring to the valuable work peiformed by the chaplains and priests at, present with the fighting armies. It was no exaggerated statement, for no men at the front to-day are doing nobler work and performing finer deeds than the ‘padres of the regiments,’ as they are affectionately known, both in the French and English armies.

But a few days ago a story was told of an heroic chaplain who, on the battlefield near Stenay, celebrated Mass at the request of a number of wound ed soldiers, to the grim music of the guns which dropped shells within i hundred yards cf where he stood. At altar was improvised from a surgical dressing-table resting - on a box con laining splints, and covered with a hos pital sheet. On the altar were placed bunches cf flowers in vases made from the bases cf German shells, and when these arrangements had been math the chaplain proccedd to say Mass, un disturbed by the fact that at any mo ment a shell might annihilate him. Another striking illustration of the plucky manner in which regimental chaplains perform their duties is af forded by a letter from a medical ofii tier in the fighting line, who says, “A parson having turned up, wo had a service. What a funny service it was! Each man lidding a rifle in one hand and sharing a hymn-book with the ether, while in between the verses oi the hymns you could hear the shells whistling, one cf which might well have killed thirty or forty of us."