CHURCH AND WAR

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2944, 2 December 1916, Page 11

CHURCH AND WAR

AFTER A VICTORIOUS PEACE

PILGRIMAGE TO LOURDES Tile French bishops have issued a joint pastoral announcing a. national pilgrimage, to TJourdes after tho conclusion of a victorious peace. In making this announcement the bishops state:— "We have entered upon tho third year of war. Thanks to the coolness, energy, and ability of our chiefs, to tho courage and endurance of our soldiers, to tho generosity with -which tho nation has imposed upon itsolf all the sacrifices necessitated by circumstances, and to the powerful assistance of our tho certainty of final victory in our favour becomes stronger and stronger. \ "All bur gratitude, all our admiration, go out, with all our sympathy and prayers, to our armies which nave so nobly sustained the honour of France by saving her from tho most formidable invasion which she lias ever undergone. "But the struggle still continues: tho blood of France flows day by day on some part of our territory: the number of wouuded, prisoners, widows, orphans, and of families in mourning is ever on the increase; many of our people have left their homes and are dispersed over the country, and others groan under the yoke of the enemy's' occupation; quite recently we hoard, with indignation and sorrow, how our enemies, onco again trampling under foot overy law of morality and civilisation, had brutally torn thousands of women and' young girls from their homes to. deport them to a distance, there to subject them, liko tho slaves of old, to a kind of forced labour. When to all" this you add that commerce, industry, and agriculture are all lacking workers, it is plain, that tho national life is profoundly troubled. ' 'Keenly concerned with tho interests of the country, Dearly Beloved Brethren, pitying your sufferings and your sorrows, moved by the sacrifices which the prolongation of the war imposes on our dear soldiers, and especially upon so many fathers of families so long withheld from thoir homos, and desiring to hasten the nour of tho decisive victory, which will put an end to the shedding of blood and give us a glorious and lasting peace, we bishops have decided to do violcnco to heaven by a solemn act. corresponding to tho importance of tho blessing we ask. ' "God, Dearly Beloved Brethren, loves not war. . He is tho God of Peace, and His Church classes war with famine and pestilence in tho three scourges -from which she beseeches tho Lord to preservo His people. God is not tho author of tho war; it is not He who has let it loose upon us; it is men that havo niado it, and history will tell tho' namo of those who havo designed and declared it. "Supremu arbiter of peoples and of events, God is. the forco against which no other can prevail, the Ally whoso support it, above that, of all other alliances. In all human things He reserves' some hidden way through which He may, in His own .good time, intervene; a secret spring: which Ho moves when it pleases Him, and by which Ho sets everything going, and sometimes changes in. an instant the fortunes of armies and the fall of kingdoms. Mad indeed would, that . people be which should pretend.to do without Him. "Urged by many demands which, however different in form or special object, have all one end —to provoke a manifestation of national faith in order to obtain the help of heaven for our" arms anTi to hasten the hour of decisive victory and of peace—we have resolved to make a solemn promise of a national pilgrimage to the sanctuary of Lourdes. "Tho devotion of .France to the Blessed Virgin.is as ancient as our history. Our soil is covered with sanctuaries erected- in her honour by the piety of our forefathers. And Mary, in response to their confidence in her, has at all times shown herself the protectress of our. country. She became its patroness by the solemn act of one of its sovereigns, whose vow was ratified by the people's faithful annual fulfilment of it for nearly three centuries. "France has. not retracted her consecration, nor has Mary withdrawn her patronage. _ "So, then, to hasten the hour of de- | cisive victory and Hie conclusion of a peaco such as tho justice of our cause .and a legitimate- lovo of our country mako it a difty to look for,.the French cardinals, archbishops, and bishops, each in the name of his own diocese,- and all together, in tho name of France, have determined to mako asolemn vow to lead or cause to be led in thoir name, after the conclusion of peaco and within a period of timo to be decided , later, a pilgrimage of their respective dioceses to the feet of the Immaculate Virgin at Lourdes. By tho unanimity of their action and intention, they wish, so far as lies' in their power, to invest this vow, and the pilgrimages by which it will bo fulfilled, with ' the character of a natonal act. "But, Dearly Beloved Brethren, if wo wish that the Blessed Virgin may efficaciously intercede for us with God, is not repentance for the evil wo havo done against Him, and a promise to amend it, tho surest way of obtaining our desire? "God desires to save us. Our cause is just; we fight for our national independence' and for the integrity of our territoy; ' we fight in defence of principles outsido of which there is no civilisations worth the name." MORAL REVELATIONS. GLOWING TRIBUTE TO THE LADS - AT THE FRONT. Dr. D. S. Cairns, of Aberdeen, gave an impressive address on "Moral"Revelations as Discovered by the War" at a demonstration in connection with tho recent assembly of the Congregational Union, held at Birmingham. Ho declared that there was no fundamental tenth of. tho Christian faith on which light had not been thrown by the events of the war—the idea of God, tho idea of the Church, tho nature of sin, and What light, above all, on war itself. It seemed as if a great people had been raised up to show them better things, but tho fall of that people had shown them -war in a most lurid light. What a new meaning the war had given to India, Canada, Australia, New Zealand! Surely their statesmen would translate this into new policies. But ho concentrated on the revelation of their young men. Ho was suro many of them had misgivings now. "Tho war had given thenrthis great gift— it had. enabled tho fathers to respect from their souls their children. "Ho gavo illustrations of the grounds for tho new valuation from his ten -weeks' work among the lads at the front. There was a great revelation of tho nobler side of humanity among their men. A.massive, outstanding impression was tho way in which those lads were idealising their home. It was up to the -women, up to everybody, to make all they could of that. Those lads were bearing the sins of past 1 generations, ami they were laying down (their lives to build a better road for the generations that came after them. There was religion in these men, but they thought little of their Church, and that was an awful reflection for the Church, which somehow did not seem to have helped them. The Church had got to light out with its best intelligenco the problem of what to do to win these young men. An immediate

filing to do was to support tho work being.done in tho huts by keeping up tho succession of men to them. An eighth of tho population of Great Britain was in tho camps, and an eighth of tho ministry ought to bo with them, even if many small congregations had to do without their minister. All the policies of the Churches ought to be orientated towards those young men. They would have to adjust the relations of their Churches to tho Y.M.C.A. after the war. Tho Y.M.C.A. was a great instrument- that might ho of immense value in getting at the great mass of youth, and there was nothing tho Y.M.C.A. leaders were more anxious for than to take counsel with the Churches. What was really wanted m the Churches was a new birth of vigorous, healthy Christian life. No mere ecclesiasticism and organisation would get those young men. ANOTHER CURATE WINS THE V.C. The V.C. has been awarded to the Rev. William Robert Fountaino Addison, Temporary Chaplain to the Forces, for "most conspicuous bravery." Mr. Addison is the second chaplain to bo i honoured during the war, tho Rev. Noel Mellish having received tho decoration last April. Tho official account of his valour is as follows:— "He carried a wounded man to the cover of a trench, and assisted several others to tho same cover, after binding up their wounds under heavy rifle and machine-gun fire, n addition to these unaided efforts, by his splendid example and ntter disregard of personal danger, he encouraged the stretcher-bearers to go forward undor heavy fire and collect the wounded." Mr. Addison, who at one time worked in a Canadian lumber camp, was ordained in 1913 to a curacy at St. Edmund's, Salisbury. In September last ho obtained an army chaplaincy. Ho was before ordination connected with the Church Lad's' Brigade, and was especially interested in work among men and lads, and as curate was assistantchaplain to the Brigade. OUR CHEERFUL SOLDIERS. "The two outstanding qualities of our men that I have heen charmed with are their remarkable cheerfulness and self-forgetfulness." This is the frank verdict of a chaplain of the Forces who has been among the troops in France the last twelve months. Rev. W. H. Jeffries, who belongs to the United Methodist branch of the Joint Board, has given his views very freely to friends of his former congregations in and around Rochdale. Speaking of his spiritual work, Mr, Jeffries said that for many Sundays togother he had held seven services a day for the men, that before they .went into the trenches he always tried to hold a communion servico with them; but wmo of his best work was done by visiting tho men in their trenches and. dug-outs. On tho question of swearing Mir. Jeffries distinguished between swearing and blasphemy. He had heard nono of tho latter,' nor did ho fear, as some did, that when tho men came home they would bo "big swearers. Many of them would return stronger and better men in every way, with a fresher outlook on religion. "A SICHT FOR SORE EYES." The Rev. John A. Patten, who recently went across to England from tho fighting line in Franco to buy tho nucleus of a library fori the troops in his battalion, writes that the library is "in full swing," and "very welcomo it ( is proving 'to, tho hien." "1 have," ho says, "a nice little hut, and the walls are-covered with books. They are a sight- for sore eyes! The general verdict is that it is by far the largest and best collection of books available for men. .in the trenches—about 2000 volumes." "A MICHTY CHANCE FOR RELICION." At tho autumnal' assembly of Norfolk Congregational Union, the president (Rev. W.. Griffith Jenkins, 8.A.), after paying a glowing tribute to the members of Norfolk churches who had made the supreme sacrifico in the war, said ho believed there was a mighty chance for religion, and that the moral and spiritual inertia had been broken ■up, and tho soul of man was awake. We must, nreach a religion mighty with social implications— a religion with a new passion of evangelisation. As Congregationalists they wished God-speed to the Anglican Mission, but he hoped they would not be neutral. Surely they could do something towards capturing the people of England. They must get rid of the solemn nonsense which had masqueraded under the name of religion. One of the things our religion suffered from was a. lack of humour. There were some pretensions which .■needed to bo laughed, at, and some conventions that needed to bo got rid of—our religion had been too tame, too dull,, too traditional.