BISHOP UNDER FIRE

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXIX, Issue LXIX, 26 May 1915, Page 7

BISHOP UNDER FIRE

PRAYERS BEFORE ACTION."

The following account of the Bishop of London's visit to the front was written by an officer of tho Expeditionary Force :— The Bishop ~ passed along the entire British front, often well within the range of the German guns, and through places devastated by shell lire, so that those who were responsible for his safety had many anxious moments. At one part of the line, where there hadi been recently heavy fighting, some five hundred officers, many of whom had been engaged in battle, were present. There were generals kneeling side by side with newly commissioned subalterns. The simple wooden crosses and a few spring fiowers 'show, how carefully all our soldiers' graves are kept, and many will be glad to Mow that the Bishop * said simple prayers of . consecration at all such placec. "Vhere "he passed. Several confirmation services were held, and on one occasion men came straight out of the trenches, with the mud still caked upon their putties :t'o receive the laying-ori of hands .

Throughout the week the Bishop had been looking forward eagerly to meeting the Territorial regiment of which he is chaplain, and he had asked that he might be allowed to celebrate the Holy Communion witbtbem on Easter Day. The regiment is in a most exposed position, and the Bishop motored into the village in a pitch darkness only broken by the weird glare of star shells fired from the German trenches about a mile * away. An enthusiastic reception awaited him from the 250 men who were billeted in the village. The remainder of the battalion was in thetrenc_.es. '_ •

< At 7 a.hi. oh East__ Day *he. eel. . brated communion in a barn .he roof and walls of which had been scarred and shattered by gun fire. Strange as the surroundings were, the guns firing and the crack of rifles distinctly heard, .one would :doubt if in. any churchhowever beautiful, a more reverent congregation had ever gathered on an Easter morning. On the evening of Easter Day the bishop preached his fine sermon at General Headquarters in the presence of Sir John French, many officers, and a large body of men.