TOMMY ATKINS’ RELIGION.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIV, Issue XXI, 26 May 1900, Page 984

TOMMY ATKINS’ RELIGION.

Mr Henry Somerwell, the original of this photograph, has rendered splendid service to his country by raising in the Argentine Republic a corps of English volunteers for service at the front. No less than 150 offered themselves, but 120 only being required for the corps, Mr Somerwell made his choice of the best marksmen and sailt d lor South Africa from Buenos Ayres on board the steamship Mab late in January last.

Quartermaster-sergeant Payne, of the Ist Scots Guards, and now with Lord Methuen’s force, is a soldier to whom the present campaign has br< light rank and honour. He has been raised from the ranks by his pro motion to quartermaster and bon. lieutenant, in the place of Lieut. J. Chase, who is dead.

The Rev. E. J. Hardy tells us that Tommy Atkins, as a rule, attends Divine service under compulsion, and takes no stoek in ritual practices that are at all out of the common. A party of Yorkshire militiamen were marched to a church where incense was used. In the midst of the service, one of them pulled out a pipe, and lit it. A sergeant rushed at him, and asked him what he meant by doing so. He answered, “I saw that bloke lighting up, so I thought I might do the same.” He referred to the incense introduced at this place in the service. The way soldiers express themselves in reference to things ecclesiastical would make some good Churchmen almost weep. A church orderly speaks of “telling off" the lessons, calls the eagle leetern “that bird,” asks “if he shall fill the bath,” which is what he understands by the font, and is generally inrreverent without in the least knowing or intending it. . . . Now and then recruits come up who do not seem to have any religion. The recruiting sergeant asks them “What religion?” and they answer—more truthfully than many who consider themselves their superiors—“None” or “None that I knows of.” A choice, however, must be made, and such men generally put themselves down as “Church of England,” chiefly because of the band which accompanies Tommy of that nomination to church. Protestants who do not come into this Cave of Adullam are generally classed with Presbyterians and Wes'leyans. “Other fancy religions.” as a commanding officer once called them on parade, are looked upon with suspicion, as though a soldier, by professing to belong to them. were, trying to shirk church parade altogether. “What’s yer religious persuasion?” said a sergeant to a recruit. “My what?” “Yer what? Why, what I said. What’s yer after o’ Sundays?” “Rabbits, mostly.” “’Ere. stow that lip. Come, now, Church, Chapel, or ’Oly Roman?” After explanation from his questioner, the recruit replied: “I ain’t nowise pertikler. Put me down Church of England, sergeant. I’ll go with the band.” An officer who was present when a militia regiment was about to be inspected before marching off to Divine service, told me the following: One man was loitering about, and a sergeant asked him in forcible terms why he did not fall in. He replied that he was a Unitarian. “Unitarian?” asked the sergeant; “what’s that? There are only three religions; fall in with the Roman Catholics.”

Mr Chavasse, the new Bishop of Liverpool, graduated from Corpus Christi College, where he took a First Class in Law in 1869. He was ordained in 1870 by the Bishop of Manchester to the curacy of St. Paul’s. Preston. In 187.3 he was appointed by the trustees to the vicarage of St. Paul's, Upper Holloway, and in 1878 he returned to Oxford as rector of St. Peter-le-Ba.iley. There he began at once to exercise that influence among undergraduates which pointed him out as the best man to be Principal of Wycliffe Hall. He has been examining chaplain to the Bishop of Exeter since 1885, and in 1898 he was selected to give the annual course of lectures on pastoral theology at Cambridge.