ARMY CHAPLAINS AS SEEN FROM THE RANKS

New Zealand Tablet, 19 June 1919, Page 33

ARMY CHAPLAINS AS SEEN FROM THE RANKS

(By Joseph A. Murphy, in the American 'Ecclesiastical lie view:) ' Very recently a friend whom I had not seen for some years walked into my study. He had just returned from England. Leaving his home here, he had enlisted at . the ; outbreak of the war in 1914, in the Royal Hussars, a British regiment. During his three years of " campaigning he , was wounded twice. The second- wound in - the foot kept him in the hospital foxnine months. T v y ; J During this time he had ample opportunity to meditate on his experiences at the Front and in the barracks. /As I was naturally interested in the work of our clergy.with the army I asked him his impressions, for, although not a Catholic/ the young soldier is of a reflecting mind. To him religion means something; at all events it Took on a meaning for him during the camp life among the “Tommies.” He gave me his impressions, which I repeat here as I took them down while still fresh in my memory. I thought them interesting, and the readers of the Ecclesiastical lie view may find them so too ; for, though the chaplain’s story is familiar enough, the chaplain as- ho is seen from the ranks is not so well known. What my friend said was, if I may reproduce his own words as nearly as 1 can, as follows; The regiment in which I found myself was overwhelmingly Church of England, according to the offi/ciaHTecbrds; / These records, however, do not mean : very much. Everything is put down as Church of England, which is not specifically otherwise. Christian or non-Christian, Jew,: Mohammedan, or atheist—unless religious affiliation is acknowledged, the C. of E. scoops in everything. Normally, Tommy is not a very religious animal. The Church of England looms largo in his eyes, as an institution much resembling the King or the British Museum. It always has been, is, and ever will be, the “world without end, amen.” To belong to this English institution is a pledge of respectability, and an assurance of loyalty. But, when the Church makes any demand, on either Tommy’s person or his time, he is liable to use words of little reverence in order to express his overflowing feelings. Church parade is equivalent to drill, and hence is cordially hated. Even the proximity of danger and death cannot make Tommy become demonstratively religious. I believe that at bottom he is religious, and that he gives many a sober thought, in the secrecy of his own soul, to the things of the other life. But the fact remains that Tommy, even in war times, holds any external revelation of religious feeling to be a sign of weakness. ; I think that one can safely argue from living with Tommy in the trenches, that the end of the war will see a great religious awakening in the various countries engaged./-Men are learning to think less of this present life. Men by -the thousands are gladly throwing away their lives in the service of ideals. Ideals are emphasised as worth more than. life. Death for the cause is not now the extraordinary, but the ordixxaxy measure of devotion. f / AH this means that men are less atheistic than we were formerly led to believe. After all, there is no sense in an atheist dying for anything. If there is ho Beyond, the only thing in logic is to make the most of this life, and take all the ease and comfort and /enjoyment that life can afford. The hard life of the trenches, the bitter suffering, and death itself, could have no place in the scheme of life of an irreligious man. It is essentially,a religious ideal, that of dying for justice and right. A man who believes that suffering and death for justice; will bring their reward in the life to come,he can fixxd logic in his life lin the trenches. But for the man who . believes that death

ends all, the trenches are the most hopeless sort of a placV I suppose that is why radicals and freethinkers are so opposed to war.- ' j ■ £- -T * '4. x « r £:,4L% But you asked me about chaplains. The chaplain of our regiment wits a Church of. England man. He was big, athletic, handsome, strong. He could write various letters after his name in token of degrees he held from Oxford ; but these did not hurt him in any way that I could see. He was always simple and friendly in his speech, with no airs or "swank" about him. He tried his best, and did whatever he could for the men. He found many real opportunities ; to be of service to them.

Of course Tommy did not trust him at first. Among soldiers there is always an inherent distrust of the parson. They think that a chaplain is one of another race—neither man nor spirit, but holding down a job that demands something of both. ; , And in the army he is something of an anomaly. He ranks.. as an officer, while his work is largely with the, privates. He must associate with both officers and men. To devote himself exclusively to either privates, or officers, means speedy 'damnation in the eye's of the slighted caste. " ;

Our chaplain, was above all of the "hail-fellow-well-met" sort. He seemed to have no trouble in keeping in the good.graces of the officers, yet he did a surprisingly, large amount of mixing with:; the men. He arranged their sports for 'them. He provided them with .literature and entertainments. And, whenever he could, he slipped in a little professedly religious work. If there were any casualties, he wrote the news to the relatives of the stricken soldiers at home. Thus he was instrumental in giving consolation to many an afflicted soul. lie visited . all- the wounded within, reach, and cheered them with a ready fund of stories, or spoke to them on more serious themes,, in a way that: was kind and gentle and friendly. The boys held him in high favor. He, in turn, stuck by the crowd loyally, and was not afraid to risk his neck in the front trenches. - '"4," "■' *

lie never went . over the top with vis. Personally; 1 was glad he didn’t. A parson is not a fighting man. His duty is to help the wounded, and' they pour back into the trenches fast enough to keep him busy. He could, of course, go over, if he wanted. No one would think of preventing him. But it would be uselessly risking a valuable life, and our chaplain never took any unnecessary chances. Mind, he was a brave man. He never shirked a duty because it brought him into danger. I saw him, time and again, go out into No Man’s Land, with a volunteer or two, 1 to rescue the wounded under the cover of darkness. Sometimes he would bring in three or four on his shoulders, one after the other, and then go back to formore. I often thought of the Good Shepherd who went out for the lost- sheep. . . But I do not think that he offered much that was substantial in the way of religious consolation. He was brave and cheery and kind. He kept up the spirits and the morale of the regiment. He talked earnestly, once in a ;while, and read chapters of the New Testament to the men. But, somehow or other, this did not seem to be enough. We were all provided with small Testa-; ments, ourselves, and many of the men had'the custom of reading a chapter, now and then. We would have done so, even though we had no chaplain. I oftenthought that the dominie wandered about/ wishing that he could do something, yet not knowing just what he could do. • ~-. > ‘ . ; a He certainly had not the hold on , ,us ; that ;; the chaplain of Ca? neighboring Irish regiment had on; few men. We occupied adjoining posts and barracks for; a considerable period, and so I came to know the men and the chaplain pretty well, and :to-be .in on their regimental gossip, The regiment was, of eoux*se, Almost entirely Roman Catholic, and the chaplain' was a priest of. that Church. He was a man, not ‘ unlike

our chaplain, sincere, earnest, '\ and - well-intentioned. But what I remarked was that he seemed to have very definite duties, well , understood by.' himself, and by his :-men. •He did not have to convince his men of' sin—they came to confession' to him in , throngs, and without urging on 3 his part. . .He was always busy. .To put it roughly—he seemed to have the goods, and the men were eager for his ministration.. And they were as sincere and earnest as :ha was. They had absolute confidence in him,. and in the value and efficacy of what he did. They r told him things which I am sure they would hesitate to tell: anyone else. And, after their confession, they went their way like new men, serenely confident that they had actually been absolved from sin. Their : Mass, on Sunday, was a thing very mysterious and peculiar to the outsider, but it had one prominent characteristic. They missed no opportunity to go, and they thoroughly believed in it; whereas the C. of E.. crowd would cheerfully dispense with the.. Biblereading, and the sermon, which constituted their worship. And especially over the dying did the Catholic chaplain seem to have particular sway. His anointing with, oils, and his prayers, gave the dying complete satisfaction. They died happily, and reconciled, and with entire confidence, after the rite had been performed .

--._,: If a mere lay observer might venture a prophecy, it would be that the Evangelicalsand among them I class that large number of the C. of E. whose religion is a vague belief in the Bible and the British Constitutionwill demand something more definite and tangible in religion, than they have in the past. They have learned on the battlefield, not only that life is real, but that death is very real too. A man who has stood at the door of heaven or hell for months, has done some thinking about what lies behind the door. I think they will look for something more than Biblereading and preaching, and words of consolation and inspiration from their ministers. Even those who formerly opposed the soul-saving machinery of the High Church, now see that it works well in times of great crisis, when there. is not much to be said, but very much to be done ; when action is called for and hot words. They have seen that religion is not something invisible and intangible, but that it can be externalised, and realised, in symbols, ceremonies, and sacraments.

The intensely personal nature of the work which the High Church, and especially the Catholic chaplains accomplished, must have its effect. The confessional is very personal, man to manor better, man to God squaring up of sin... I say man to God advisedly ; for I know that Catholics look upon the priest in this office, not as a mere man, but as the representative of God. Contrast the work of the confessional with the frightfully impersonal ministrations of our C. of E. chaplain. His excellent sermons were like shrapnel. Some hearers were hit, but a vastly larger number were not touched. The work of the priest in the Catholic confessional is at close quarters to hand, deadly personal. There was no escape for the individual under cover of the mass. There was no opportunitv for camouflage, for the soul was bared. I envied the men the peace, and the satisfied security, that confession gave them. No doubt it gave us some general satisfaction to be assured en masse , that Christ forgave all who were penitent. But it was by no means so direct and reassuring as the immediate absolution given by the R.C. chaplain. And my idea of it is that soul-saving is an individual sort of thing. Christ dealt very directly with individual sinners. Yes. I think that the Evangelicals will try to make their religion more personal and direct, and, let us say, more human. The simple and primitive Gospel in a bare church, with a minister in a frock coat, is a cold sort of religion. It will never appeal strongly s to those who have ! bivouacked in ' French 5 cathedrals, and fought ' under the shadow of the Crucified, ' in Flanders. . > , -, HU./* ‘. wAnf. fnn, i'or -in flimr .Moafriipfiiro O- il'O IWiVIUiOAU ” ''Vv/ *** - V.V/V*. w reaction from Catholicity, and the sons of the Be-

formers are going to demand from their Churches the lost heritage. What they have seen in France and Flanders they will .'want in their. own Churches. . They will ask why the Church of Rome should.have a monopoly of what belongs to Christendom.. : ,; . 5 The Catholic Church' is essentially universal in its appeal, and in its application. , And the end of the war, I think, will bring a new growth in religious internationalism. As we get further and further away from mere nationalism in political life, so too we will give up mere nationalism in religion. . ; I once saw a remarkable instance of how international religion could be. I stepped into a half-ruined French church one morning, and found Mass going on. There were, of course, French soldiers present, together with their officers. There were a few men from an Irish regiment. There were some officers of the Colonials, who, I suppose, represented South Africa or even more distant Australia. There was an Italian officer, attached to the staff, and a couple of Austrian and German prisoners, who worked in the town, and who had slipped into the church under the watchful but benevolent eye of their guard. They all understood what they were there for, and all were able to join in the service. For the moment they were not French, nor ; German, nor. Irish, nor Italian they were just Christians. It seemed very different from the Church of England, which never forgets the fact that it is English. The ministrations of the Catholic Church are, we found, just as international as are its services. They .were as well understood, and as welcome, among Germans, as among French or Italians or English. That is where the symbolism, and the official Latin language helps. Again and again I have seen an English Catholic chaplain helping an unfortunate Pole or Bavarian or Austrian to make his final peace with God, while even our good-hearted C. of E. chaplain could do nothing for the wounded soldiers of the enemy. He had nothing in common with them.

lt is quite obvious to me now that anything so hopelessly limited as a mere national Church can never make much progress in Christendom. The sooner Christianity breaks away from, the limitations of national boundary or race, the better for it. From my own experience, I cannot speak too highly of the work the chaplains are doing in the army. I am glad that our own Government made such generous provision for supplying the boys with helpers and guides. The morale of an army is more important than ammunition : and a good chaplain can do more toward, keeping up morale than any other officer. Although nominally an officer, the chaplain can really be one of the men, or at least occupy a middle place between officers and men. The men can go to him with their just grievances, and he can set many of them right. He is also the link between the boys of the regiment and home.. He keeps them in touch with the higher things of life. - He. keeps them from forgetting the high ideals which .they learned in their homes. He can speak an . effective word, now and then, about the particular dangers to which they are exposed. No. other officer can.do it. It is the chaplain’s particular and official business. ~ Those .who love the boys—-the mothers, and wives, and sweethearts —want them to come home with untarnished honor. They pray, not only for their physical well-being, but for . their spiritual well-being too. And good old .Uncle Sam is doing, the noble and; paternal thing in looking out for the welfare of . his boys to the best of his ability. It is only right, for they are giving him their all. He wants them to return better men, even, than when they went away. And as a means to this end he has given them plenty of chaplains. The mothers of America, and all who are interested in the boys, will bless him for-that.