Non-Communicating Attendance at the Front.

Waiapu Church Gazette, Volume VIII, Issue 12, 1 June 1918, Page 94

Non-Communicating Attendance at the Front.

(By the Rev. Gerald W. Elliott).

Two men from a Labor Battalion came into my Hut one evening m June. ' ' We wonder, ' '. they . said, 1 1 if you would celebrate for us- next Sunday evening after Evensong ? We can't come at any other hour, and we haven.'t made our Communion for months past. ' ' And, of course, I said that I would gladly do so.

I wish I could adequately describe that Celebration. Nearly forty men had walked over four miles on a very close and sultry day to be present. It was nearly dark, and the only light was a little circle near the altar. The men could not read their books, but the responses came firmly and clearly for all that.

But even more than the devotion of the communicants was the impression made by a group of men who stood or knelt near the door of the Hut. They were not eommunuieants, but apparently they were very much interested m this service. One group stayed inside, the others remained m a semicircle at the door — never moving, never speaking, but just watching. Now and then a man, pipe m mouth, would walk down the duckboards from the road to see what was going on. And the pipe would be removed, and he would remain, one of this watching group.

The next Sunday it was the same. A few more came m and knelt at the back of the Hut, but the majority remained at the door. And then, on the following Sunday, I asked those watchers to come m and kneel down and join m the prayers. They did so, and the following week I had quite a number of conversations with men who had long given up the practice of Communion. Three who had never been confirmed gave me their names as candidates, and the next Sunday several others made the first Communion since boyhood. And they continued to come to the Blessed Sacrament every Sunday until either they or I had left that neighborhood.

This is not a story read m a paper or told by someone who had heard that it happened. These incidents took place m the Salient of Ypres m my C.A. Hut.

And then I came home on Tuesday last and found that six clergy 'and 55 of the laity of Dublin would have had me say to those who knelt and those who stood at the door, "Depart ye hence," "Ye hold the mysteries of Christ m derision," "Give place to them which be godly^disgosed. " Is it not tragic to Inink that those who sit m the Councils of our Church should be alienated thus from the

facts of life, so wanting m sympathy for the crying needs of their fellbwmen?"Church Army Review."