Thoughts on religion at the front | Page 2

is being written afresh the good news in Christ. She is being
vivified, as perhaps no other part of Christendom, into readiness for the
future.
N.S.T.
B.E.F., November 1916.

'And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of
men shall be brought low: and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that
day. And the idols shall utterly pass away. And men shall go into the
caves of the rocks, and into the holes of the earth, from before the terror
of the Lord and from the glory of His majesty, when He ariseth to
shake mightily the earth.'
* * * * *
'Whom ye ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you.'

I
I write this little book in order to help towards an answer to the
question, How is it with the Christian religion at the front? With the
flower of British manhood massed in the Army this and like questions
are bound to arise--How is it with the men? Where are they religiously?
What do they want? What will they need when they return? and so

forth. There never has been such an opportunity of taking a
comparative view of British Christianity and of framing answers to
such questions. Perhaps those who are working as chaplains at the front
are especially challenged to attempt these tasks. Their answer must not
be loose or sentimental. There is a danger of that. The emotions
aroused by the war may encourage sentimental verdicts. That may be
the reason why a good many ideas which are current at home about
religion at the front, are a good distance removed from reality.

II
I can only venture upon a verdict after first acknowledging that it is
inseparably bound up with my own shortcomings. Other men of a truer
devotion and love may well have grounds in a more effective ministry
for challenging and amplifying it.
Further, I have to ask that allowance be made for the fact that men like
myself, who have been working as 'C. of E.' chaplains, are not very
well qualified to speak about the religion of the men. There is
something wrong about the status of chaplains. They belong to what the
author of A Student in Arms calls 'the super-world' of officers, which as
such is separate from the men. As a class we find it hard to penetrate
the surface of the men--that surface which we can almost see thrust out
at us like a shield, in the suddenly assumed rigidity of men as they
salute us. We are in an unchristian position, in the sense that we are in a
position which Christ would not have occupied. He, I am sure, would
have been a regimental stretcher-bearer, truly among and of the men.
We are very unlike Him. We are often liked, and are thought good
fellows, but we are unlike Him and miss what He could discover.
Our--my--verdict is not necessarily His.
Lastly, all verdicts must be rough in war. The nature of war and of its
effects often precludes any one from knowing exactly what is going on
in the souls of men. War is a muddy business, encasing the body in dirt,
and caking over the soul. It forms hard surfaces over the centres of
sensitiveness. It is benumbing to spiritual faculties. That is nature's way

of accommodation with war's environment. To feel things much would
literally be maddening. To brood about danger, to apprehend or
anticipate or philosophise may imperil 'nerve.' Rather the majority of
men carry on, callously, almost gaily, with mental and spiritual
faculties if possible inactive. I have met an entirely devout lover of
music (since killed in action) who told me that he didn't miss music out
here because "he wasn't carrying on with those faculties." I have seen a
man of indubitable Christian conviction come down from the cold clam
of the trenches in mid-winter and take up a religious book which
ordinarily would have excited him and say--"Ah! yes, there is all that."
I could almost see the surface which war had hardened over him.
Beneath it in him and all the rest, who knows what may not be in
process, ready to emerge when they can bathe in the solvent waters of
peace?
Meanwhile they 'carry on.' That I think is especially congenial to the
British. There is no doubt that men of our race have an invincibility,
which is due in part to the fact that they do not think about or feel what
is really going on. To be practically and sensually occupied with the
passing moment is the way to carry on in war. It is characteristic of our
men. They are remarkably void of apprehension in every sense of the
word. Had the rank