Excerpt: ...be. Out on the battle-field there are Anglican clergy, there are Roman Catholic priests, there are ministers of the Presbyterian, the Methodist, the Baptist and other non-conformist faiths. Creed and doctrine play no part when men are gasping out a dying breath and the last message home. The chaplain carries in his heart the comfort for the man who is facing eternity. We do not want to die. We are all strong and full of life and hope and power of doing. Suddenly we are stricken beyond mortal aid. The chaplain ...
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Excerpt: ...be. Out on the battle-field there are Anglican clergy, there are Roman Catholic priests, there are ministers of the Presbyterian, the Methodist, the Baptist and other non-conformist faiths. Creed and doctrine play no part when men are gasping out a dying breath and the last message home. The chaplain carries in his heart the comfort for the man who is facing eternity. We do not want to die. We are all strong and full of life and hope and power of doing. Suddenly we are stricken beyond mortal aid. The chaplain comes and in a few phrases gives us the password, the sign which admits us to the peaceful Masonry of Christianity. Rough men pass away, hard men "go West" with a smile of peace upon their pain-tortured lips if the padre can get to them in time for the parting word, the cheerful, colloquial "best o' luck." Does the padre come to us and sanctimoniously pronounce our eternal doom should he hear us swear? The clergyman, the minister of old time, is down and out when he reaches the battle-fields of France, or any other of the fronts we are holding. No stupid tracts are handed to us, no whining and groaning, no morbid comments on the possibility of eternal damnation. No, the chaplain of to-day is a real man, maybe he always was, I don't know. A man who risks his life as do we who are in the fighting line. He has services, talks, addresses, but he never preaches. He practises all the time. Out of this war there will come a new religion. It won't be a sin any more to sing rag-time on Sunday, as it was in the days of my childhood. It won't be a sin to play a game on Sunday. After church parade in France we rushed to the playing fields behind the lines, and many a time I've seen the chaplain umpire the ball game. Many a time I've seen him take a hand in a friendly game of poker. The man who goes to France to-day will come back with a broadened mind, be he a chaplain or be he a fighter. There is no room for narrowness, for dogma or for the tenets of...
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