Religious Life Among the Troops
ALTHOUGH the church as an organization and as the most direct exponent of the Prince of Peace, had no part in the welfare work during the war, yet it was the contributing and inspirational force behind the organizations and individuals who played such an important part in the developing and the maintaining of the morale of the soldiers of the American Expeditionary Forces. The chaplains were direct, but not official representatives of the church, while the Y. M. C. A., the Y. W. C. A., the Knights of Columbus, the Salvation Army, and the Jewish Welfare Board were direct outgrowths of the church or religious spirit in America; and while the great war was apparently a complete and tangible evidence of the failure of Christianity among Christian nations, still there was abundant manifestation everywhere that within the hearts of men there was a deep and abiding faith in the great Ruler of the Universe, and a certain conviction that the great world cataclysm was a result of the dogged and persistent determination of the peoples engaged therein to ignore the principles in practice that they had so loudly preached to the world.
Although to some it was tremendously puzzling that a great human machine that had been built up for the purpose of killing men, should at the same time set agencies into operation to teach and preach the doctrines of Christ, yet they were willing to overlook the seeming paradox and gather in large numbers to hear the gospel, to study the Word itself, to pray, and not least of all, to sing as only dark-skinned Americans can sing, either the wonderful spirituals that were born of the travail of an oppressed and bleeding people, or the more stately hymns and songs that were published in a million gospel song books that were distributed throughout the American Expeditionary Forces.
Group of Religious Workers
1. Chaplain R. A. McAllister and Orderly at Camp Pontanezen, Brest. 2. Chaplain M. M. Jefferson, at Camp Lusitania, St. Nazaire. 3. Secretary B. F. Selden and Chaplain George Shippen Stark, on Vosges Front. 4. Chaplains Wallace and Robeson with 369th Infantry.
The Y. M. C. A. had a regularly organized religious program which it put into operation with more or less success; it secured the services of Dr. Henry Churchill King, President of Oberlin College, as Director of the Religious Department in France. He had offices in Paris, and a large field force to put into operation his plan of carrying the gospel to the soldiers. Evangelistic singers and speakers traveled from place to place talking and singing to the soldiers as they congregated in the Y. M. C. A. huts. There was a religious director also for every region, who kept in direct touch with the work of religious secretaries who were supposed to be stationed at each hut. The personnel of the colored welfare workers, however, was so limited in number that there were not enough religious secretaries to supply the demand; and there were only about 50 colored chaplains in the entire A. E. F.; as a result, all who would were invited to help in this all-important work of the Y. M. C. A. Many of the soldiers were always willing and anxious to assist in every possible way, while some of the Y women gave much time to this phase of welfare work; the writer, with the assistance of interested soldiers, organized a Bible class in a hut where there hitherto had been only one religious service a week, attended by from 60 to 100 men out of a camp of 3,500. The Bible class grew and gathered strength until a colored chaplain was finally stationed at Camp Lusitania, which by that time had grown to a camp of 9,000.
Some hut secretaries were especially fitted for religious work, and filled the place of a religious worker in a splendid manner. Such a man was Mr. William Stevenson, who initiated and built the work at Camp Montoir. Rev. T. A. Griffith, hut secretary at Camp Guthrie, near St. Nazaire, was another such messenger of the gospel, and during three months of service had 300 accessions to the church; the names of all such men were enrolled on special blanks supplied by the Y. M. C. A., and sent to the churches at home of which they desired to become members. Of course this was work such as was to be expected of any minister, but nevertheless there were some who did not avail themselves of the opportunity. Another such Y. M. C. A. secretary was Mr. E. T. Banks, of Dayton, Ohio. Hundreds would go into battle after having followed him in silent prayer, with knees bent and faces lifted toward heaven, in the land where now “The poppies blow, between the crosses, row on row,” and where many of them at this moment “Rest sweet and deep, in Flanders Fields.”
In addition to the work done through the Y. M. C. A. religious workers and chaplains, thousands of pieces of religious literature were distributed, including pocket editions of the New Testament, Psalms, and Gospels. These were placed in literature cases so that the men could select those which interested them most, and always the New Testament or small extracts from the Bible would have the largest circulation.
To those of us who went over to cast our lots with the boys in khaki, nothing was quite so inspiring and so helpful as to hear them tell of their faith in God, or to give utterance to a prayer that bespoke the upward groping of a soul, or to hear a thousand voices, deep and rich and rhythmic, bring heaven into a sacred and almost visible nearness, with singing that seemed nothing less than a special benediction to a peculiar people. This was a priceless gift, in a country where all the people spoke a different tongue, and where the great organs in the cathedrals welled forth the only language that brought forth a gospel message to a stranger in a strange land.
In the midst of oppression, circumscription, intrigue, and false and wicked propaganda spread against them by their own countrymen, these colored soldiers fought as bravely as any Americans overseas, and worked with a greater will; and as you saw them going to and from their long hours of labor with a song upon their lips, you became convinced that these men had unconquerable souls; and the tramp, tramp, tramp of their marching feet made you feel that surely they were walking side by side with the Master, who had said unto them: Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.
They are embosomed in the sod,
In still and tranquil leisure,
Their lives, they’ve cast, like trifles down
To serve their country’s pleasure.
Nor bugle call, nor mother’s voice,
Nor moody mob’s unreason,
Shall break their solace and repose,
Through swiftly changing season.
O graves of men who lived and died
Afar from life’s high pleasures,
Fold them in tenderly and warm
With manifold fond measures.
Georgia Douglas Johnson.