It is highly to his credit that he made from 1810 onward a serious attempt to organize a system of brigade chaplaincies for his army, and to see that the men should not lack the possibility of public worship. Down to that year the chaplains’ department had been much neglected: large expeditions had gone out without a single clergyman attached, and in the first Peninsular Army of 1808 there had been very few—though two of them, Ormsby and Bradford, happen to have left interesting books behind them, the latter’s beautifully illustrated by sketches. Wellington complained that the provision that he found in 1809 was wholly inadequate, asked for and obtained an additional establishment, and made arrangements for regular Sunday services in each brigade.
The letter of February 6, 1811, in which he explains his views to the Adjutant General at the Horse Guards is a very characteristic document. “The army should have the advantage of religious instruction, from a knowledge that it is the greatest support and aid to military discipline and order.” But there are not enough chaplains, and those that exist are not always “respectable.” The prospects of a military chaplain are not attractive enough; on retirement he is much worse off than he would have been “if he had followed any other line of the clerical profession besides the army.” Hence few good men are obtained. For want of sufficiently numerous and influential official teachers, spontaneous religious life has broken out in the army. There are three Methodist meetings in the 1st Division alone. In the 9th regiment two officers are preaching, in despite of their colonels’ dissuasions.
“The meeting of soldiers in their cantonments to sing psalms, or to hear a sermon read by one of their comrades is, in the abstract, perfectly innocent; it is a better way of spending their time than many others to which they are addicted. But it may become otherwise, and yet, till the abuse has made some progress, their commanding officer would have no knowledge of it, nor could he interfere.”
Official religious instruction is the proper remedy. A “respectable clergyman” is wanted, who “by his personal influence and advice, and by that of true religion, would moderate the zeal and enthusiasm of those people, and prevent meetings from becoming mischievous, even if he could not prevail upon them to discontinue them entirely.” Wherefore the Adjutant General must provide for a larger establishment of “respectable and efficient clergymen.”
The Chaplains
The Horse Guards complied at once: chaplains, it was replied, should be sent out “selected with the utmost care and circumspection by the first prelates of the country.” Their pay was raised, and they were directed to conclude every service with a short practical sermon, suited to the habits and understanding of soldiers. “Good preaching,” adds the Adjutant General, “is more than ever required at a time peculiarly marked by the exertions and interference of sectaries of various denominations.”[328]
The chaplains duly appeared. There were good men among them, but they were not, taken as a whole, a complete success. Perhaps the idea, equally nourished by Wellington and by the Horse Guards, that “respectable” clergymen rather than enthusiasts should be drafted out, was the cardinal mistake; the sort of men that were really wanted at the front were precisely the enthusiasts, like that Rev. T. Owen (afterwards secretary of the British and Foreign Bible Society), of whom we are told that he was in days of action so far forward in the field that officers warned him that he would infallibly be killed. His reply was that his primary duty was “to be of service to those now departing this life.”[329] This sort of laudable energy, I am bound to say, does not seem to have been the most common characteristic of the chaplains, if we may trust the diaries of the time.
A good many of them were sent straight out from a country curacy to the front, had no special knowledge of soldiers and their ways, and were appalled at having to face the great facts of life and death in their crudest form day after day. There is one distressing picture of a young clergyman suddenly confronted in the guard-tent with five deserters who were to be shot that afternoon. They were all criminals who had been actually taken in the French ranks, fighting against their old comrades, at the storm of Ciudad Rodrigo. The chaplain helplessly read prayers at them, felt that he could do no more with callous ruffians who had met the death-sentence with an oath, and followed them to the execution-place looking very uncomfortable, quite useless, and much ashamed of himself.
It was almost as trying, if not so horrible, to be tackled by a Calvinist in the throes of conversion, who gave glowing pictures of hell-fire, and asked for the means of avoiding it, refusing to take as an answer any dole of chapters from the New Testament or petitions from the Prayer Book. Here is a picture of the situation from the point of view of the penitent, Quartermaster Surtees, whom I have already had occasion to quote.
“From the clergyman, though a kind and sympathizing man, I, alas! derived but little benefit. He did not direct me to the only source of a sin-sick being’s hopes—the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world. He tried to make my hopes centre more on good resolutions, and after-doings. How thankfully would I have accepted the true method of salvation pointed out in the gospel; but already I was but too much (as the natural man always is) inclined to expect pardon from the acts of penitence which, if God spared me, I intended to perform. The kind gentleman wrote me out prayers, and seemed much interested in my welfare. But reading and praying seemed more like an irksome task than an exercise which brought spiritual profit.... Indeed the Scriptures were still at this time a ‘sealed book’ to me; until the grace of God has dispelled our darkness there is no light in anything.”[330]