The Church Militant! Was it ever so militant as now, when all the powers of darkness, all the forces of the Devil, are arrayed against Christianity and all the manifold blessings of Civilization? Look at stricken Belgium and the battlefields of France, where hundreds of priests combine their holy offices as chaplains with the duties of the soldier, a Bible in one hand, a sword in the other! See, at the head of Russian armies, priests leading the soldiers into battle! And here, on Gallipoli ...
We have our chaplains, and we have ministers of the Gospel fighting as "happy warriors" in the ranks. Digges La Touche had the character of the happy warrior, who
While the mortal mist is gathering, draws
His breath in confidence of Heaven's applause.
But it matters little whether they go forth as armed men in the Great Crusade, or to fight the good fight by ministering to the dying, or to read the burial service over the dead, they all must needs be brave men, ready to risk their lives. Death is very close to all of us in this war—chaplains, doctors, stretcher-bearers and all.
Brave men, yes. Fighting parsons, soldier saints, whether they be chaplains, or whether they have forsaken the study for the stricken field, the pulpit for the platoon, or whether they be in the Army Medical Corps, heroes of the Red Cross of Geneva. Some have been killed, some wounded.
Andrew Gillison is one of those who has gone to his rest—one of Gallipoli's heroes. Chaplain-Captain Andrew Gillison, of the Fourteenth Battalion, Fourth Infantry Brigade, was the first of the Australian army chaplains to be killed. Prior to the war—and that seems a long, long time ago—he was a minister of St. George's Presbyterian Church, East St. Kilda, and before that he was at St. Paul's, Brisbane. He was well known and greatly loved throughout the whole Presbyterian Church of Australia. He was no sour-visaged, long-faced Christian. His religion was cheerful, optimistic and joyous. I met him at St. Andrew's, Cairo, and then I knew why the Fourth Brigade almost worshipped him. On the transport he was a prime favourite. He sang a good comic song. He entered into the boxing tournament. He won his first bout in fine style. Then he got a hiding, and took his beating like a man.
It was meet that such a man should die giving his life for another. Greater love hath no man than this; and Andrew Gillison would not have willed it otherwise. It was while performing a work of necessity and mercy on Sunday morning, August 22, that he was shot, and he died a few hours afterwards.
The New Zealand and Australian Division had made a most gallant attack on the hills occupied by the Turks. Pressing home the attack with the bayonet, they drove the enemy from trench to trench and from ridge to ridge. Deeds of valour were performed day after day and night after night. Heroes died on every side, with no historian to tell how gallantly they died. One of these young Australians was wounded in the charge, and lay some distance behind the advanced position. It was then that two fighting parsons came along a communication trench, which was comparatively safe from rifle fire, but offered little protection from shrapnel. From a slight hollow they saw the wounded man, in evident agony, raise his hand, and try to move. Captain Gillison and Corporal Pittenrigh—who is a Methodist minister when not a soldier—decided to try to effect a rescue, though they knew a machine-gun was trained on the trench, and had been warned to beware of snipers. Mounting the parapet, they crawled along some distance towards the wounded man. A couple of bullets zipped by, but they pushed on. More bullets flew, and both the rescuers were wounded.
Then they tried to regain the shelter of the trench, and Gillison was wounded again, but his companion managed to scramble in. Mortally wounded in the chest and the side, the poor chaplain lay in the open, but was soon carried in and conveyed to the field hospital. He was conscious for a while and cheerful, though he knew his hours were numbered. He was able to greet Chaplains F. Colwell and G. T. Walden, who had just arrived with Colonel Holmes's Australian Brigade, and Chaplain J. M. Dale of Brisbane. Before two o'clock he was dead, dying as he had lived, a gallant Christian soldier.
That night, wrapped in a Union Jack, he was buried. It was bright moonlight. Out in the Ægean the warships and hospital ships lay passive. Back in the hills sounded the ceaseless rattle of musketry. Chaplain-Colonel E. N. Merrington conducted a brief service, at which were chaplains of all denominations and several officers and men of his brigade and battalion. The little shallow grave lies a couple of miles north of Anzac, on the edge of the five-mile beach that stretches on to Suvla Bay. As with the hero of Corunna, "we carved not a line, and we raised not a stone—but we left him alone with his glory." His comrades went back to the firing-line with the memory of his self-sacrifice to cheer them on. And we thought then of Longfellow's beautiful lines—