HELPING THE HELPLESS.
Royal Navy Division helping Belgian soldiers and refugees during the retreat from Antwerp.
Drawn by Ernest Prater from sketches made by one who was there.[ToList]
And out of this first distressing thing there emerges another. (2) Christian ministers are opposed to each other in the ranks, not because they want, but because they must. The law of conscription in Germany and in France applies to them as to others.
Surely these might have been left out of the call, or at any rate might have been left free to respond or not as their conscience dictated, as was the case in England. The consequence is that hundreds if not thousands of churches are left without their spiritual leaders, and everywhere the flock is destitute of the shepherd's care.
I said "a distressing thing," but is it not a tragedy? And if they should meet—these Christian ministers—across the trenches or in the line of battle, and minister shoot minister, or perforce meet him in a bayonet charge!
But there is a brighter side even to this dark picture. There are twenty thousand priests, "religious," and seminarists serving in the French Army. Among them are three bishops. Monsignor Ruch, coadjutor of Nancy, is one; he is employed as a stretcher-bearer. Another, Monsignor Perros, is a sub-lieutenant; and the third, Monsignor Mourey, is simply Private Mourey in the ranks. It is quite an ordinary thing for confessions to be heard by soldier priests in the trenches, and for absolution to be given before the charge. Protestant ministers, too, fighting in the ranks never forget they are ministers, and their ministry may be even more effective than that of the chaplains, for are they not comrades too? Thus the armies are leavened by Christian men, whose supreme business must be the Kingdom of God.
A beautiful story comes to us from the early days of the war. In the hall of a great railway terminus in Paris, a number of wounded were laid out on straw waiting to be taken to a hospital. Several of them had evidently not long to live. One especially was very restless, and a nurse moved to his side, and began to do what she could for him.
"I badly want a priest," moaned the dying man.
The nurse looked round upon the company of wounded.
"Is there a priest here?" she asked. A voice in little more than a whisper replied: