as well. Religion and science are sometimes
supposed to be hostile to one another. I must say this, and say it
gratefully--I always found doctors sympathetic, helpful, and
considerate, no men more so, in fact, none could have been more entirely
friendly. They are not lovers of creeds, but they are devoted servants
of humanity, and singularly responsive to any practical desire to be of
help. In the evening we held a united service. When the Presbyterian
gave the address the service was Anglican, and next Sunday the service
would be Presbyterian and the Church of England chaplain spoke. We took
our funerals to that so quickly growing cemetery with its six hundred
little wooden crosses, separately, though up the road those from the
other clearing station were taken by each chaplain on alternate days,
irrespective of denomination. We dispensed the Sacrament of the Lord's
Supper to our own people, using the beautiful little Communion set
issued by the War Office, and having as Table a stretcher covered with a
white cloth and set on trestles.

The drawing power of nationality is immense in the field. It is far more
emphatic and real than the sense of particular church connection. Even
men very loyal to their own branch of the Presbyterian Church, for
example, lay little emphasis on that in their minds. They delight in
meeting a Scots doctor or Scots padre. He understands all the twined
fibres of tradition and training that go to make up their character.
Every man, too, likes to worship according to the forms that he is
familiar with. But Church of Scotland, or United Free Church of
Scotland, and so on, is all very much the same to him. I am speaking of
Christian men, of men quite aware of the historical situation. There
grows upon a man in the field a deeper love for his brother Scot, so
profound a sense of essential oneness in tradition, in history, in
character, in faith, that he comes to look forward eagerly,
_passionately_, to a blessed day of complete reconciliation.

'Do you think that sort of thing matters now, Padre?' whispered a boy
who was desperately wounded, his skeleton hand picking restlessly at
the counterpane--a fine time for all our sound arguments! 'That sort of
thing' does matter, of course, but _then_ what could matter save to rest
wearily in the Everlasting Arms. I cannot believe that any one who has
knelt beside life after life passing forth in weariness and pain, cut
short so untimely, far from mother