ght
of war's conflagrations that the things concerning the Kingdom must be
seized anew. If anybody has thoughts which he feels he must share with
others, he should not postpone doing so. He should communicate his
thoughts to others in order that he may learn from their comments and
criticism. I can claim, whilst asking pardon for whatever may offend in
them, that the thoughts represented by the following pages have not been
come by hastily, but have been growing in my mind during the long months
at the front since the beginning of the war. They have, so to say, been
hammered out as metal upon the anvil of war.

They are thoughts about religion. Nothing is so important as religion;
nothing is more potent than true ideas in religion. Deep fountains of real
religion--of simple and unself-prizing faith--have been unsealed by the
convulsion of war. Yet this religion is weak in ideas, and some of the
ideas with which it is bound up are wrong ideas. Men of our race are very
sure that it matters more what a man is than what he thinks. British
religion is deep and rich, but it is, characteristically, deeper and
richer in what it is than in what it knows itself to be. It sorely needs
a mind of strong and compelling conviction. If these pages were to help
ever so few readers towards being possessed anew of the truth of the
Gospel of God in Christ, their appearance would be justified.

I have written, perhaps, as one who dreads saying 'Peace, where there is
no peace.' I would rather err on the side of emphasising criticism and
difficulty than the other way. There is, indeed, little room for
complacency in a Christian, still less in an English Churchman, at the
front. Yet in 'padres' hope and expectation should predominate, and these
as based less upon results achieved than upon the mutual understanding,
respect, and indeed affection which increasingly unite them to the men
whom they would serve. And in them, too, if they are 'C. of E.,' there
should be growing, along with an unevasive discontent, a sanguine loyalty
to their mother Church. For all that she now means so little to so many
she will yet win a more than nominal allegiance from many of her wandering
children. For there is in her, beneath the surface of her sluggish
confusion, a living heart and candid mind, upon which is being written
afresh the good news in Christ. She is being vivified, as perhaps no other
part of Christendom, into readiness for the future.

N.S.T.