B.E.F., _November 1916._

'And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the
haughtiness of men shall be brought low: and the Lord alone
shall be exalted in that day. And the idols shall utterly pass
away. And men shall go into the caves of the rocks, and into
the holes of the earth, from before the terror of the Lord and
from the glory of His majesty, when He ariseth to shake
mightily the earth.'

* * * * *

'Whom ye ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you.'

I

I write this little book in order to help towards an answer to the
question, How is it with the Christian religion at the front? With the
flower of British manhood massed in the Army this and like questions are
bound to arise--How is it with the men? Where are they religiously? What
do they want? What will they need when they return? and so forth. There
never has been such an opportunity of taking a comparative view of British
Christianity and of framing answers to such questions. Perhaps those who
are working as chaplains at the front are especially challenged to attempt
these tasks. Their answer must not be loose or sentimental. There is a
danger of that. The emotions aroused by the war may encourage sentimental
verdicts. That may be the reason why a good many ideas which are current
at home about religion at the front, are a good distance removed from
reality.

II

I can only venture upon a verdict after first acknowledging that it is
inseparably bound up with my own shortcomings. Other men of a truer
devotion and love may well have grounds in a more effective ministry for
challenging and amplifying it.

Further, I have to ask that allowance be made for the fact that men like
myself, who have been working as 'C. of E.' chaplains, are not very well
qualified to speak about the religion of the men. There is something wrong
about the status of chaplains. They belong to what the author of _A
Student in Arms_ calls 'the super-world' of officers, which as such is
separate from the men. As a class we find it hard to penetrate the
surface of the men--that surface which we can almost see thrust out at us
like a shield, in the suddenly assumed rigidity of men as they salute us.
We are in an unchristian position, in the sense that we are in a position
which Christ would not have occupied. He, I am sure, would have been a
regimental stretcher-bearer, truly among and o