d to reconcile Christianity
with such a war as this, but he did not camouflage the teachings of the
Master he tried to serve. He preached to his men the gospel of love and
forgiveness of enemies. It was reported to the general, who sent for
him.

"Look here, I can't let you go preaching 'soft stuff' to my men. I can't
allow all that nonsense about love. My job is to teach them to hate. You
must either cooperate with me or go."

The chaplain refused to change his faith or his teaching, and the
general thought better of his intervention.

For all chaplains it was difficult. Simple souls were bewildered by the
conflict between the spirit of Christianity and the spirit of war. Many
of them--officers as well as men--were blasphemous in their scorn of
"parson stuff," some of them frightfully ironical.

A friend of mine watched two chaplains passing by. One of them was a
tall man with a crown and star on his shoulder-strap.

"I wonder," said my friend, with false simplicity, "whether Jesus Christ
would have been a lieutenant--colonel?"

On the other hand, many men found help in religion, and sought its
comfort with a spiritual craving. They did not argue about Christian
ethics and modern warfare. Close to death in the midst of tragedy,
conscious in a strange way of their own spiritual being and of a
spirituality present among masses of men above the muck of war, the
stench of corruption, and fear of bodily extinction, they groped out
toward God. They searched for some divine wisdom greater than the folly
of the world, for a divine aid which would help them to greater courage.
The spirit of God seemed to come to them across No Man's Land with pity
and comradeship. Catholic soldiers had a simpler, stronger faith than
men of Protestant denominations, whose faith depended more on ethical
arguments and intellectual reasonings. Catholic chaplains had an easier
task. Leaving aside all argument, they heard the confessions of the
soldiers, gave them absolution for their sins, said mass for them in
wayside barns, administered the sacraments, held the cross to their lips
when they fell mortally wounded, anointed them when the surgeon's knife
was at work, called the names of Jesus and Mary into dying ears. There
was no need of argument here. The old faith which has survived many
wars, many plagues, and the old wickedness of men was still full of
consolation to those who accepted it as little children, and by their
own agony hoped f