World War I Pamphlets Collection

The church's work for men at war

Bell, Bernard Iddings, 1886-1958

Western Theological Seminary (Evanston, Ill.)

text

Chicago

Pub. for the Western theologial seminary by Morehouse Pub. Co., Milwaukee, Wis.

1919

monographic

electronic

application/pdf

64 p. 23 cm

reformatted digital

Includes bibliographical references

by the Reverend Bernard Iddings Bell

World War, 1914-1918 -- Religious aspects

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Episcopal Church

LCSH

World War, 1914-1918 -- Registers

lcsh

BX5937.A1 H3 no. 11

Hale memorial sermon no. 11

https://ark.colorad…

i71174886

University of Colorado at Boulder Libraries. Archives Dept.

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THE HALE MEMORIAL SERMON, 1919 at ork for ar By THE REV. BERNARD IDDINGS BELL, S.T.B. Sometime Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral Church, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin; personal aide to the Senior Chaplain, Great Lakes Naval Training Station, 19171919 Published for the Western Theological Seminary CHICAGO By wn Morehouse Publishing Co. Milwaukee, Wis., U. S. A. The Hale Memorial Sermon No. 11 The Church's Work for Men at War By The Reverend Bernard Iddings Bell, S.T.B. Sometime Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral Church, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin; personal aide to the Senior Chaplain, Great Lakes Naval Training Station, 1917-1919 Preached in St. Andrew's Church in the City of Chicago, on the Second Sunday after Easter, May 4, 1919 (Together with Appendices giving the Names of all Clergymen of the Episcopal Church and all Laymen of the Brother- hood of St. Andrew engaged in War Work.) Published for the WESTERN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY CHICAGO By MOREHOUSE PUBLISHING CO. Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U. S. A.TO THE GLORY OF GOD AND IN MEMORY OF ANNA McK. T. HALE A LOVER OF EVERY GOOD WORD AND WORK THE PREACHING AND PRINTING OF THIS SERMON WERE PROVIDED FOR BY HER HUSBAND C. R. H.The Faith By Which We Live By the Rt. Rev. Charles Fiske, D.D., LL.D., Bishop Coadjutor of Central New York. BISHOP FISKE'S latest book has had an enthusiastic recep- tion among all schools of thought in the Church. Ttvo Seminary Deans recommend it to their students as a model of how to present the religion of Christ to every-day people. An American Bishop writes: "It is just what I need for my clergy and just what they need for their people. I wish I could have written it myself." "Bishop Fiske thoroughly understands THE AVERAGE MAN." "He HAS MORAL ORIGINALITY—the power of filling FAMILIAR BUT LITTLE COMPREHENDED TRUTH WITH THE FIRE OF HIS OWN REACTION TO IT." Here are specimen sentences out of many long reviews: The Living Church says: "This is a book for a father to hand to his grown-up son. It is a book for teachers of Bible classes. It is a book for any man or woman who would sterilize the atmosphere of their ninety per cent, secular lives.** The Montreal Churchman says: "He writes fully and with refreshing frankness and definiteness. . . . This book places us under still greater obligations to the devout scholarship of the Church in the United States/* The Southern Churchman says: "The author presents the great fundamentals of the faith lucidly and convincingly. . . . The book is spiritual in tone, earnest and devout, and in every part has passages of great power and beauty." $1.50 Net; Plus Postage, about 12c Morehouse Publishing Company Milwaukee, Wis.EXTRACTS From the Wiw, of the ,Rt. Rev. Chari.es Reuben Hai,e, D. D., LL. D., Bishop Coadjutor of Springfield, born 1837 ; consecrated July 26, 1892 ; died December 25, 1900, In the Name* of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. 1, Charles Reuben Hale, Bishop of Cairo, Bishop Coadjutor of Springfield, of the City of Cairo, Illinois, do make, publish, and declare this, as and for my Last Will and Testament, hereby revoking all former wills by me made. First. First of all, I commit myself, soul and body, into the hands of Jesus Christ, my Lord and Saviour, in Whose Merits alone I trust, look' ing for the Resurrection of the Body and the Life of the World to come. Fourteenth. All the rest and residue of my Estate, personal and real, not in this my Will otherwise specifically devised, wheresoever situate, and whether legal or equitable, I give, devise, and bequeath to "The Western Theological Seminary, Chicago, Illinois," above mentioned, but neverthe- less In Trust, provided it shall accept the trust by an instrument in writ- ing so stating, filed with this Will in. the Court where probated, within six months after the probate of this Will—for the general purpose of promot- ing the Catholic Faith, in its purity and integrity, as taught in Holy Scrip- ture, held by the Primitive Church, summed up in the Creeds and affirmed by the undisputed General Councils, and, in particular, to be used only and exclusively for the purposes following, to wit:— (1) The establishment, endowment, printing, and due circulation of a yearly Sermon, to be delivered annually forever, in memory of my dear wife, Anna McK. T. Hale, to be known as "The Hale Memorial Ser- mon," and (2) The establishment, endowment, publication and due circula- tion of Courses of Lectures, to be delivered annually forever, to be called "The Hale Lectures." The subject of this Sermon shall be some branch of Church Work, in any part of the world, which, in the judgment of the Trustees of "The Western Theological Seminary, Chicago, Illinois," deserves to be better 56 EXTRACTS FROM THE WILL known, in order that it may be more adequately appreciated. These ser- mons shall be preached at such time and place as the said Trustees of The Western Theological Seminary, Chicago, Illinois, may appoint, and shall be printed in a style similar to the Sermons of this kind already published under my direction, viz: "Confucianism in its relation to Christianity," and "The Religion of the Dakotas." One hundred copies of each of these Sermons are to be given, so soon as they come from the press, to the preacher thereof, and one copy of such Sermon is, so soon thereafter as may be, to be sent to each Bishop in the Anglican Communion, and to such other Bishops as may be in full communion with these Bishops, to the Patriarchs and other chief Hierarchs of the Orthodox Eastern Churches, and to the chief Public Libraries throughout the world. Should it be, at any time, deemed expedient to offer any of these Sermons for sale, the entire receipts, over and above the expenses incurred in such sale, shall be given to "The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America," a Corporation existing under the laws of the State of New York, for the uses of said Society. The preacher of the Hale Memorial Sermon shall always be a clergy- man of the American Church, commonly called "The Protestant Episco- pal Church," or of some Church in communion with the same, or of one of the Orthodox Eastern Churches. The Western Theological Seminary has accepted the Trusteeship as outlined in the above extracts from the will.of the late Bishop Hale. It will be the aim of the Seminary, through the Hale Sermons, to make from time to time some valuable contributions to certain of the Church problems of the day, without thereby committing itself to the utterances of its own selected Preachers.CONTENTS I—The Church's Work Defined . . 11 II—Difficulties........ 16 III—The Plan of the Organization . . 18 IV—The Commissioned Chaplains . . 19 V-TheY.M. C.A........ 22 VI—The Civilian Chaplains . . . .24 VII—The Brotherhood of St. Andrew . 25 VIII—Other Sorts of Work..... 29 IX—The War Commission of the Church 31 X—Eesults......... 32 Appendices A—Priests Who Died in Service . . 37 B—Commissioned Army Chaplains Over- seas.......... 38 C—Other Commissioned Army Chap- lains ......... 41 D—Commissioned Navy Chaplains . . 43 E—Civilian Chaplains...... 44 F—Clergymen in Army Not as Chap- lains......... 48 G—Red Cross Chaplains..... 50 H—Y. M. C. A. Secretaries (Clergymen) 51 I—Clergymen Serving Otherwise . . 54 J—Brotherhood of St. Andrew War Workers........ 56 K—Members of the War Commission . 63The Church's Work for Men at War"The Church's Work for Men at War" "Behold, this Child is set for the fall and the rising again of many in Israel"—S. Luke 2:34. I-THE CHURCH'S WORK DEFINED We are to consider the service rendered by the Church in the camps, cantonments, and naval sta- tions of our country, on ship and in trench, among soldiers, sailors, and marines, during the war which we now hope has ended. If we are properly to estimate that service, it is necessary first of all that we remind ourselves what the business of the Christian Church is in this world. The work of the Church in camp ought, of course, to be the doing of the Church's work in camp. The Church might, arguably, be a most excellent agency for the doing of the work of other organizations—the war recreation board, the Eed Cross, the Y. M. C. A.—and still be a failure in doing her own work. It is by the way that she fulfils that special obligation which is hers alone that God judges her and us her members. Let us, therefore, state for ourselves what is the Church's peculiar busi- ness in this world. The Christian religion is not a mere obedience12 THE CHURCH'S WORK to an ecclesiastical organization. It is not a conformity with certain legalistic formulae for con- duct. It does not consist primarily of the observ- ance of ancient, fixed, and formal liturgies, however beautiful. Nor, on the other hand, is the Christian religion a mere sentiment, gently per- vading the world. Christianity is a life, a life lived by those who come into personal contacts with Jesus Christ, God-made-man-for-us, and who from those contacts gain impetus to the living of lives different from those of men who know not Jesus. The Christian prays to Jesus and is confident that it is God who hears. He meets Jesus in His appointed sacraments, and feels the Presence of God, vivid, vital, incarnate beneath the forms of Bread and Wine and Water. The Christian, meeting his Master thus, can gain power, if he wills, to live a greater, simpler, more Christ-like life. When men meet Jesus He does things to them. Christianity has failed in our day, insofar as it has failed, because we have smothered our realiza- tion of Jesus' presence in clouds of venerable words, fogs of conventionality, mists of sentimen- tality. The vitalizing of Christianity depends upon our sweeping away these hindrances, and facing clearly, in prayer and sacrament, the rug- ged, righteous, incomparably good Deity, Jesus Christ. Christianity is the living of a life by those who frequently touch Jesus so, who fall from the pinnacle of human pride to real adoration ofFOE MEN AT WAR 13 Him, and feel the gracious hand of Him lifting them up, urging them on toward bravery, sincer- ity, kindly brotherhood, and service, toward cleaner, greater, more sane and more ennobling character. This is Christianity. It is, therefore, the one great task of the Christian Church to bring men face to face, grip to grip, with Jesus our God,, to show them the glory of Him, to lead them to love Him, to teach them how to worship Him and how to gain from Him His grace, through sacrament and prayer. And, since the whole purpose of the Church is to bring about these contacts whereby men may obtain the power to live great, sacrific- ing lives, the purpose of the Church with our armed forces can he nothing else than to give to them this knowledge of, and contact with, the tremendous power which is in Jesus. There are many things which soldiers and sailors need, and to provide them all we bent our energies strongly during the days of the conflict. They must have food and clothing, guns and ammunition, transportation, skilled direction. These we taxed ourselves and loaned our money to provide; and gave, too, many of our greatest business geniuses to organize their provision. Medicines and comforts for the sick, and ade- quate nursing, the government partially provided, and we made good its insufficiency through the Red Cross. Men need amusement in the long, dreary, stupid hours when they must needs do14 THE CHURCH'S WORK nothing: concerts, vaudeville, movies, lectures, to refresh them; huts in which to read and play and loaf; paper and pens with which to write; choco- late and cigarettes, and good, hot, steaming coffee when the march is long and wet and cold. These things we tried to give them through the media- tion of the Knights of Columbus, the Y. M. C. A., the Salvation Army, and kindred organizations. We were told that men on leave and liberty needed our friendship, and we poured out entertainment for them, often to such an extent that we spoiled the good fellows we sought to help. These things we did, and did well. It is just possible that we were so busy doing them that we at least partially forgot that men who go forth to battle also need a Faith, a Faith big enough and sane enough to simplify troubled minds> strengthen flabby wills to things of steel, and set on fire cold hearts. They need to feel their Com- radeship with God as the Greatest Captain; their kinship with the Eternal Heart of Things; their oneness with Him who sitteth between the Cher- ubim, be the earth never so unquiet; their unity with Him whose will shall be done on earth as it is in Heaven, if ever swords are to be beaten into plow-shares or spears into pruning hooks; their fellowship with Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. In the day of testing in bat- tle, and in the even harder days of testing in billets and in camp, men need more than equipment, more than skilled leadership, more than medicine, more14 THE CHURCH'S WORK nothing: concerts, vaudeville, movies, lectures, to refresh them; huts in which to read and play and loaf; paper and pens with which to write; choco- late and cigarettes, and good, hot, steaming coffee when the march is long and wet and cold. These things we tried to give them through the media- tion of the Knights of Columbus, the Y. M. C. A., the Salvation Army, and kindred organizations. We were told that men on leave and liberty needed our friendship, and we poured out entertainment for them, often to such an extent that we spoiled the good fellows we sought to help. These things we did, and did well. It is just possible that we were so busy doing them that we at least partially forgot that men who go forth to battle also need a Faith, a Faith big enough and sane enough to simplify troubled minds> strengthen flabby wills to things of steel, and set on fire cold hearts. They need to feel their Com- radeship with God as the Greatest Captain; their kinship with the Eternal Heart of Things; their oneness with Him who sitteth between the Cher- ubim, be the earth never so unquiet; their unity with Him whose will shall be done on earth as it is in Heaven, if ever swords are to be beaten into plow-shares or spears into pruning hooks; their fellowship with Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. In the day of testing in bat- tle, and in the even harder days of testing in billets and in camp, men need more than equipment, more than skilled leadership, more than medicine, moreFOR MEN AT WAR 15 than movies, chocolate, and cigarettes, if they are indeed to resist the flesh, withstand the world, defy the devil, and quit them like men. The imparting of that life; which is in Jesus to our lighting men — that has been the Church's only real business, as a Church, in this war. Often she was tempted to enter the field of some other organization, to erect huts, to feed and entertain the men, to seek to do what other people were already doing excellently. In so far as she did this she was faithless to her real obligation. Often she met contemptuous, sarcastic, careless, even sometimes bitter opposition from those who had the material training of the men in hand. The chaplains were too often tolerated rather than appreciated,1 forced to do everything which was no one else's business, prevented from having access to their men, deprived of any allotted time for religious work in the routine1 of 'the forces. Under these more than occasional circumstances the temptation came to forsake the one* great task and to let religion drop to the inconsiderable place where; many commanding officers would have had it. For such times as this happened, may Cod forgive! On the whole, however, to her one great task of lifting up Jesus Christ crucified the Church has proven true; and, considering the great difficulties in her wav, she has done the work with 1 All other sorts of officers have4 corps, with people in Washington to see that they get due opportunity for their labors. Kven veterinary surgeons have a corps. Chaplains have none.16 THE CHUKCH'S WOKK no small measure of success. No one who knows the facts can doubt for one moment that the men who are leaving the service, taking them as a whole, are leaving it with a much greater respect for religion, gained mostly from their padres. than they had when first they were mustered in. II-DIFFICULTIES. The difficulties facing the Christian Church were very, very great. Not merely was there the insistent demand that the Church should give up her real task and start serving tables, a demand strong enough to get feverish utterance even in the usually cool pages of the Atlantic Monthly* and not only was there the frequent lack of sym- pathy for religious activity on the part of the com- manding officers, themselves often men of no relig- ion. There were other grave difficulties. One of these was in getting men fitted for the chaplaincies. Our former life had ill prepared most of us for preaching a vital Christ to virile men. We American clergymen had been like most American laymen, too long complacent in His service, too politely conventional in our prayers, too contentedly lethargic in our sacramental life, too steeped in pettiness, too compromising with the lures of wealth and privilege, too greedy of applause, too sentimental and serene, too forget- 2 Especially in an article entitled "Peter Sat by the Fire", written by the Rev. J. H. Odell early in the war.FOE MEN AT WAR 17 ful of the ruggedness of Jesus. When we did find ourselves in the camps we felt, all of us, like Isaiah of old, moved to cry, "Lord, I myself am a man of unclean lips. How can I prophesy to this people?" We felt the impelling forces which were making men realize, if only temporarily, that life is more than this life, man more than money, principle better than expediency, and giving bet- ter than getting. The standards of the camp were bigger than we priests had been. We learned to pray as we had never prayed, to make commun- ions such as we had never made, to love Christ with affection fiery and fanatical. First, we had to reawake our sleeping selves, to fire the blaze on altars which had long been merely smouldering. That took time. The chaplains were doing very much better work toward the end than they did in the beginning. That was not merely because they had the technique of the work more in hand. It was because at length they loved the living Christ as they had not loved before. However, even when the clergy had become afire for Jesus, there remained still another diffi- culty. Our auditors in the forces had become prejudiced against us before they ever met us. In their life at home, before the war, they had come to observe, with the pitiless eyes of youth, how little the professions of us who claimed allegiance to Jesus really had mattered. They held us at arm's length, not because they were uninterested in God and eternal realities, but because they18 THE CHURCH'S WORK could not believe that the Church which they had seen at home could impart very much that was vital in information about God or inspiration from God. They had observed a Christianity given to much wordiness and intellectualities, to sweetly-sentimental worship and effeminacies in devotion, to pretences to virtue far in excess of real achievement; a Christianity given to rented sittings, and expensive organs, and pretty choirboys singing interminable anthems, to respec- tabilities and discreet pulpit orations. To them, clergymen and laymen who bore the uniform of Church activity were not men of prayer, men of prophecy, men of sacrifice, men of God. They were, rather, conventional prattlers of the incon- sequential. Both with ourselves and with our hearers we chaplains and allied workers had to overcome the inertia engendered by a pre-war Christianity, sentimental, corrupt, emasculated, degenerate. Such were some of the difficulties which the Church had to meet and at least partially to over- come when she sought to do her Master's work among the armed young manhood of our nation. III-THE PLAN OF OKGANIZATION. The service which the Church sought to render was fivefold, namely: (1) manning the staff of commissioned chaplains and assisting them in their work; (2) assisting the Y. M. C. A. and kill-FOR MEN AT WAR 19 dred organizations; (3) supplying where needed voluntary chaplains or, as they were some- times called, camp-pastors; (4) developing the remarkable work of the Brotherhood of St. An- drew; and (5) assisting various commissions and boards of the Church to do certain special sorts of service. This fivefold organization—with the exception of the work of the Brotherhood of St. Andrew, which was, as far as is known, unique to our own communion—was used also by the other commun- ions of separated Christians and by the Roman Catholic Church and even by the Jews. Concern- ing the work done for God and for country by these other bodies it is not the time or the place to speak. Suffice it here to say that each one of them did a work requiring sacrifice, breadth of vision, and consecration to God which did not fail to impress the men who observed it. It is enough for us at this moment to consider our own labors. IV-THE COMMISSIONED CHAPLAINS. Obviously the most important religious oppor- tunity was that open to the commissioned chap- lains. To fill the chaplaincies it was necessary that many of the best clergy of the land, of all communions, leave their work and serve the forces. From our own communion we sent forth 178 army chaplains and 24 navy chaplains20 THE CHUKCH'S WOKK and 50 hospital chaplains, a total of 252 priests.3 When one considers that this meant very many parishes and missions, and in several cases dio- ceses, unshepherded, and remembers how the absence of these men put very heavy burdens upon the laity and hindered the Church's advancement, it will easily be perceived that this was in itself a great service to be borne with cheerful sacrifice. It soon became apparent, also, that the govern- ment itself could not be persuaded to furnish the chaplains with anything much in the way of rank or stipend.4 The men who went forth often had heavy personal and family responsibilities. In a number of cases the parishes they left paid them or their wives a supplementary salary. In many cases the parishes were not financially able to do this. , To assist quite a number of the chaplains it was necessary that the general Church give out- right considerable sums of money, and in other cases it was necessary to give men opportunity to borrow6 amounts not exceeding five hundred dollars to tide them over emergencies. Nor could the government be persuaded that the 3 All the figures in this sermon are for the period from Good Friday, April 6, 1917, the date America declared war, to SS. Philip and James' Day, May 1, 1919. The names of these chaplains are in Appen- dices B, C, D, and G. 4 In the army the chaplains ranked from lieutenant to major. Very few indeed ever got more rank than that of first lieutenant. In the navy the rank given was better, from lieutenant junior grade to captain (the equivalent of colonel in the army). 5 Of course without usury.FOR MEN AT WAR 21 chaplains needed either equipment of any sort or sums of money for contingent expenses. The chap- lains officially received neither Bibles, Prayer Books, prayer-cards, organs, vessels for the Sacra- ments, nor indeed any of the ordinary accessories of worship. Often they received no means of transportation, a lack of which prevented their ministrations when most needed. Even when cars were furnished them they usually found it impos- sible to requisition gasoline. All these things the various communions undertook, finally, to supply, each to its own sort of chaplains. Our Church agreed to give, and did give to most of the quarter of a thousand chaplains who were our priests, a discretionary fund, not exceed- ing fifty dollars a month for each one on this side of the water, and not exceeding one hundred dol- lars a month for most of the 164 priests who went overseas. The old age pension assessments of these, and indeed of all who did war work, were also assumed by the Church. One hundred and seventy-eight portable altars were provided; 164,281 Prayer Books were distributed; 18 organs of a portable smallness were sent out. One hundred: and sixty chaplains received portable typewriters.} Small motors and fuel for them were furnished where necessary. Every chaplain was allowed one hundred dollars for his first uniform equipment, if he so desired. Thus the Church not merely sent forth a great number of her most helpful and efficieht clergy to22 THE CHURCH'S WORK act as padres to the men of the army, navy, and marines, but she also stood back of them with money for emergencies, equipment, and transpor- tation. Last and best, she stood behind them in her prayers, and from many an altar, before which the intercessions had never before remembered the chaplains of the forces, there went up weekly and even daily petitions for their guidance and their help. Finally, in speaking of the work of the com- missioned chaplains, it ought to be recorded with gratitude that this Church was able to contribute the Bishop of Western New York, Dr. Brent, to act as Senior Headquarters Chaplain of all forces overseas. In this position he labored hard and long, with the cooperation of that other good Epis- copalian, General Pershing, and with the assist- ance of Father Duffy, a,Roman Catholic, and of the Rev. Paul Moody, a Congregationalist, to bring the chaplains' work to something like effec- tiveness ; to gain for the chaplains opportunity to perform their real duties; and to correlate in excel- lent cooperation the chaplains of all faiths, thus establishing a mutual respect and helpfulness which has been perhaps the greatest service ren- dered in our day to the cause of the reunion of Christendom. V-THE Y. M. C. A. Our second means of helpfulness was through the Y. M. C. A., to which we furnished in all 129FOR MEN AT WAE 23 priests6 and an unknown but very large number of laymen, to act as secretaries. The social service which these workers rendered is past all computa- tion. From a strictly religious point of view, of course, the work done was neither as great nor as effective as that of the padres, but it was a thing by no means to be neglected in computing religious activity in the war. In meetings for prayer and in Bible classes many "doughboys" and ''gobs'7 were led closer to Christ. It is true that there were many and grievous. faults in the religious work of the Y. M. C. A., faults so grave that the enlisted men for the most part grew resentful of its efforts. It is, however, a great joy to know from the things which many of the higher officials of the organization have said, and from the testi- mony of the enlisted men themselves, that those secretaries who were of our communion could usually be found among those laboring religiously along lines that were unpharisaical, direct, manly, and unobstreperous, and that they helped so to balance things that a certain type of excitable pseudo-evangelism which threatened once to make this organization a butt of ridicule in its religious work was prevented until the more balanced mind of the various communions was able to take possession of the field. 6 These clergymen had to act as laymen while Y. M. C. A. secre- taries, since the Y. M. C. A. is a lay organization.24 THE CHURCH'S WORK VI-THE CIVILIAN CHAPLAINS. The Church found, very early in the war, that in a number of places still a third type of worker was needed—the "civilian chaplain" or "camp pas- tor". The getting and training of suitable chap- lains was not a thing to be done overnight. It proved very difficult to get them fast enough even to supply regiments actually going overseas. In the cantonments on this side of the water there were not nearly enough to go around. In one can- tonment, for instance, of which I personally knew, there were, at one time for over a month, fifty thousand men with only five chaplains. At Great Lakes Naval Training Station, where I myself worked, there were at the time I arrived 17,000 men and two chaplains; and although the station grew rapidly to 50,000 men, there were never more than six chaplains there. This meant always between eight and nine thousand men per chaplain, a ratio which nearly broke the back of the workers and religiously starved thousands of men. Moreover, it was often found that regiments and their chaplains were so rapidly moved about that there remained little or no continuity in the camp services. Often indeed it was true that in a whole camp of 50,000 men there would be no reg- imental chaplain at all of our faith. Sometimes three-fourths of the chaplains would be from the Roman Church, although four-fifths of the menFOR MEN AT WAR 25 were non-Romanists; and sometimes it would be the other way about. To be helpful in view of all these circum- stances, the Church sent in, where they were desired, priests of our Church, to assist as best they could, primarily to take care of our own boys, and secondarily to help the other relig- ious workers by celebrating Communion and by preaching where they were asked. Sometimes these men were rectors of nearby parishes and gave only part of their time; but most of them were full-time men. One hundred and fifty-two of them went thus into army camps, and twenty into naval stations—all on this side of the water. After a while, as the chaplains became more numerous and camp conditions less fluid, the gov- ernment decided that these men were no longer needed in the army camps, except in rare instances; and consequently our representatives were with- drawn. In the naval stations they remained until the end of the war, needed and greatly appre- ciated. VII-THE BROTHERHOOD OF ST. ANDREW. The war work of the Brotherhood of St. Andrew is,7 as has been said, unique to our own communion. Here was an organization of laymen which set out to do, not a social service work like 7 The names of the men in this work are in Appendix J.26 THE CHURCH'S WORK that of the Knights of Columbus and the Lutheran Brotherhood, but a purely religious service of a personal sort. Under the extraordinary leader- ship of two men, Mr. F. S. Tits worth, a lawyer who gave up his practice for the task, and Mr. Ben Finney, for years one of the Brotherhood's execu- tives, there was conceived a plan of work the mer- its and scope of which is, it is certain, too little known and appreciated by the Church at large. They set out to do three things: (1) to keep an accurate and live record, so far as possible, of every Churchman who entered any branch of the service; (2) to get in and keep in touch with as many individual men personally, layman to lay- man, as they could; (3) to send lay secretaries into the camps to work personally among the men, seeking to spread, through keymen and key groups, the ideals embodied in the twofold Broth- erhood rule, of personal prayer for Christ's King- dom every day, and an act of personal evangelism at least once every week; and (4) to connect up the men reached with their pastors at home and with their own chaplains. An office was set up in Philadelphia, with these two workers. Rapidly the work grew until when the armistice was signed there were working in that office four executives and thirty clerks and stenographers, while out in the camps seventy-five consecrated laymen were laboring day and night, for mere pittances and the love of God, among literally thousands of men.FOR MEN AT WAR 27 A live list was made up, having on it 94,000 names of Episcopalian young men in the forces. Most of these names were received—over 60,000 of them—from workers in the camps who had per- sonally seen the men.8 A virile and most attrac- tive letter was sent to each of these 94,000 men. A copy of the Brotherhood monthly paper, St. Andrew's Cross, full of Church news, was sent to each of them also, and each was informed that he could have that paper sent him every month if he so desired. Over 3,500 of these men replied to this form letter personally. To every one that replied was sent, not a form letter, but a long, straight, personal letter, individually written by one of a group of laymen who gave part of their time to that service. Moreover, each man was written to just as often as he wrote back, which with many of them was dozens of times. Most of the men declined the Cross, saying that they could not get papers with any reasonable sureness in their mail; but to over 3,500 men in camp the paper was mailed every thirty days. Secretaries in the camps of demobilization also were on the alert, informing the office of each of our men who was released, as far as could be ascertained. To every man so reported a letter appropriate was sent, and 8 Although three times letters of inquiry were sent to all the parochial clergy of our communion, only 1,998 in all, out of a total of over 6,000, sent the Brotherhood copies of the names of their "honor- rolls", or, indeed, even acknowledged the letters. A most extraordinary and distressing fact!28 THE CHURCH'S WORK the pastor was notified that his man had left the service. Finally, on the basis of knowledge gained from these interviews and letters, a plan for par- ishes was drawn up and sent to every rector in the land, showing him how he could better min- ister to his young men, and the secretaries went two by two into dozens of dioceses, holding con- ferences with clergy and laity about how to bring this larger ministry into being.0 Work was done by the secretaries for most of the time we were at war in forty-eight camps. Twelve of the workers acted in intimate relation- ship with the Y. M. C. A., which regarded them as detailed for this special type of work. Where the Y. M. C. A. would not accept men for such work—which was nearly everywhere—the secre- taries entered the camps in other capacities, usually on the staffs of the senior chaplains. They came into intimate personal contact with 50,000 men of our Church ;10 formed 836 groups for prayer and service, which continued on, for the most part, as the men went overseas; and definitely pledged 1,880 men to lives of personal service for Christ among their fellows, and this in no general way, but specifically along Brotherhood lines. They brought 288 men to Baptism and saw to it that 686 men were presented for Confirmation before 9 This programme was later taken over bodily by the War Camp Community Service, which published a widely-circulated booklet con- cerning it, entitled "When the Boys Come Home". 10 The rest of the names recorded as seen personally were reported by chaplains.FOE MEJST AT WAR 29 they went abroad.11 They discovered 172 possibili- ties for the ministry and put them in touch with the proper authorities. All of this very wonderful work was done, be it remembered, by laymen of our Church. It was a labor greatly appreciated. Mr. Mott, of the Y. M. C. A.,- praised it highly. Even prominent Roman Catholics declared that they needed and lacked a lay organization with a sane and humble zeal for souls such as the Brotherhood of St. Andrew consistently showed. VIII-OTHER SORTS OP WORK. Time fails us adequately to mention the relig- ious and social service rendered by a number of our Church organizations which were stimulated and supported for special types of war work. One might dwell long on the labors of the Church Peri- odical Club, ably led by Miss Mary Thomas, which distributed to our enlisted men over 10,000 Testa- ments, Bibles, and Prayer Books, over 1,600 books on religion, over 124,000 tracts and leaflets, excel- lently selected for the purpose, as well as station- ery, games, etc., and which sent out at Christmas- 11 The Brotherhood records show 587 Baptisms and 1,076 Confirma- tions among our men in camp. Of these the numbers given in the text were the direct results of work by the lay-secretaries. There might easily have been many more men confirmed than there were, had it not been that often Bishops were unobtainable. It was impossible to con- vince some of the Bishops that they were needed or desired in camp for anything more than preaching. In respect of episcopal ministration our organization was unnecessarily weak.30 THE CHUKCITS WORK tide and Eastertide 267,300 cards of greeting. The Girls' Friendly Society was also most useful, helping as it did the sane life of many girls and women in and near the camps, through lodges built and equipped for their use. St. Barnabas' Guild aided scores of Red Cross Nurses by per- sonal friendship and ministrations.12 The Church Mission of Help labored among the many girls who were unfortunately the victims of soldiers' lust and their own too great admiration for khaki and blue. The Joint Commission on Social Serv- ice was enabled to investigate conditions in and about the new munitions' factories and their mush- room communities. Our churches abroad, espe- cially Holy Trinity, Paris, were manned and other- wise assisted in order that our soldiers and sailors might find our worship in the larger resting places "over there". And of course many local and dioc- esan activities, very many indeed, come to mind at once, vastly important in the aggregate. Of these next to nothing can be said within the limits of our time. Suffice it to say, in summary, the Church has furnished in all 665 priests, 80 Brotherhood secre- taries, $750,000 in money, hundreds of lay women and thousands of laymen, some giving all their 12 In connection with the Red Cross Nurses, mention should be made of the truly remarkable work for them of the Reverend Thomas J. Crosby, Curate of St. Paul's Chapel, Trinity Parish, New York City, whose farewell meetings for nurses about to sail were sources of great inspiration,FOR MEN AT WAR 31 time, all giving much of their time, and most of all, constant daily intercessions going up from hundreds of thousands of hearts, to the one task of holding up Christ Crucified, for the fall of many in the service from self-sufficiency and pride and the lifting up of many into righteousness by the power of His grace. IX-THE WAE COMMISSION OF THE CHURCH. Since all of this varied work had to be done, it was of course necessary that there be some sort of national agency created to correlate and to direct. There was no such agency in exist- ence. The Board of Missions, the Board of Social Service, the Board of Religious Education, all of them were too specialized to take up the task. The Presiding Bishop, therefore, quite without canon- ical authority, but with the authority of states- manlike common sense, appointed a War Commis- sion of the Church, consisting of bishops, priests, and laymen, and committed the whole task to them.13 The Bishop of Massachusetts, Dr. Law- rence, was head of it. Its first secretary was the Rev. Dr. George Craig Stewart of Evanston, 111. Its treasurer was Mr. Arthur Newbold of Phila- delphia. The chairman of its executive commit- tee was the Bishop of Rhode Island, Dr. Perry. For some time the policy of the Commission 13 Their names are in Appendix K,32 THE CHUKCH'S WOKK was merely to encourage local and diocesan pro- jects and to prevent them from interfering with one another, and also to do what was possible to influence the government rightly to provide for religious activities. Before long, however, this was seen to be insufficient, and the Commission reorganized for a larger activity. First Bishop McCormick of Western Michigan, and later Bishop Perry were sent overseas to supervise our work there—and, incidentally, to have charge of all sorts of Red Cross chaplains overseas. Dr. Stew- art went to Prance as a chaplain, and the Eev. Dr. Henry B. Washburn of the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Mass., offered to give his entire time as executive secretary until the end of the war. Bishop Theodore Irving Reese, of South- ern Ohio, withdrew from his diocese and devoted all his great organizing ability to the Commission's work. All our labors throughout the land became more closely correlated and more carefully super- vised from the central office in New York, and our Church's war activity grew almost at once more comprehensive and efficient. X-RESULTS. Finally, aside from the satisfaction of having tried our best to do the duty which was in front of us to perform, what has been the result of our labors to the Church and to the men ? Because of the difficulties which were enu-FOR MEN AT WAE 33 merated earlier in this sermon it was not to be expected that there would be any great Pente- costal revival of real religion among our enlisted men. Now that they are returning to their par- ishes, their rectors will not find many of them afire for God or enthusiastic for His Holy Church. We could not overcome in a few weeks all that had surrounded these fellows for years. We could not convert great mobs of them. We did not try thus to attempt the impossible. What have we who have been in the field really accomplished, in your name and that of our common Master? We have tried, and succeeded in the trying, to teach some men, many men perhaps, that Chris- tianity is a power which even contemporary Amer- ican materialistic upholstery is unable to smother. Wherever we have had opportunity, we have preached Jesus Christ Crucified—simply, quietly, believingly, as Master of the souls of men and arbiter of the destinies of nations. We have taught men that in fighting this fight they were helpers on the side of God, and that as such they could not fail, that Germany as a world power had to die because she, more than any other nation, had denied that Divine law which declares that men and nations shall live only as long as they substitute service for avarice as a life motive; that Jesus was on the side of the Allies, not because of any inherent right they had to His assistance, but merely because, in this struggle at least, they were on His side; that the Germans were in process of 34 THE CHURCH'S WORK punishment helpful to them; that it was not only wrong but silly to hate Germans, since God did not hate them, but loved them enough to stop them in a national policy which would not merely have subjugated the free peoples of the world but would have damned to everlasting hell the German people themselves; that we Americans in the con- flict were real men and not beasts, fighting not for pelf, for safety, or for ambition, but for the Living Christ. We have tried to make plain to them also, in Jesus' Name, that in every individual heart among them the spirit of the Hun was contending with the spirit of Jesus; that just as the fields of Flan- ders and Picardy were one with the larger field of the eternal Armageddon, so the battlegrounds of their hearts were one with those blood-stained French and Belgian and Italian fighting places; that the lures of evil and materialistic ambition were seeking their lives as truly as the life of Ger- many ; that the identical lust which raped defence- less Belgian women could through them defile the sometimes silly girls they met in town; that the sot- tishness of Teutonic devastators in France was one with the sottishness which mi^ht express itself in them when on their leaves; that it was no worse to shell cathedrals than it was to spit blasphemous indecencies forth in conversation, against the Master of all cathedrals. We have tried to counteract as best we could the intolerable complacency and conceit too com-FOE MEN AT WAE 35 monly engendered by the well-meant, gushy flat- teries of silly women convinced that the mere don- ning of a uniform is a passport to character and worth; to remind men that we of the service were not perfect, not superhuman, not beyond the need of Christ's good grace; but were indeed all too unworthy of the supreme Commander who led us forth to sacrifice. In short, we endeavored to inspire such men as we could reach with a desire to become humble, cheerful, self-effacing friends to God and man; to teach them how to pray de- cently, simply, without cant, pretence, or smugness, and to go to their Communions as those who, try- ing hard to be men, longed for power from the Superman. We have bid them look for character not to us, not to any other man, not to any human leader, not to any nation, not to any Book of any interpretation thereof, but to Jesus, the architect and finisher of all that is worth while among men —to Jesus, the mighty comrade and the ever- lasting God. All have not listened. Most, perhaps, have heard but dimly. Many, thank God, have found, as they never had found before, something of that glorious power which is in Jesus. In many camps, up and down the land, on bat- tlefields and ships, in billets and in hospitals, the Church has thus been trying to do that work for which she was so ill-equipped either in spirit or in organization. God has blessed our work, as is His wont, far more than we could have asked or36 THE CHURCH'S WORK thought. He has blessed it because we have been willing to forget our modernisms, our systems, and our expedients, and have had the nerve to preach and practise merely His religion, leaving results in His hands. We have had no clubs, guilds, societies, organizations, campaigns, or forums. We have thought nothing of Church fabrics. We have forgotten conventionalities. There has been possible for us only that great real- ity which changes not. We have preached Jesus Christ, the personal God of struggling men. preached Him wherever we have had oppor- tunity—and countless opportunities were furnished us—and offered Him in prayer and Sacrament to hungry souls. He has been for the fall and the rising again of many in Israel; many whom we shall never forget; many who will not themselves forget; many whom Jesus holds more closely than He did before with His tremendous Manhood, His adorable Godhead; many who learned of Him only because they were called to high service, in the doing of which the Church of the Living God went forth to battle with them.FOR MEN AT WAR 37 APPENDIX A. PRIESTS OF THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH WHO DIED IN THE SERVICE DURING THE WAR Chouinard, H. A. Unassigned. Died of disease Cooper, Hedley H. Y. M. C. A. Killed in action Danker, Walton, S. 104th U. S. Infantry Died in actjOn Linn, John Addams Y. M. C. A. Killed in action Marsh, Arthur H. 18th Infantry N. A. Died in action May they rest in peace, and may light perpetual shine upon them. Amen.38 THE CHUKCIFS WORK