Religion and the WarYale University. Divinity School
Religion
Religion and the War
Yale University. Divinity School
World War, 1914-1918; World War, 1914-1918 -- Religious aspects
Sir George Adam Smith in an American address stated that in Scotland
90 per cent of the ministers' sons of military age entered the army
before conscription. Would it be strange if some fathers decided to go
with them? He also said that of the sixty thousand Catholic priests
engaged in war work in France, twenty-five thousand are fighting in
the ranks. Some Chinese missionaries are serving behind the lines as
officers of detachments of Chinese artisans and laborers. Other
missionaries, however, and sons of missionaries are reported to have
gone directly into military service. Our country's Roll of Honor
contains the names of men like Captain Jewett Williams, an Episcopal
rector and the son-in-law of Dr. David J. Barrows, Chancellor of the
University of Georgia, who declined a chaplaincy, trained at Fort
Oglethorpe, and was killed in action. Of recent graduates and members
of the Yale School of Religion, forty-four are now in khaki. Of these
nineteen are chaplains and Y. M. C. A. workers, while eighteen are in
the regular army, one each in the British and Canadian armies, two in
the Ambulance Corps, one in aviation and one in the navy. Already the
School Roll of Honor bears one name, that of a young Englishman of
rare promise, who died in the hospital from wounds received on the
battlefields of France.
These men are following in the footsteps of ministers of other
generations. Yale's records show that there is scarcely a campaign of
note, or an important battle in American history, in which her sons
among the clergy did not share the hardships and dangers of the
soldier's lot. Besides the more than one hundred and thirty who served
as chaplains, in the thick of the fight as well as in camp and
hospital, are those who fought shoulder to shoulder with their
parishioners. When the news of the approach of the enemy reached
Thomas Brockway (1768) during service, he dismissed his congregation,
shouldered his long gun, and marched away. Of John Cleaveland (1745)
it is said that he preached all the men of his parish into the army
and then went himself. They helped to take Louisburg in the campaign
against Cape Breton Island. They marched in the Crown Point
Expedition, fought at Ticonderoga, and shared with Wolfe the hardships
of the campaign against Quebec. The record of the Revolutionary days
is a stirring one. Edmund Foster (1778) joined the Minute Men on the
sounding of the alarm in Lexington. Ebenezer Mosely (1763) enlisted in
Israel Putnam's regiment, and with Joseph Badger (1785), who served
with General Arnold in Canada, fought at the Battle of Bunker Hill.
They were in the ranks at Germantown and at Monmouth. Samuel Eells
(1765) was elected the captain of a company formed among his
parishioners to aid General Washington, who was then retreating
through New Jersey. Elisha Scott Williams (1775) crossed the Delaware
in the boat with Washington, and is so depicted in Trumbull's
painting. He also fought at the battles of White Plains, Trenton and
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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