Almost of necessity the experience at the front will simplify and vitalize the minister's message. For many all discussion of the future of unbaptized infants, and premillenialism, and the verbal inspiration of the Pentateuch had long ago lost interest. In the minds of others, matters regarded by some earnest Christians as of vital importance, like the Virgin Birth and the physical resurrection of Jesus, had ceased to function. To them Jesus would still be the unique Son of God, the divine Saviour of the world, whatever the method of his human generation; and he would still be alive, their unseen friend and present helper, whether or not his body had remained in the tomb. Belief or disbelief in such articles of faith would never transform a demon into a saint or a saint into a demon. Even to those accepting them, they had no visible effect upon character or upon the course of ordinary daily life. No soldiers ever asked about such scholastic problems as they faced going over the top on the morrow. In the hospital they never mentioned them, as they lay lonely and fearful on their beds of pain. But they did ask, or long to ask, had shyness not prevented them, about the treasures for which the heart hungers and to which religion alone holds the key. "Dear Sir," wrote a wounded soldier to the chaplain of his battalion; "I often used to wish that you would talk seriously and privately to me about religion, though I never dared to ask you, and I must admit that I seemed to be very antagonistic when you did start." "I wish you'd tell me what you think about it, padre," said another. "Is there anything really afterwards?... I'd like you to tell me as man to man what you really think about it. Do we go on living afterwards in any sort of way or--!" He struck a match to light a cigarette. A gust of wind, which carried a gust of snow round our legs, blew the match out again. I daresay it was that which suggested his next words: "Or do we just go out? I know the creed," he went on. "... But that's not what I want. I want to know what you really believe yourself, as a man, you know."