The Soul of the Soldier: Sketches from the Western Battle-FrontTiplady, Thomas
History
The Soul of the Soldier: Sketches from the Western Battle-Front
Tiplady, Thomas
World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives, English
The glamour of the services at the Front! How the scenes are
photographed on my heart! As a congregation sits in a church at home
how stolid its features often are--how dull its eyes! One glance around
and the preacher’s heart sinks within him and his inspiration flies
away. Nothing is expected of him, and nothing particularly desired.
People have come by force of habit, and not of need. But how the eyes of
the soldiers in France glow and burn; how their features speak, and make
the preacher speak in reply! Who could help being eloquent there! Such
faces would make the dumb speak. One can see the effect of his words as
plainly in their expressions as he can see the effect of wind on a
cornfield. Every emotion from humor to concern leaps from the heart to
the face as the subject touches them at, first this point of their life,
then at that. The men’s eyes are unforgettable. Months afterwards they
come vividly to mind, and one is back again answering the questions they
silently ask, and seeing the look of content or gratitude that takes the
place of the perplexed or troubled expression. Eyes are said to be the
windows of the soul, and as I have spoken I have seen men’s souls
looking out. At home the windows are darkened and there seemed to be no
souls behind the panes. The dwellers within the houses are busy with
other matters, and will not come to the windows. The preacher feels
like an organ-grinder in the street--those who hear do not heed nor come
to the windows of the soul. In France there is a soul looking out at
every window; and the preacher sings--for his words grow rhythmic--to
his listeners of the love of God and of the love of women and children
which make sweet this vale of tears and light man on his lone way beyond
the grave.
One Sunday in hospital, when we heard the singing of a hymn in the ward
below, a young officer, in the next bed, turned to me and said: "Why
doesn’t the chaplain hold a service for us? Why does he only hold them
for the Tommies? We need them and want them, just as much as the
Tommies. We are officers but we are also men." I passed the word to
the chaplain, and he was a joyful man when in the evening he gave us a
service and the officers of the next ward asked the orderlies to carry
them in.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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