World War, 1914-1918 -- War work -- Young Men's Christian Associations
The war has been a great revelation of things both good and bad. In the
light of this terrible conflict, we may well ask what it shows us of the
present virtues and vices of the men, and of our past failure or success
in dealing with them, and to what future course of action it should
summon us? In other words, what lessons has the war to teach us? Large
numbers of young clergymen and laymen of the churches of England and
Scotland have gone to the war zone with the men as chaplains, Y M C A
workers, or in the army itself, and have learned to know men as they
never knew them before. We would covet this opportunity for every young
minister or Christian worker in America. Mr. Moody once stated that the
Civil War was his university. It was there he learned to understand the
human heart and to know and win men.
During the summer of 1917 a questionnaire was sent out to representative
religious workers throughout the armies in France and Great Britain by a
committee under the chairmanship of the Bishop of Winchester and
Professor D. S. Cairns, with Mr. E. C. Carter of the Y M C A, and the
Rev. Tissington Tatlow of the Student Christian Movement, as secretaries.
Although the results and findings of this committee are not yet
published, the writer has before him the reports of numbers of workers in
France. In the base camp where he was last working, the questions were
taken up by more than a hundred of the workers and discussed in
conferences with groups of the soldiers and officers of the various
regiments. These were summarized in findings and the reports were
compared with the returns made from other centers. The writer has had
the privilege of talking with hundreds of the soldiers regarding their
own religious lives and difficulties. In this chapter he will try to
form a composite photograph of all these impressions and to state
impartially the results of his own experience and those of others.
We shall confine ourselves to three outstanding questions: I. What are
the moral standards and actions of the men in war time? II. What is
their attitude to religion and what is their religious life at the front?
III. What is their attitude to the churches, and what lessons may the
Church learn from the men at the front?
The questionnaire has been answered mainly by men of the British army,
but the writer could observe no radical difference between the British
and American forces as regards their religious life. As in other things
connected with the war, we in America may learn much from the experience
of Britain and other nations.
I
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account