To see a Bishop of the Anglican Communion preaching in France at the
door of a Roman Catholic church raised many thoughts in my mind.
I could not but hope that these days of trial may draw the Allies
together by something that is deeper than the bonds of friendship.
We had heard not infrequently of the sympathetic help which is being
offered by many priests of the Roman Catholic Church to our own
Chaplains, and I thought, as many are thinking at this time, that if
the war could serve in any way to help the two great Communions to
understand better their distinctive points of view, some real step
will have been taken to advance the cause of the Kingdom of God.
This service was reverently watched by a considerable number of the
inhabitants of the place.
After holding a short service for two batteries near their guns, the
Bishop came to another open square where a Brigade was assembled, which
included a regiment almost, if not entirely, recruited from East
London. The East Londoner has his own unique characteristics, and his
friends will be glad to know that he is just as cheerful and bright in
France at war as he is in England in times of peace. It was hard to
distinguish faces, but as the regiment swung by the place where I was
standing, I saw many who remembered me from the time that I spent at
Oxford House, and they waved just as hearty a greeting from the ranks
as they used to wave from the top of a van in the Bethnal Green Road
five years ago.
The deepest note on this day was struck when we came to a little town
filled with British troops, a very large number of whom had been
recently engaged in heavy fighting. The Chaplain had sent a notice
throughout one Division that the Bishop would hold a short service in
the evening for officers, and that this would be followed by a service
for non-commissioned officers and men. As he entered the large hall
which is used for a church in that town, he found at least five hundred
officers, including many Generals, waiting in silence. They had come,
some of them, from considerable distances, and almost every officer
who was off duty in that district must have been present. It was only
a bare, whitewashed building, with a hard stone floor, and a little
platform at the end, but in it were gathered together some of the
flower of the British Army.
There were Generals kneeling side by side with subalterns--men who had
faced together the terrible ordeal of battle. Those who were present
will surely never forget the silence and reverence of that service.