AN ARMY "PARSON" IN FRANCE 



487 



heavy guns roaring away in the distance. About one- 

 third of this regiment are college men, a number of 

 them are well-known athletes, some from wealthy fami- 

 lies, but here they are all on one basis. What needs to 



cuit takes two months and mo^e. Intensely interesting 

 have been my efforts among these men. Each large 

 post is usually divided into five or six camps some dis- 

 tance apart, and that means that the 'parson' is on the 



Underwood and Underwood British Official Photograph 



RUSHING MUCH-NEEDED TRENCH BOARDS TO THE 

 These duck-boards, called "trench mats" by the Tommies, are_ a most 



FRONT DURING THE GREAT HUN OFFENSIVE 

 necessary part of trench equipment, and the demand for them is constant. 

 The lumber and forest regiments are doing splendid work in getting out the timber needed for wooden construction work of all kinds. 



be done they do, digging trenches, breaking rock for 

 roads, blasting, even to taking the place of horses. I 

 remember censoring a young soldier's letter during the 

 early days here and he had written, 'I have been a horse 

 for the last three days,' and he had, for before our 

 horses arrived ten or twelve men had been hitched to 

 a wagon hauling necessities to the camp. The work is 

 rather monotonous and has not the excitement of trench 

 life, but the men jump into it with a vim and a smile that 

 makes us all proud of them. 



"Such is my congregation of 1600 engineers, aug- 

 mented by four service battalion companies making 

 about 2500 parishioners in all. The parish is divided 

 into five large posts, scattered over France from east 

 to west, and from north to south. From one camp we 

 can look over into Switzerland and not far from another 

 one into Spain. A western circuit-rider does not com- 

 pare with an army chaplain as a traveler, for my cir- 



jump every day and night. On Sunday I usually hold 

 two and three church services. These have been held 

 in every place imaginable, on a ship's deck, out-of-doors, 

 in half-finished barracks, in old barns, in officer's quar- 

 ters, in tents, but now mostly in rough recreation halls, 

 or large tents, which we have provided in every camp. 

 Two or three more nights of a week are used to have 

 church services in camps that could not be reached on 

 Sunday. The mid-week services are often preceded 

 by boxing and wrestling bouts, or a baseball game, held 

 out-of-doors. On the remaining nights we have lectures, 

 shows, concerts, moving pictures, in one camp or another. 

 My days are spent in studying, in trips to nearby cities 

 to purchase supplies for canteens and for individual men's 

 needs, in correspondence that shall bring writing paper, 

 athletic equipment, books, magazines, etc. ; in personal in- 

 terviews, visiting the sick, refereeing athletic events and 

 anything that will minister to the well-being of the men. 



