286 Sportsmen Parsons in Peace and War 



combination appears to have answered well and has facilitated 

 the work of the chaplaincy department of the War Office. 



This combined board has chaplains in France, Salonika, 

 Egypt, Palestine, Mesopotamia, and Italy. 



In the English-speaking world, including America, there are 

 no less than nine million communicants belonging to the Free 

 Church, outnumbering the Anglican Church by three to one. 

 It seems only fair they should be voiced. 



It is much easier now for soldiers to join the army under 

 their own denominations than it was in pre-war times. Anyone 

 acquainted with the ways of the army will know that the first 

 piece of advice given to a recruit on joining was to the effect 

 that if he were wise he would declare himself a member of the 

 prevailing Church in the regiment he wished to join. For 

 instance, if he were going into an English regiment he was 

 advised to say he was Church of England, if to an Irish regiment 

 he was to say he was a Roman Catholic, or if to a Scottish regi- 

 ment he should say he was a Presbyterian. 



The idea was that by this means he would attend the most 

 convenient church parade on Sundays. Take, for example, an 

 English regiment. The Church of England parade would be at 

 11 a.m. and the chapel probably within a stone's-throw of the 

 barracks, while the unwary few who had declared themselves 

 Roman Catholics might have to parade at cock-crow and march 

 to some far-distant chapel. This was so well understood that 

 men did not often split hairs over the particular denomination 

 to which they belonged ; they had to belong to one of the five 

 recognised religions, and that was an end of the matter, for if 

 once recruits w^re given the chance of saying they belonged to 

 any religion they liked, the difficulties of enforcing the com- 

 pulsory church parade would at once become much greater. 

 Men would declare themselves Buddhists, for instance, and who 

 could insist on their attending church parades after that ? It 

 is no use being shocked and saying they would never do such a 

 thing, for anyone who knows anything about Thomas Atkins 

 knows quite well that plenty of them would gladly seize any 

 opportunity of avoiding compulsory church parade. 



It is also no use the clerics saying the men do not hate this 

 compulsory church parade, for they do. Look at it this way : 

 if they would not prefer to stay away, why make it compulsory ? 



