THE CHURCH AND THE ARMY. 



191 



far this teaching has moulded their character. This I cannot 

 attempt. There is no time to do it here. I have neither know- 

 ledge nor ability to do it elsewhere. 



I wish to suggest only one consideration to you. The great 

 majority of the men are, professedly, members of the Church of 

 England. It is in the Church of England that they find their 

 spiritual home. I suppose that there have been more experi- 

 ments in worship tried in France during the last three years than 

 in England for three centuries. The idea at one time possessed 

 a number of our chaplains that the farther they could get away 

 from the ordinary form of church service the better. Eccen- 

 tricities of every kind were regarded as desirable in themselves. 

 The aim was to be bright, unconventional, startling : to attract 

 and awaken by novelty. My belief is that this theory is entirely 

 wrong. The nearer you can get to the ritual of the English parish 

 church the stronger is the appeal to the men and the greater their 

 response. The soul of the Englishman finds the natural expres- 

 sion of its religious emotion in the psalms and collects of the 

 Prayer Book, in the simple ritual of the national church. To 

 follow the course of a normal service, to hear and say and sing 

 familiar words, is for most men a returning home. We may feel 

 sure that the Church has not been wholly without part in 

 creating the religious life which is in her children when we 

 find that it is in her words they speak and to her ways they turn 

 when the spiritual faculty in them is stirred. 



