THE CHURCH AND THE AKMY. 



193 



which a Christian man ought to be sure, in the strength of which 

 he ought to go his way through life and into death. Take the 

 simplest and most elementary of them : "I believe in everlasting 

 life after death/' Is that, in fact, part of the working equipment 

 of the common man ? I doubt it. Will you pardon me if I tell 

 you a story which I have told before, which perhaps some of you 

 have read ? 



On a very unpleasant Febiniary afternoon last year I found 

 shelter under the verandah roof of a small estaminet in northern 

 France. I had as a companion a young officer, a boy, who had 

 that morning received his orders to go up to the firing line. We 

 sat together on a little iron table and swung our legs while the 

 snow fell thick on the road outside and was blown in little 

 powdery drifts into the corners of our shelter. We were waiting 

 for a lorry, an ambulance, any passing vehicle which would carry 

 us into the neighbouring town. 



I did not know that boy at all well ; though I wished to. It is 

 not an easy thing to know these young officers. Twenty-five 

 years or so — I have lived that much longer than he has — make 

 a gulf which it is exceedingly difficult to step across. Besides, 

 I was a parson. That made another gulf. Therefore T was 

 particularly pleased when he began to talk to me about the things 

 he was really thinking. He was going into the fighting. He told 

 me that he did not expect to come out alive. He was the victim 

 of one of those odd convictions which we call presentiments. 

 I forget what I said. I daresay it was " what I ought to have 

 said.'' It was probably inane enough to put that boy off talking 

 to me altogether. But it did not. He went on. 



" I wish you'd tell me what you think about it, padre," he said. 

 " Is there really anything afterwards ? " 



I cannot give his exact words, for I do not remember them. 

 He repeated himself a good deal, but he made his meaning quite 

 clear to me, and I think I can make it clear again, though I put 

 into his mouth phrases which he did not actually use. 



"I'd like you to tell me," he said, " as man to man, what you 

 actually think about it. Do we go on living afterwards in any 

 sort of way or " 



He struck a match to light a cigarette. A gust of wind, which 

 carried a flurry of snow round our legs, blew the match out again. 

 I daresay it was that which suggested his next words. 



" Or do we just go out ? " 



"I know the Creed," he went on, and he did not say "your 



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