OF THE WAR ON RELIGIOUS LIFE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 193 



is not so much during, as after the war, that the critical oppor- 

 tunity of the Chinch will occur. In the presence of pain and 

 suffering, bereavement and death, humanity turns with instinc- 

 tive reverence to the strength and solace of religion. The 

 movement of spirituality at home may not of late have kept 

 pace with the movemenl at the Front. Yet the memorial services 

 which have been held in many churches and cathedrals have at 

 once attested and inspired the deep religious sentiment of the 

 people. For nineteen Christian centuries innumerable hearts 

 have turned in suffering and desolation to the Cross, and they 

 have turned to it with all the old yearning during the last two 

 years. The immemorial qualities of the British character — that 

 •• right pious, right honest, and right hardy nation," as Milton 

 describes it — have asserted themselves once more in the crisis 

 of the present war. 



It is almost my daily fortune to converse with the working 

 men in Lancashire. I know that many of these men are 

 estranged from the public profession of Christianity. But deep 

 in their hearts the Cross of Jesus Christ holds sway. In 

 solemn hours, as after the great explosion in the colliery at 

 Atherton, or after the death of Lord Kitchener in the stormy 

 waters of the northern sea, I have seen them doff their caps, 

 and bow their heads in prayer ; and I have felt that religion 

 was everywhere still a real and integral part of human 

 nature. Everywhere I have found a great reverence for the: 

 Person of Jesus Christ. It is not unnatural, then, that once, as. 

 the quarters of the hour were sounded before the signal for 

 attack was given at Gallipoli, when the last quarter came, there 

 was not, as I was told by an eye-witness, in a certain battalion 

 of the Manchester Begiment, a soldier who did not offer a 

 silent prayer, leaning upon the rifle which reminded him of his 

 imminent peril and probable death. Letters written by soldiers 

 in France have recorded in awestruck language the impression 

 made upon them now and again by the spectacle of the crucifix 

 hanging uninjured upon the wall of a house, where all else was 

 ruin and destruction. I have quoted elsewhere, but I think 

 I may repeat, the story of the Canadian Boman Catholic who 

 said to me in France, " There are four crosses to be won, your 

 honour, in this war." " Which are they V I said. He replied, 

 " There is the Victoria Cross, there is the Military Cross, 

 there is the Cross of the Legion of Honour — and," after a 

 pause, " there is the little wooden cross above a fellow's grave." 



The war has done much to create a new sympathy between 

 the Church and the Xavy or Army. Alike on sea and on land 



o 



