Out of this war there will come a new religion.  It won’t be a sin any more to sing rag-time on Sunday, as it was in the days of my childhood.  It won’t be a sin to play a game on Sunday.  After church parade in France we rushed to the playing fields behind the lines, and many a time I’ve seen the chaplain umpire the ball game.  Many a time I’ve seen him take a hand in a friendly game of poker.  The man who goes to France to-day will come back with a broadened mind, be he a chaplain or be he a fighter.  There is no room for narrowness, for dogma or for the tenets of old-time theology.  This is a man-size business, and in every department men are meeting the situation as real men should.

Again, at Neuve Chapelle, there was magnificent bravery.  Just across the street, at a turn, there lay a number of wounded men.  They were absolutely beyond the reach of succor.  A terrible machine gun fire swept the roadway between them and a shelter of sandbags, which had hastily been put up on one side of the street.  By these sandbags a sergeant had been placed on guard with strictest orders to forbid the passing of any one, without exception, toward the area where the wounded lay.  It was certain death to permit it.  We had no men to spare, we had no men to lose, we had to conserve every one of our effectives.

As time wore on and the enemy fire grew hotter, a Roman Catholic chaplain reached the side of the sergeant.  “Sergeant, I want to go over to the aid of those wounded men.”

“No, sir, my orders are absolutely strict.  I am to let no one go across, no matter what his rank.”

The chaplain considered a moment, but he did not move from where he stood beside the sergeant.

A minute passed and a chaplain of the Presbyterian faith came up.  “Sergeant, I want to go across to those men.  They are in a bad way.”

“I know, sir.  Sorry, sir.  Strict orders that no one must be allowed to pass.”

“Who are your orders from?”

“High authority, sir.”

“Ah!” The padre looked at the sergeant....

“Sorry, Sergeant, but I have orders from a Higher Authority,” and the Presbyterian minister rushed across the bullet-swept area.  He fell dead before he reached his objective.

“I, too, have orders from a Higher Authority,” said the Roman Catholic priest, and he dashed out into the roadway.  He fell, dead, close by the body of his Protestant brother.  They had not reached the wounded, but Heaven is witness that their death was the death of men.

Hand in hand with the chaplains at the front is the Y.M.C.A.  It is doing a marvelous work among the troops.  The Y.M.C.A. huts are scattered all over the fighting front.  Here you will find the padre with his coat off engaged in the real “shirt-sleeve” religion of the trenches.  Here there are all possible comforts, even little luxuries for the boys.  Here are concerts,—­the best and best-known artists come out and give their services to cheer up Tommy.  Here the padres will hold five or six services in an evening for the benefit of the five or six relays of men who can attend.  Here are checker-boards, chess sets, cards, games of all sorts.  Here is a miniature departmental store where footballs, mouth organs, pins, needles, buttons, cotton, everything can be bought.