"A STUDENT IN ARMS "—HOW IT STRIKES A TRANSATLANTIC "

TOMMY."

• tCOMMUNICATED.]

TO all those who have endured hardships and privations in the great world war ; who have been, for months without end, on terms of tragic intimacy with death, there must of necessity be something appealing in books written of such experiences by men who themselves have known them. These personal narratives will be counted in hundreds when the war is over and men find the leisure for taking stock of their adventures. Any normally observant soldier, with the gift of facile expression, can write such a tale, and be certain of finding an audience. His record may be a piece of purely artisan workmanship, unrelieved by any touch of imagination ; but his comrades in arms will read and say : " I remember ! This happened at Loos ! " or at Neuve Chapelle, or Ypres, or St. Julien—where not ? And they will sit, enthralled to the end, fighting old battles, sleeping in the mouldy straw of old billets, bombing their way down old, shell-wrecked trenches, with mingled feelings of horror and delight.

There is another kind of book which will have little to say of the actual experiences of war, but much of men's reactions in the face of them. It will speak for hundreds and thousands of the inarticulate. It will reveal to these men their own souls, and show them how they were fashioned anew during the stress of battle, or during the long, comfortless days and nights, when they stood on sentry, vainly trying to think things out for themselves. Such books will be as rare as the others are common. It is likely that they will be counted on the fingers of one hand. The first one has appeared, and it is called A Student in Arms.

An American chanced upon this book. He, too, had been a student in arms, but there the analogy ends ; for he really belongs to that great body of silent soldiers whom the English student calls " The Inarticulate." In the barrack-room, on the parade- ground, and later in the trenches, he had made occasional efforts at self-analysis in the light of new experience, but had failed, rather miserably, to arrive at conclusions. He knew that profound changes were taking place, both in his comrades and in himself, but he could not account for these changes with any satisfaction. Therefore, when he read A Student in Arms it is not to be wondered at that he did so at one sitting—and with a feeling of admiration nearly akin to awe. Here was the written record of a philosopher- soldier, a man who could think as well as fight, and whose reasoning powers were not atrophied by an overwhelming sense of the futility of mental effort in the face of unspeakable experiences. And so the American read again, both for the pure joy of it and that he might see how, on second sight, some of the Englishman's conclusions squared with his own.

In the chapter called " An Experiment in Democracy " the Englishman makes it clear that Lord Kitchener's citizen Army is such an experiment—with reservations. For the first time in their lives millions of Britons were living on terms of absolute equality. But " of course it was not a perfect democracy because of the existence of a super-class, the officer." (Here the American grinned expectantly, and hunched down more comfortably in his chair.) " He is really an offence against democracy. . . . His position . . . is only rendered possible by the survival, in the army of democracy, of the ancient religion of the army of aristocracy." Speaking later of the dogmas and ritual of military discipline which relate to the status of the officer, "A Student in Arms" says:

" Another dogma is that only officers can think. To safeguard

this dogma from ridicule; it is necessary that the men should be prevented from thinking. Their attention is to be fully occupied' with such mechanical operations as the polishing of their buttons, in order that the officer may think without fear of contradiction. In war, however, if all the officers are killed the sergeants may think, and if they are killed the corporals may think, and so on; but this is a relaxation of strict orthodoxy, a concession to the login of facts which must only be permitted in extreme circumstances."

If an Englishman and " a scholar and a gentleman " may be permitted to speak such heresy, surely the American may be,

forgiven for saying that this is precisely the way the matter appearedl to him. Outwardly acquiescing, he never ceased, inwardly, to rebel against such methods of safeguarding military discipline. They seemed an offence against his manhood, his common-sense. But he, too, was to learn, as did the Englishman, that " most officers of the citizen Army . . . are such good sportsmen that no one minds performing the ritual for their benefit ; and as often as not they accept it in the spirit in which it is given." Furthermore, fifteen months of Army life convinced the American that while' discipline and the existence of an officer class do not further, the democratic spirit, they do make for military solidarity and efficiency. And, after all, the Army does not exist for purposes of experimental democracy, but for the protection of national ideals and interests.* But however dogmatic the dogmas, and however rigid the ritual, they have not concealed from men the fact that they are brothers under the skin. The " Student in Arms " discovered this just as the American did, and I suspect that their education and training differed widely. The Englishman learned to " love men for their great hearts, their pluck, their indomitable spirits, their irrepressible humour, their readiness to share a weaker brother's burden in addition to their own. One sees men as God sees them, apart from externals, such as manner and intonation." The American, professed democrat though he was before he joined the British Army, first learned the meaning of true comradeship in the trenches on the Western Front. That is why he has a feeling of kinship with his English comrades, even deeper than that with his own countrymen. For he has never fought shoulder to shoulder with Americans. He has never dug trenches with them, shared short rations with them, stood sentry with them, faced death with them. And it is only by living together through experiences of this kind that men learn to say, in deep sincerity : " Brother, I salute you ! "

The American's conclusions as to the ultimate effect of this new sense of comradeship on the life of the nation differ somewhat from those of " A Student in Arms." He is not so sanguine, not so hopeful, as the Englishman. He believes that the old distinctions between class and class will again come into being, and- that ' " manner and intonation " will again have their old meanings— not in the generation of the soldiers themselves, but later, when the great world war is but a memory. Men are not created " free and equal," regardless of the generous declaration to that effect of the American Constitution, and it is a piece of sophistry to profess that they are. Modern civilization emphasizes rather than condones the fact. With the coming of peace and the return to the normal pursuits of life, the old freemasonry of the trenches will become a radiant, a wistful, a lost memory.

The American believes—his opinion has nothing but honesty to commend it—that nothing has been written during the war, and nothing is likely to be written after it, which contains so much of real and luminous criticism of the attitude of the English Church toward the workaday Englishman as the chapter written by " A Student in Arms " on " The Religion of the Inarticulate." Let chaplains at the front study it, and Bishops and curates at home reflect upon it., if they are sincerely anxious to understand these wayward sheep of their flocks. There are supplementary chapters which splendidly amplify the matter, but if there is not time for apt no Churchman, in the name of his sacred calling, omit chap. vn. The American does not profess to know what, if anything, is wrong with the Church. He has never been interested in the question either at home or in England, for his own religious experiences have not been deep and fundamental ones. As a lad, he prayed at his mother's knee, and forgot to pray as a man. At the time he joined the British Army he had quite lost sight of the fact that religion is regarded as a vital human need, and was surprised, and not a little incensed, to find that a soldier must profess, at least, some form of religious belief. Therefore, when asked to proclaim his faith, he said, with regrettable levity: " What religions have you ? " He decided upon Church of England, that seeming • We would draw the attention of our American contributor to the remarkable State Paper which that notable seaman (" pirate" our angry ancestors called him), Paul Jones, prepared for Congress on the question of naval discipline. Paul Jones told the eloquent gentlemen who formed the National Government that they could not have a navy unless they would provide for strict discipline on board ship. The nnvateemman's note on discipline is one of the best ever written.—ED. Spectator. to be the choice of most of his comrades. He hoped to find means for dodging church parades, but military discipline precluded this ; and so he submitted, saying : " At least I shall be able to see what these Englishmen make of it." At the end of nine months, he took stock of his religious experiences as a soldier in training. On the credit -side of the balance he wrote " Church of England RituaL" During those months the conviction grew upon him that he was something of a religious being at heart. He came to think of the ritual as a beautiful and sacred thing. It was new to him, and at first he loved it for its own sake. But by degrees the prayers and responses became his own inarticulate prayers. At last, when he summoned courage to say " Amen " with the others, he really meant it, although he would not have admitted it, even to himself, at that time. On the debit side of the balance he wrote " Church of England Chaplains." Not once, during nine months of church parades, did he hear a sermon which met his own spiritual needs, nor, if he may say so, which seemed to meet those of his comrades. The preachments were infinitely tedious dissertations, chiefly upon doctrinal points. Finally, after months of hope deferred, he said : " Hang the import ! I'll listen to the words." For he loved to hear his mother-tongue beautifully spoken, as it invariably is by English clergy. He determined to rid his own speech of many of his slipshod Americanisms, and to think more reverently of it than he had done heretofore. But this resolve is to the temporal rather than to the spiritual credit of the chaplains, and mention of it does not rightly belong here.

In the beginning, he used to watch the faces of his comrades. They were grave, seemingly reverent, and he thought : " Can it be that these men are attentive ? Are they getting something which is denied me ? " But he learned that this reverent attitude is only the soldier's way of showing traditional public respect to the Church. They, too, may have listened to the words with pleasure and with envy. But the fine flow of unimpassioned language might have been a glittering stream of quicksilver poured over their heads, for any effect it had upon them. If one may judge by their speech and actions, they had forgotten everything before being dismissed at barracks. Rarely, very rarely, they commented upon what they had heard. Once we listened to a sermon which was longer than usual. The argument, briefly stated, was this : When Satan rebelled against the authority of God, he was driven into Hell with thousands of angels who had taken sides with him. The exile of these fallen souls left as many places in Heaven vacant as there had been angels driven into outer darkness. Therefore, it behoved men so to live that they might aspire to one of these vacancies. The end of the world would come when the last vacancy had been filled. The American wondered if this were an allegory. If so, the chaplain failed to snake his meaning clear. If, on the other hand, it was a plain state- ment of his orthodox belief, well, what can one say in such a case ? As one of the American's Cockney " mates " put it, there was but one construction to be placed on the sermon, and that was that " 'Eaven was goin' to be a blinkin"ard plyce to squeeze into, an' blokes like us ain't got a charnce o' mykin' it." And another said : "'Ere ! S'y ! Wot if Gawd didn't close the show just at the roight toime ! Wot if they was a few left-overs 'oo deserved to get in, an' they wasn't no room! Blimy ! wouldn't they be some arguin' ? "

These actual comments of actual men are given in no spirit of irreverence, but solely to emphasize the American's belief that ser- mons of this kind had no spiritual value to men who were soon to be facing the formidable realities of war. At the front he confidently expected to see a change for the better. There was some change, but it fell far short of expectations. Unthinkable as it may seem, the chaplains failed completely to live up to their opportunities. One's sympathies went out to them, for they must have been doing their best. But they had nothing to offer other than the old tedious lectures delivered in the old listless manner. The men listened with grave, reverent faces, but the common feeling after a church parade in billets was: "Good! That's over! Next week we miss, for we shall be in the trenches again." Once a chaplain—not the one of the "limited seating capacity" address —held a service when the battalion was hourly expecting to go into action. He invited the men, with something more than his usual earnestness, to partake of Holy Communion after the service. And although he did not say so directly, he made it abundantly clear that for those who did not partake he could not hold out hope of eternal life should they be killed. To the credit of the men, be it said, they refused to be frightened. They were not in the habit of partaking of Holy Communion and they were not to be threatened into doing so. Although not religious men in the accepted sense of the word, surely on this occasion they unconsciously revealed a fine and noble sense of Divine justice, Divine love. These remarks upon chaplains in particular must not be thought to apply to chaplains in general. The American's experience was necessarily limited, and has to do with but four or five men who ministered to his battalion at various times. But he notes the similarity of his experience to that of " A Student in Arms." Did space permit he might trace this further. He cannot but think that when two men, the one an Englishman and the other an American, from widely different points of view, reach almost exactly the same conclusions, there must be some truth in these conclusions. It must be true that many chaplains fail to realize that " here are men who believe absolutely in the Christian virtues of unselfishness, generosity, charity, humility, without ever con- necting them in their minds with Christ." It must be true, as the Englishman says, that

" they saw the inarticulateness and assumed a lack of any religion. They remonstrated with their hearers for not saying their prayers, and not coming to Communion, and not being afraid to die without making their peace with God. They did not grasp that the men really had deep-seated beliefs in goodness, and that the only reason why they did not pray and go to Communion was that they never connected the goodness in which they believed with the God in whom the chaplains said they ought to believe. . . . They have a dim sort of idea that He is misrepresented by Christianity."

The " Student in Arms " loved those " comrades of a year ago." " Now," he says, "they are scattered. Some are dead, some maimed, some still fighting, and some promoted. Never again shall they meet in this world. Yet the Student prays that if he ever forgets them or is ashamed of them, he may be cut off from the company of honest men." So says the American of his own comrades. And he is ready and willing to cast his lot with them,

[Much as we appreciate the essentially religious view of " A Student in Arms " and of " J. N. H.," the Transatlantic " Tommy," we cannot forbear to say a word for the chaplains. Are not the two laymen expecting too much of the worthy men thrown up into the trenches or behind the lines by the tides of war ? They expect them to be all Savonarolas, Latimers, and Wesleys. But such movers of men's hearts are very rare—as rare as Napoleons, Welling. tons, or Caesars. We are not angry with company officers for not being military geniuses. Why not make similar allowances for the

poor chaplains ? They are doing their best in as difficult a job as ever men were called on to perform.—En. Spectator.]