THE CHURCH AND THE Y.M.C.A. (To 711a EDITOR or NHL
" SPECTATOR:1
Sta,—In a book written by one of our Assistant-Chaplain. Generals last spring occurred these words as nearly as I can remember them: "It is the duty of any one with any sort of a Message at this present time to set it forth that others may know it." I would not,. however, venture to express myself in a letter to the public Press on the folloWing well-worn subject unless I felt a deep and urgent need- of its necessity. No doubt over-dwelling on the subject for over a year along the muddy roads in Flanders and in a hospital ward has made the subject almost an obsession, yet nevertheless what I have to say eprings out of the herd facts of practical experience.
What chiefly the Church is up against in its failure at home.
and where it fails in France; is that the average officer and the average "Tommy" do not understand what we who have been brought up in close touch with it accept as second nature. The Church again and again in England forgets this fact. To most average men it is as the drawing-room is to Moat of us—a pine° where we ere not in our natural element because its ways and customs are hardly known to us and its element entirely foreign to our nature. But it is not so to those who know the right thing to say and the correct thing to do, Now, whether the Church can or will step down from' its pedestal and, taking off its coloured glasses, face "reality," and whether a religion of faith is alone of all institutions at the present crisis to be just the one to fail to' make a venture, yet at any rate there are certain things it can do. What can it de?
(1) It can make a very serious resolve to co-operate with the Y.M.C.A after the war. The' Y.M.C.A., as many of us know. has declared its policy of establishing huts in every parish in England. No doubt where there is a flourishing church club or where there is an energetic promise of one the Y.M.C.A. will not set a hut, but where it does let the parish priest be prepared to go in and quite humbly do all he can to help. If he does not, let him beware of failure.
(9) A vigorous Church Sunday newspaper is a need, and an oppor- tunity awaits the Church here.
(ffi The parish is not now keeping in touch with the men who have left it. The men who do not go to church will he surprised and impreesed by a letter or parcel regularly sent out.
(4) An opportunity of taking care of the relatives and friends who go out to visit their dear ones' graves after the war is over will be open to the Church. To take over farms as hostels and to erect huts in the shell-torn areas will need close co-operation with the Government, yet in the solicitude for the general welfare of those who come and go is there a better and more useful work that the Church could do (1) A recent writer has made one of his characters any that " the
Anglican deity seemed a vague flummery behind court and society, wealth, respectability, and the comfortable life " (H. G. Wells, Soul of a Bishop). Does not this strike down into our inmost self as the truth 2 Alter this, simplify our services, and change some of our customs which no one but a Churchman understands, and emmething will have been achieved.
I am afraid I have written at greater length than even the hospitable columns of the Spectator can entertain, yet I have endeavoured to give practical advice which has evolved itself out of practical experience, and I have eased my mind of a great
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