PATHANS AND THE CROSS.
[TO THE EDITOR OF TEE " SPEETATOR."1
SIR,—The Spectator has had so much in it lately about India that I think the following may interest your readers. My husband was chaplain in 1915 to the 2nd Indian Cavalry Division. They had taken over a line of trenches behind Thiepval. One night he was burying a trooper in the 711. Dragoon Guards, but had to send the burying party away under cover as the machine-gun fire was so heavy and several men had been killed there. After this the General asked ray husband to plan out a new burial-ground in a safer position. Captain Pope, of the 7th Dragoon Guards—since killed in action—made and fenced in a beautiful little burial-grouts:: close to the stream which rune through the village of Autbuille. The ground was divided into three portions by paths—one for British soldiers, one for Sikhs and Jots, and one for Mohammedans. The 7th Dragoon Guards put up is plain wooden cross over the British portion to mark it off. The Pathans cause to my husband to beg that they too might be buried under the Cross. These men were wild trans-frontier Mohammedans, and he explained to them very carefully that the Cross was the Christian symbol. They replied: "We know quite well that the Cross is the Christian symbol; but this war in which we are fighting is a war of right against wrong, and the Cross is known all over the world as the symbol of self-sacrifice; therefore we ask you, whom we know so well to be our friend, to allow us the privilege of being buried under the Cross.", In the summer of 1916 my husband was riding home to the old chritCau of Estree-Blanehe where he was
billeted. A fine-looking Pathan of the 18111 Lancers came us to him and saluted. lie looked rather wild and anxious nut stood silent for a minute or two. My husband said to him "Mere Chai [soy brother], is there anything the matter' What can I do for you? " He answered "Sir, you know our people well and we know yon well. I come to you in distress of mind for help in a matter of religion. It seems to loans of us who think on these things that Allah is pressing wit!, a heavy hand upon the whole world, fur the world is Dill of pain and sorrow now. We wish to ask if you will join us in prayer to God that lie will have mercy upon us all. We know you often pray to Him, and we wish to feel that we and you are joining in oar prayers to Hint in this time of need."
am, Sir, die., HELEN 13 mum The Red House, Parks Road, Oxford.
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