SOLDIERS AND THEIR RELIGION.
leo THE EDITOR OF THE " segererove Bin,—I have read many comp'aints that our soldiers at the front are frequently unable to find their way about the Prayer Book, and are, indeed, ignorant of the elements of the ieligion they profess Your correspondent "Country Vicar" seems to endorse them. What are the antecedents of the men ? Most children go to the Sunday-school of some denominaLon, and many get some religious instruction at home. But as there are no means of testing what they learn, we may leave these sources of knowledge out of account. The men, then, have been brought up either at recular schools, Council schools, or Church schools. Those coming under the first head would, no doubt, be ignorant But there are not many such schools. The children of the country schools and them of Nonconformist parents would be ignorant of the Prayer Book. But the Bible is generally taught, and taught very well. In the Church schools both Bible and Prayer Book are taught. Great pains are taken, and the children leave with a good deal better know- ledge of th -se subjects than many of their elders possess. Of course, much may be forgotten afterwards. But we are asked to believe that in a few years the children have so thoroughly lost what they once knew that they approach the sule;eet of their religion with perfectly blank minds.
No, Sir, it won't do. There must be some other explanation. May I suggest one ? The young men of Great Britain do not, I aus afraid, always resist the temptation to pull the legs of those who are older and wiser than they are. If they find themselves regarded as totally ignorant of facts of common knowledge, they are quite capable of humouring the belief that they are so. Hence the stories we get, and the demand for simplified Prayer Books in words of one syllable. After all, the intellectual strain involved in having to find the Psalm and Collects for the day is not excessive, and we arc paying a good deal
for education.—I am, Sir, &e., NORTON G. LAWSON. HaddLcoe Rectory, Arwich.
[We believe that our correspondent has hit upon the true explana- tion.—En. Spectator.]
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