) 523 .K45 Zopv 1 .K45 Copy 1 IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!lll!llllllllllllllllllilllllll!llllllllll»^ "FROM THE ANVIL OF WAR 5? m gtlje &tglj SCtnsnluing, . A.; I. i. Hirfpmmb, : : Tftrgmia faster 1919. "Thoughts Brought Back From Over There" Selected Poems, Letters, Essays, Tributes and Addresses of 18 Months Past. PRICES FROM AUTHOR! (718 LAMB AVE. RICHMOND, VA.) "FROM THE ANVIL OF WAR" $1.00 'THE RIVER OF THOUGHT" 50 CENTS "EVEN SO I SEND YOU" 25 CENTS 'limn; "FROM THE ANVIL OF WAR" By WYTHE LEIGH KINSOLVING, M. A.; B. D. Author of "Even So I Send You" and "The River of Thought' 1919 SOUTHERN PRINTING AND PUBLISHING CO.! Winchester. Tennessee Copyright, April 1919. By Wythe Leigh Kinsolving. MAV 10 = ICI.A525598 •vvQ ^4-5 PREFACE These poems, letters and addresses "dipped from the run- ning stream" of the author's thought, voice his longings for unity of the nations in the peace pact and unity of Christians in a world-church. The one is here, the other may soon come. Thus these letters and essays may be timely and interesting to many minds. Though the book be versatile in subject-matter, these two themes haunt the whole, and blend all the notes into harmony. LETTER FROM NOVA SCOTIA. Mr. Editor: Three times in the last four years the writer has been in Canada, and each visit seems to afford the best possible reason for coming again. This region, immortalized by Longfellow in "Evan- geline," is peculiarly full of charm. Here where I write Annapolis basin stretches out its arms and Digby lies opposite me in its lap. "The gap" the only outlet to the Bay of Fundy, is seen out at the right. A great basaltic ridge runs for miles, enclosing the basin and opposing its rocky steep on the other side to the surging waters of the bay. Here, on this point, Bishop Jaggar, of Ohio, bought a home, where he cultivated the arts, read, thought and wrote, amid the quietude and placid calm of nature. A musician, a painter, whose copies of beautiful works of art are remarkably exact; a great preacher, elo- quent, forceful, evangelical in doctrine; a lecturer, whose published books bear witness to his careful study and fine thought, Bishop Jaggar left here in this home many most interesting memorials of his versatile life. Three summers ago the writer spent a week or ten days upon the Saguenay River, the most beautiful he has ever seen, even on four trips abroad. The following summer amid the Thousand Islands of the great St. Lawrence he was privileged to revel in the unique and marvelous beauty of that exquisite region. But here, one is closer to primitive and unadorned nature. True, a few summer hotels are found within a mile or two. A good many clergymen visit this region now and then, and our service is held every Sunday at Smith's Cove, near us, in a Methodist church. Here at the close ol August large logs burn in a big fireplace in the evening. One walks miles with no sense of fatigue. Tonic, bracing air, restores the energy sapped by city summer heat. Even more enthusiastically than ever before, "Canada for the summer," say I to all who can make the journey even for a short stay. Out in an armlet of the basin near this house the fishermen have built a weir, consisting of stakes driven and interwoven saplings, so that when the tide brings in the fish they are caught in the weir and picked up later when the tide goes out. Some of the original Acadians who were not carried away in the time of the great deportation still live not far from here. One does not see the large number of Canadian French, however, which are found iv Quebec and up the Saguenay. WYTHE LEIGH KINSOLVTNG. "Kelpie Lodge," Digby, Nova Scotia. Written at "Camp I," Near the Somme-Suippe District, North el Chalons and East of Rheims, Almost on the French Line of Bat- tie, in December 1917. I have slept in a bunk at the E. H. 8. I have roomed at the U. Va. I have slept in a tent while I ate at the "meat" At Fort Myer two months and a day I have lived in a four berth stateroom full Each bed like a Pullman berth. In a sixth floor apartment in New York We lived in joy and mirth. But "Camp I" Y. M. C. A. FOYER Where I sleep at the kitchen end Is the place surpassing, let me say, Any place I've slept Heaven defend All souls from the cats, and the noise and the cold, And the food which we all have here, Which is horse, 'black bread,' sour wine; I'm told That the "poilus" come for cheer To this barrack bare with its floorless chill. Yes, I've seen them crowd by scores To our "guichet," where I've served them till I was colder than outdoors: Two sheets of paper for each man, Perhaps a game of "Jacques"; Yet these are the men since the war began That have hurled the Hun hordes back! Yet these were the men who met the fire Of the German tyrant's guns And I hear their ire! Their five hours ire! As they beat back Deutchland's sons. CHRISTMAS AT RIMAUCOURT (By a Worker with the Y. M. C. A. 1917-18.) It was near a camp, where up and down The village streets the soldiers' feet Beat on the snow through all the town, And voices rang when they would greet. Upon the small hotel "Guyot's" "Seconde Etage," two rooms were kept; The one our canteen stock disclosed; The other, where the writer slept. "Sweet Corporals" and "Lucky Stripe," "Bull Durham" and the other brands Passed rapidly from cartons new Into the "Doughboys" eager hands, The afternoon when I arrived, Finding no doors between the rooms And getting aid I soon contrived To find a stove which just consumes The boxes which have held the stock I'm selling for Y. M. C. A. Besides a rare, small, wooden block, Brought by some "Doughboy" U. S. A. These rooms are cold, you bet your life! Yet they are warmer than outdoors. Privations when the world's at strife Are scarcely what a man deplores. In three weeks' time three thousand francs Were taken o'er the counter there. On Sunday on some new laid planks Within a half -floored barrack bare Two hundred men knelt down to share The Saviour's Sacrament of love From rough-hewn-table and stone-ware, Paten, plain glass for grail! Above God reigns despite the evil hour. Of justice, cle?nness, honor, right, Of God of Christ, of Truth, of Power. On Sunday morning and at night We tell these men by word and deed. (Tho in a barrack incomplete, The Sunday next a floorless one) The following Sunday morn I greet The soldiers in a hall, alone, Where formerly a picture-show Was offered to the village French. But which we've fitted up just so Our men can find a fire and bench. One other scene: Tis Christmas Eve! Twelve hundred men are gathered now Within the Roman Church; believe Five hundred children teach us how To look for "Noel" with delight! We hand the carols to the men. "While shepherds watched their flocks by night/ "O Little Town of Bethlehem!" Then tell these men of God's Great "Gift" Of Jesus Christ, His Only Son. Then tell the children (making shift To speak in French to everyone.) The children then receive their toys. And now the regimental band Bursts forth in harmonies. All stand Men shout our war-songs. Girls and boys Look on amazed at soldiers' mirth; JJappy, howe'er with dolls and sweets; While chime the Church-bells Peace on earth, And now the Roman Pastor greets His own and bids to Mid-Night Mass To usher in The Christ-Child-King! Thus did the Eve of Christmas pass. i And o'er the snow the sweet bells ring. Thus RIMAUCOURT, French Village dear To memory! I hail Thee Friend. To all Thy people, then, Good Cheer! God's Peace to Thee without an end! Blest be Thy children, far and near! (Written at Rimaucourt in January 1918, Revised Feb- ruary, 1919 in Chattanooga.) TRICOLOR AND STARS AND STRIPES Written in January, 1918, in France. He was a trim, neat, khaki-vested colonel; She was a dainty damsel wholly French. She never saw the Champs Elysees vernal; He never knew the beauties of a trench! She was encountered in a Bordeaux "diner," Daintily lunching with her own "naman." He, dapper, gay, just off an ocean liner, Caught first a glimpse of her and saw her yawn. Yawns can be pretty if red lips are parted, And half-closed eyes of blue are seen to shine, If from their azure depths a glance just started Falls ere it reaches you with light divine! Then, if a dainty purse should fall, just gliding Out of lap of velvet to the floor, What would you do, monsieur, now be confiding, Would you not haste the trinket to restore? So did the colonel, leaving his own table, Dropping the ashes of his "U. S." cigar. Scarce did he dream of friendships strong and stable Yet Cupid is still busy, e'en in war! Months have elapsed, and in a lovely chateau Sits there a maiden by an open fire, Holding a paper in her hand jewel-laden, Reading a message just received by wire: "On to Berlin" runs the dispatch all briefly — "Regiment drove the Germans yesterday Out of their trenches, prisoners thousands, chiefly Men of the kaiser's chosen: Ours the day!" Germaine arising held both her hands extended; Out of a full heart sighed a thanksgiving deep, Sounded the bell, and knowing her seance ended Once more consigns her soul to gentle sleep. Stirring events are passing near the border Germans are flying, armies are on their way; Soldiers American in splendid order Move on the flying foe and win the day. "Col. Swayne," a message rings from Pershing, "Rises to rank of general this date." Germaine receives this news of happy presage, Standing rose-bud in hand, near the chateau gate. Then in a month at Trinity in Paris, Avenue de L'Alma wedding bells are rung, Then down at Saint Sebastian where the air is Balmy in summer, gorgeous flowers among, Spend they their honeymoon in sweet rejoicing Over the termination of a war Which has brought liberty to millions, voicing God's will and man's to drive misrule afar! TRIBUTE TO FRANCE (Since going to Chattanooga as supply to Dr. Loaring Clark, rector of St. Paul's Church, Rev. Wythe Leigh Kinsolving has added a stanza to the poem he wrote, "To France," originally printed in the Evening Journal last May. The Chattanooga News, in publishing the poem, precedes by telling that Mr. Kinsolving has demonstrated his ability as a preacher and pastor. It will be remembered that he served in the Y. M. C. A. work in France before going to Chattanooga. St. Paul's is a church of nine hundred members. Here is the completed poem:) (May, 1918) My heart hath been in France! These many days my heart hath been in France. I've lived amid the storming crash of guns! I've seen the splendid courage of her sons! Great France! Ah, yea! My heart hath been in France! My soul hath soared to France! Full many times my soul hath soared to France. I've knelt beside the wounded soldiers there! I've offered to God a fervent prayer For France, brave France, Strong, noble, gallant France! Now I would be in France! A hundred thousand soldiers of our land, Americans as free as men of France, Americans, with gratitude to France, Shall fight beside the warriors of France! Then hasten, oh, my countrymen, to France! The world's great cause of right and justice hangs Within the balances that swing in France. Yea, where the ruthless battle clamor clangs — 5-* The cause of human liberty there hangs! Hasten! O, sons of our beloved land, Hasten to aid, and with our legions stand. Great France! Fair France! God grant, I, too, may go with you to France! (August, 1918) And I have been in France, tear stained but smiling France: I've heard the deafening roar of German ffuns, I've seen the wreckage wrought by heartless Huns; I've burned with admiration of the sons Of France, great France, heroic, dauntless France. Three million soldiers of our native land, Unyielding, strong, chivalric, mighty, grand, Unconquerable, by God's helping hand, Shall crush the cruel invading hosts and brand The stigma of defeat upon that band Of murderous, marauding myrmidons Who desolated Belgium, Serbia, France; Who burned and raped and harrowed northern France, Great France, fair France, invincible, triumphant, glorious France T WOODROW WILSON A statesman unaffrighted by the jeers Of smaller men, whose valor is their boast; A seer, in whose vision glistens tears Shed by bereaved women, coast to coast. A president who makes the title ring Upon the ears of time with sacred fame. An honor greater than to be a king, Because no monarch's power can be the same As that of him who moves the world to peace; Who, though he momentarily do fail, Shall at the end, to weary souls surcease And respite bring. Therefore, Wilson, all hail! Thy name encircling earth with all the suns, Shall sound upon all lips with Washington's! (April 1917) TO THE MEN WHO WEAR THE KHAKI Oh! I love the shade of khaki, for it stands for something fine: For Duty and for Honor, for a Will almost divine; To suffer, bear and conquer, in the name of Him who died, Pearing all mankind's big burden— fojlpwing ^he Crucified,, Yea, full well I love the khaki; 'tis a modest kind of dress} Not bizarre, nor boasting, either; like plain dirt in sim- pleness, But the men who wear the khaki grow in soul from day to day, Learning sacrifice and loving fealty to the U. S. A. Then again I love the khaki, as the color Pershing wears, Emblem of his royal nature and the title that he bears, Representing our Great Mother whom we love with filial zeal — Yea, the khaki on our bodies seems to shout the things we feel! Aye, full well I love the khaki; 'tis the symbol of our claim To the spirit of ambition void of ev'ry selfish aim — Just the will to break oppression and to free the sons of men From despotic power and brutal and to bring real peace again. Ah, I truly love the khaki! Tis a robe of spotless tint, Not assoiled by love of conquest nor lucre's sheen and glint; Tis a uniform of beauty born of spiritual desire To perform a sacred duty full of zeal and holy fire! Then because I love the khaki, let it worthily become Me, the emblem of my fealty to the land which is my home, And the symbol of ideals born of crises in her past Which have sanctified her record that beyond the stars shall last! Just because I love the khaki, God in heaven keep me pure; Let me not assoil my manhood, nor be led by lust or lure; In sobriety and patience let me battle for the right, And condemn on earth the motto that declares that "Might makes right!" Then, I love the glorious khaki which reveals a nation's heart Throbbing now to save all nations, on tiptoe to do her part In o'ercoming wrong and evil and establishing the good, While the angels in God's presence cry in joy: "We knew she would!" When I wear the mighty khaki, sign and mark of what I love, I revere my mother's standards born of Christ, the King above; And just as He died to save us so I'll die if need shall be, So to emulate His spirit in my will to make men free! Men, oh men who wear the khaki, keep unsullied, pure and clean This, the visible fair token of things spiritual, unseen; Let the sacramental emblem of a people's purpose fine Shed a radiance supernal on your action in the JjneJ Written Jp France, January, 1918, A CHRISTMAS CAROL— 1918. (By Rev. Wythe Leigh Kinsolving, of St. Paul's Episcopal Church) Holy Jesus, born in the stable-cave, God in the flesh Thou art ! Born of the spotless Virgin, born to save, Thy life's blood to impart! Heralded Lord, foretold to Thy mother's heart! "Hail Mary!" — God, the Almighty's choice! "Blessed art thou among women!" Mother of God tho art! Well might her Virgin mother's heart rejoice! "My soul doth magnify the Lord," she said, "My spirit hath rejoiced in God, my Savior." The Virgin breast, the Virgin womb, instead Of fear, found joy, revealed in her behavior. O Word Eternal by Whom the heavens were made! God in the flesh Thou wast born, Under the starlight in Bethlehem's cave low-laid On that first triumphant Christmas morn. God, very God, everlasting God art Thou! Worshiped, adored, by Cherubim, Seraphim, Angels and men and all Thy creatures, now, Then and forever, in one eternal hymn. HYMN For the Southern Churchman. Wythe Leigh Kinsolving. I. On Thee, my Saviour, do I cast my fears: Thou midst the raging billows on the lake Say'st, "Peace, be still!" and in the vessel's wake, Lo! o'er the water black, great calm appears. II. On Thee, my Saviour, do I cast my doubts: Thou, hearing Thomas cry for proof of sense, Baring Thy side, forgiving his offense, Showed'st him Thy wounds to put distrust to rout. III. On Thee, my Saviour, do I cast my cares: Thou hadst on earth not where to lay Thy head; Yet on the Mount didst bid us pray for bread And trust in God who numbereth our hairs. IV. On Thee, my Saviour, do I cast my hopes: Thou sawest a vision of the world redeemed, When past Thy Cross the light of victory gleamed, Cleaving the gloom, o'er Golgotha's dark slopes. — 8 — V. On Thee, my Saviour, do I cast my love: Thou hadst the love of women and of men; Blending both men and women in Thee, then, When Thou on earth show'dst life of Heaven above. VI. My fears, my doubts and cares, my hopes and love I bring All to Thy feet, and kneeling there, my Lord, Crying "Rabboni," "Master!" worshipping Thee I await Thy peace; Thy pardoning word! THEY WENT TO THE WAR WITH A SONG They went to the war with a song, with a swing, with a shout; They went to the camp, to the port, to the ship then ashore, With a firm, strong stride, with a heart that was free from doubt; With a will like steel, with a trust in God evermore! They were cold; yea, they slept ofttime in a cold, dark loft; They were tired; yea, they marched and they worked as ne'er before; But their spirit was true and bright. They were men not soft, But with muscles as hard as flint; they were clean to the core. When they went o'er the top, did they stop for machine gun fire? Did they fear dark death, did they cringe like a beast that cowers ? Did the pallor of fear pale their cheeks 'mid the conflict dire ? Did they lose their grip in the trench in the long dread hours ? Nay! They went to the war with a choral, strong and gay; They fought till the end with a purpose glorified. Let us meet them, greet them, bless them from day to day; For they went to the war, and won — our men! Our pride! Chattanooga News. TO A LITTLE GIRL ON ROLLER SKATES For the Southern Churchman, April 28, 1917 Wythe Leigh Kinsolving. 0, dark-haired girl, with dark-lash'd, gentle eyes, Of late, on roller skates, your rhythmic sway, Like rippling melody, I saw, one day, And now would paint your picture, sonnet- wise; For it is beautiful, and strangely sweet; Your voice, like Horace's Brundisian streams; !- 9 — Your smile, star-radiant, mystically gleams Upon your face with purity replete. Rare music might your movement represent, But verse may fail. The heart's muse seemeth dumb When you, with gliding magic, swiftly come Into my fancy, whitely innocent: A poem of God art thou, which 'tis not meant For man to translate to the full intent. REPRISALS To the Editor of the Timas-Dispatch: Sir, — Editorials, as well as public letters, are eminently important in awakening the popular mind to dangers in the present unprece- dented crisis in history. Your editorial on "Reprisals" should have great weight in reminding us we are not in the war for vindictiveness nor victory by the methods of Attila or Genghis Khan. "Any retaliation or act done in retaliation" is the definition of "reprisal" in the Century Dictionary that seems to fit the case under discussion. Retaliation is giving back such as one has received. If the principle of reprisals should triumph, the British would give back just such cold, heartless murder of babies and women as defenseless homes of the islands have suffered from. Our noble President has put us on record as fighting for humanity. We must let it be plainly un- derstood we do not fight for the principle of inhumanity. We cannot condone the effacement of the humane instincts. Let us congratulate Archbishop Davidson, of Canterbury, that he has declared himself against such conduct on the part of the British government. We are fighting for the higher principles of common human life. Neither America nor any one of the entente should stoop to the standards of the foes; debase their plane of national conduct to that of the enemy; nor seek to imitate the relentless barbarism of in- sensate "Schrecklicheit!" Richmond, June 26. THE ONLY PERMANENT PEACE To the Editor of The Times-Dispatch: Sir, — It is no anomaly for one to have most pacific views, to be bitterly opposed to war, and heartily in favor of the abolition of arma- ments and the establishment of an international court and a league to enforce peace; and that the same person should be morally convinced of the need of the allies continuing the present European war. If permanent peace is sought, it must be based upon righteousness and justice. Those that cry, "Peace! Peace! when there is no peace" are those who desire to cease fighting at a moment when they can claim spoils for themselves. With the human race outraged, there can be no peace until the human race's dignity is vindicated. While Ger- many dictates the terms of peace there can be no such vindication, Richmond, January 1, 1917. ~10-, LESSONS OF A BIT OF HISTORY To the Editor of The Times-Dispatch: Sir, — The death of Count Zeppelin recalls to my mother's mind the experiments conducted by this German, who was with the Union army near Moss Neck, twelve miles below Fredericksburg, where Gen- eral Jackson was in winter quarters in '63. My mother, then Mrs. Richard Corbin, of Moss Neck, was the hos- tess of General Jackson, and can remember Zeppelin's balloon sailing in sight, but not within range of the Confederate fire. The inventive genius became a pet hobby of the German government, and hundreds of thousands were spent in the effort to make the dirigible an invin- cible agent of terrorism. The American invention, the heavier-than- air machine, the aeroplane, became the relentless foe of the lighter- than-air Zeppelin. But the inventor, Langley, of the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, died of disappointment because our government did not give him financial aid enough. The Wrights and others, work- ing on the same principle, I am told by aeronauts, perfected this form of air car. A kindred case of congressional negligence was the failure to ap- propriate and develop the submarine, an American invention. This in- strument seems to be one of the determining factors in the world war. I am likewise informed that the Krupp gun was first offered to the American government. Surely, before critics throw stones at the present administration as responsible for our much heralded unpre- paredness, they ought to go back further and trace conditions to their source. Even in the War Between the States, Captain John Mercer Brooke invented the first iron-clad, which "unquestionably revolution- ized the naval warfare of the world," and received encouragement from the Confederacy before Ericsson did from Uncle Sam. Yesterday, fifty- five years ago, Brooke's boat met Ericsson's in Hampton Roads, but before that date Uncle Sam had been caught napping to his serious detriment. Richmond, March 10. LETTER FROM A Y. M. C. A. SECRETARY IN FRANCE Mr. Editor: It was owing to the lack of Chaplains' position avail- able for Episcopal ministers that I applied to the Y. M. C. A., as I have been already four times in France for brief visits, and received an appointment about two days later; but then was obliged to wait a month ere I could sail on the Rochambeau French Line from New York, on October 29, in company with twenty other secretaries, sev- eral groups of Red Cross workers, and a total of altruistic passengers, coming to aid France, of about three hundred. My work is to be with the French soldiers and at Chalons Sur Marne. Chalons is east of Paris and not far from Rheims and Epernay. I recall a very charming visit to this part of France five years ago, but since then the Hun has changed the face of nature in this region. — U — Bishop McCormick, of Michigan, was j.mong us, and the Rev. Mr. Taylor, of St. Louis, was acting as the Bishop's traveling companion. We had services on board and the Bishop celebrated and preached on All Saints' Day and on the following Sunday. I heard him again at Dr. Watson's Church, Trinity, the next Sunday, after we arrived in Paris. Bishop McCormick will superintend our Chaplains here in France, thus acting for the American Episcopate. The Rev. Mr. Taylor will succeed Dean Davis, of St. Louis, as Chaplain at Rouen. I stopped at over night en route to Paris hoping to see my neph- ew, a son of Bishop Kinsolving, of Brazil. He had left the School of Aviation there, but I have seen him here in Paris since. His brother is serving in the American Ambulance Corps. I talked with a soldier of that branch of our service recently, and his description of his hair- breadth escapes was thrilling. He was very modest in his description of his services, however, and this spirit seems to pervade the service. At different stations I saw a great number of Americans in khaki, and in Paris you meet them at every turn, in the "metro" subway, on the Champs Elysees and everywhere. The Canadians and Australians who wear a similar uniform, at least in color, are also very frequently met, and they are sociable like Americans. In the Canteen Service I have met a number of our Church wom- en, Miss Gilman, daughter of President Gilman, of Johns Hopkins Uni- versity; Miss Nelson, cousin of Dr. Thomas N. Page, and several New York ladies of our Church. As to the men, we have College Presidents, Y. M. C. A. Secretaries and others of similar standing. Countess Choiseux gave us promise of aid to the French troops with whom I am to labor as a Y. M. C. A. Secretary at Chalons. Baron de LaGrange and the Baroness who, like the Countess Choiseux, were on board the Rochambeau, are very lovely people of the old French stock. Here in Paris many of our party are detained until we can get our supplies be- fore we go out to Camp. Paris is not rendered mournful in appearance. Theaters are open, music is heard, men and women are very full of fun and badinage. The French wit and good nature are irrepressible in spite of war. Even the losses and the Russian collapse do not cast a pall of gloom over them. They seem very happy to have the United States taking up the cause of liberty with them, and they do all they can to help us while we are in Paris. The three centres there — 31 Avenue Montaigne, (2) the Hotel de Pavilion, and (3) University Union, 8 Rue de Riche- lieu — are thronged with our men. At the two first places mentioned music and refreshments are to be enjoyed at the Club rooms under the auspices of the Y. M. C. A. As a Frenchman said to me on the train, "You Americans are so very practical." They are alert and quick to see the methods of the Y M. C. A. There are many dangers to our young men more than submarines, or shells, or poisonous gasses. The Y. M. C. A. is affording amuse- ments and a social life, all of which are very salutary in giving occu- pation to the men in moments of leisure. I am very glad to be serving an organization of which soldiers and officers unite in saying most splendid things. The athletic sports, — 12 — cinema, the phonograph, papers, books, writing materials, and a dozen other things needed by the men, are brought to them by the Y. M. C. A., and they ail appreciate it. I am terribly eager to get to Chalons Sur Marne for my work there. Seven weeks at Fort Myer will have given me an introduction to the kind of work I am to do. After all the contact will be more immediate than a Chaplain's and I trust God may use me. I am happy to be across and I shall give my best ser- vices to our poilus at Chalons. American Expeditionary Force, France, November 15, 1917. NATIVE HOUSTONIAN WRITES FROM FRANCE Rev. Wythe Leigh Kinsolving With the American Forces. Chalons-Sur-Marne, November 29, 1917. My dear "Monsieur L'Editeur": I am going to give your readers a few actual experiences and im- pressions I received in France. I got tired waiting for the U. S. Congress to create new chaplains in the army, being one of the several awaiting an opening. Recom- mended by five Bishops, half a dozen Senators, members of Congress, and several vestries, e. g., in St. Louis, in Richmond and in Tennessee, I simply presented these letters at the New York International Y. M. C. A. office; had five minutes personal interview with Dr. John R. Mott, and was assigned to work overseas with the Y. M. C. A. But I waited at Fort Myer, where I was an official chaplain to the students in training to become officers for over a month before I received orders to come to New York; ten days in New York before our delayed boat could sail; ten days on board the Rochambeau ere we arrived in Bor- deaux; ten days in Paris ere I got my permit and now I have to wait here before I can go to the front. But I have had my eyes and ears open, and will report some of the things I have seen and heard from Washington to Chalons-Sur-Marne. Fortunately my salary commenced the first of last month, so I am all right and getting more and more to like my job every day. As a French Y. M. C. A. secretary remarked today: this is the school of Patience, "L'Ecole de Patience." On the boat we had every day conferences of the twenty secreta- ries in our own group. We were all bored but it was a part of the pro- gram. We finally got to Bordeaux, having been transferred to a small cruiser at the mouth of the Garonne. Getting off the little steamer, of which the cabin below with its stairs reminded me of Dante's de- scription of "L'Enfer," where all the bad angels were crowded together, we found the hotels of Bordeaux as full as that tight little boat. I was assigned to a place in a room occupied by two whites and one mu- latto. I looked in, observed conditions (one white man was in bed with and beside that coon) and I cried in good nature: "It is a mistake! Wrong number." I descended, sought the land-lady and secured a room above, once used as a parlor. — 13^ Next morning Rev. Mr. Patrick, no Saint nor related to the Saint, but a good, sound American clergyman, met us on the 11 o'clock tram to take us to Paris. He had blanks for us to fill out — I've been filling blanks for two months — and before I began I told him I wanted to stop at Tours, where my nephew, Charlie (son of the Bishop of Brazil), was when I last heard of him. He demurred a little, saying there was a "Conference" next morning. I exclaimed: "We have been confer- enced to death already." I got his consent to leave the train at Tours. However, Charlie had left the Aviation School and I missed him at Tours. I did see him in a most unexpected place and manner a week later. Coming to breakfast one morning in a big hotel dining room, I seated myself by accident at a small table opposite him. I had a letter from his brother this morning. Charlie is in the Aviation Ser- vice, a Pilot Aviator; Arthur is in the Ambulance Service; and I am with the Camp Service of the Y. M. C. A., with French soldiers. My permanent address is 31 Avenue Montaigne, Paris." Please, all my friends, send me a card, a letter, any news, the paper containing this letter when published, or any other paper. Here on Avenue Montaigne, and other points in the city, the Y. M. C. A. has musical or other entertainments for the boys several times a week. The service at 31 Ave. Montaigne conducted by charm- ing American girls is a first rate affair. I visited a French Countess, born an American, whom I met on board, and I was invited to call on a Baron who lives in Paris. I was also one day at our embassy, but missed Mr. Sharp, our minister. I met with a young secretary of his, a very nice boy, named Rowley. I also heard Bishop McCormick, who was on board the Rochambeau, preach at Trinity Church one Sunday. We have Bishop Israel, of Erie, also in France. I am constantly meeting Episcopalians in the Y. M. C. A. work and many clergy are among them. This is my fifth visit to Europe, but none has exceeded it in in- terest. The myriads of men in khaki in Paris, Canadians, British, Aus- tralians, Americans, French and Belgians in light and dark blue, in every subway, on all the streets, women in mourning, thousands praying in the churches, yet thousands also at the music halls and theaters — it is all wonderful, a mixture of joy and sorrow, sunlight and shadow, of life and death, that will never leave me. Are American soldiers coming in large numbers? I answer al- ways with jubilation: "Yes, a million or two more!" Here at Chalons on the Marne, not far from the great battlefield of "The Marne," the children on the street greet you in the evening, "Good morning," and in the morning "Good evening." One lass asked an American how to say: "Ef luf you" in French. He told her how. Here at Chalons the cellars are ready to occupy in case of an air raid, and the windows are all shaded. Little light is used. All precautions are taken against night attacks by enemy airplanes. I am going closer to the front tomorrow where the shells are heard whistling often. We are within hearing of the French guns here. I heard and read next day in papers arrived from Paris of the attack which was repulsed. But I have had no fear. — 14 — I must tell you I've met a charming French family, the Perands. M. Perand is a skin and leather merchant. He showed me a place con- structed to escape when the Germans came to Chalons, with beds and everything prepared for a seige. He has several automobiles, a pretty lot of boys and girls, and a very interesting home. I wish I could know more of these delightful French folks. They are most kind and socia- ble. At the camp, 15 miles away, where I go tomorrow with cot, trunk, valises, a mattress and blankets and everything else, M. Perand said he would come to visit me and bring me back for a visit to their home. This would break the monotony, so I hope I can come with him. I am to stay three months at Sorame Suippe, pronounced "Some Sweep," be- fore I have a holiday. Of this I will write again. A LETTER FROM THE FRONT Experiences of a Minister in Y. M. C. A. Work in France. (Rev. Wythe Leigh Kinsolving, an Episcopal minister, and a con- nection by marriage of the editor of the Herald, is actively engaged in religious work in co-operation with the Y. M. C. A., with his head- quarters near Chalons, France. Extracts from a recent letter from him will be of interest to readers of the Herald.) Editor of the Religious Herald: Since I left Fort Myer, where I was serving as unofficial chap- lain to the soldiers in training for officer's commissions, my course has reminded me of that pursued by a gyroscope. The peculiarity in this stabilizing instrument's progress as witnessed once by me, was its ten- dency to go to a certain point, then pause and remain in equilibrium, or as we say, "in statu quo," then to retrace its course, or else go on- ward along the prescribed path. In New York I spent ten days wait- ing for the Rochambeau to sail; in Paris I spent twelve days waiting for permit to move to Chalons; at Chalons it seems I am to be a week or more balancing on a wire, as it were, until I receive further orders to progress. But as a tourist of old, I am keenly alert to my opportunities and privileges as a gentleman of leisure. In New York, of course, I was at home, since I have lived there. On the steamer I was as busy as most people of the passenger list becoming acquainted with the twen- ty-one Y. M. C. A. men, the Red Cross groups and manifold altruistic aggregations on board. I made a speech, in both French and English thanking the captain for a safe and secure crossing and next day we were transhipped to a little river boat at the mouth of the Gironde (as the Garonne is called below Bordeaux) and we all had a cramped and most dismal experience in the eight hour passage on this boat without food to the Bordeaux Wharf. We arrived at 10:30, found it hard to get rooms for the night, and, before I went to sleep, I was about ready to withdraw my resolutions of thanks in French and English and to say something else in plain American. I left Bordeaux on Friday, having arrived the night before, spent the night at Tours, where I enjoyed immensely the magnificent his- r-^15 — toric Cathedral, came on to Paris on Saturday, reaching the Hotel Du Pavilion on Saturday night. All rooms were full. I secured a place to sleep on a cot in the soldiers' dormitory for two francs, about 35c. It wasn't worth 15 cents. Cold as Christmas, filled with cursing and objectionable stories, continuing until 2 a. m., it was an apartment memorable for its discomfort. Next day I got a room. I must not omit that on that, as on all Saturday nights, there was an entertain- ment, singing, dancing and other vaudeville stunts. One particular dance was explained by Dr. Benson (President of Vermont University) in charge of the Paris Department of Y. M. C. A. work, and, therefore, of the pavilion performances. When he announced the next day that sometimes the companies invited to entertain "put one over on the Y. M. C. A.," I thought this special dance deserved his allusion. Some- body "put one over" that night At the moment I wondered if this was Paris Y M. C. A. or what. Other entertainments were the stories told one night by the survivors of the "Alcedo," followed by a dance. Two black negro boys who could speak French (born in Louisiana) were the prima donnas of both occasions. At the University Union I registered and looked for college men I knew. I often went there to write during my weeks in Paris. I heard there a remarkably well rendered performance of the Merchant of Venice in French and heard two beautiful operas of Gluck and of Auber. I circled the city viewing Notre Dame, the Queen of Beauty, the Madeleine, of which the Second Baptist church of Richmond re- minds us, and other famous buildings. I also enjoyed the Saturday in Tours, the paintings have been removed for the period of the war, and at the Luxemburg, the gallery of modern contemporary art. Rodin's death occurred the day after I saw some of his work there. Lloyd George made his great Parisian speech on unity that aroused wrath at home, but promoted his power, the first week I was in Paris. The victories around Cambrai have been most since I left Paris to come to Chalons. The Italian defeats were being aggravated while we were crossing the Atlantic. The Russian collapse is still on. I enjoyed the journey from Paris hither. I passed very near the scene of the great battle of the Marne. I talked with majors and other high officers of the French army. They are remarkably reticent, but brave, sanguine, hopeful and undaunted. We have near here thirty or more Y. M. C. A. centers in most of which will be both a French sec- retary and an American. I am to be located about fifteen miles or so out of Chalons and among five or ten thousand French soldiers. I have talked very little else but French now for two weeks or so and begin to feel better acquainted with the language. The French people tell me they understand me perfectly, but I have trouble hearing them for, of course, they speak rapidly. I had a bit of dentistry to be performed today. I had a lady den- tist, highly recommended and found her very proficient and remark- ably rapid in her execution. So the French, even without suffrage, are not behind in feminine progress. I have noted thousands worshiping in the Cathedrals and churches. Baron La Grange told us that the personnel of the French clergy was ^-16 — greatly elevated by the separation of the Church and State. I am sure this will be easily believed by your readers. And now may I mention one or two amusing incidents ? On board our ship, one fellow in the party was continually correcting the French accent of all of us. A few days after we arrived in Paris I met a French poilu who had been on board. He said: "Have you seen that poor fellow? He is having a troubled time in Paris, can't speak a word and gets lost every time he goes out alone." I smiled reflectively. The children on the streets of Chalons are very polite. At 8 o'clock in the morning, when they are on the way to school, to an American they cry, "Good night." In the evening after supper if you see them out they are apt to say "Good morning." I looked for Charles Kinsolving, my aviator nephew, at Tours and found he had left long before my arrival. I came down to breakfast at the Pavilion in Paris, selected a table a fellow seated at it and was amazed to be greeted with, "Hello, Uncle Wythe." It was Charlie. A day or two ago here in Chalon, on the streets a khaki clad youth said, "Howdy." In short time we found we were both from Richmond. He knew my brother-in-law (who is in law, in fact, being an attorney) and was himself a young Richmond practitioner named Bocock. The other evening while I was talking French to a soldier here in the salon of the hotel, we heard a great many whistles blowing. He said, "The Boches, perhaps an air raid." As it happened it was a false alarm. But every night the window curtains are drawn. There is no light to be seen. It looks like the decks of the Rochambeau when all our port holes were screened. The plague of darkness is over all this part of France. French airplanes fly over any day. Cellars are pro- vided for security in a raid. I first stayed at a hotel named Haute Mere Dieu, meaning The High Mother of God. The first word, Haute, was the keynote. I left for a less high place to stay. Elegant snails and oysters are sold here. The snails are better than the Philadelphia ones, of which a New Yorker said: "Philadelphians do not eat them because they cannot overtake them." I have been eating snails to cultivate patience and tame down my natural proclivity to rapid movement. This town was once occupied by the Germans. If that happened again, perhaps I would be sorry I had eaten any snails. Whenever I see a long lost American lad struggling with French and eager to get some help, I think of "Box and Cox," one embracing the other, crying, "Have you a mole on your right arm?" "No." "Why, you are indeed my long lost brother." Chalons is a center for auto trucks. There is a canteen of the Red Cross at the station. I see many Americans almost daily. Most of them have a sort of "Box and Cox" look in the eyes as though they would like to fall on somebody's neck who could talk English and tell any home news. Well, if you can print this screed, perhaps later I can send some- thing better. When we win this war and come home again, there will be much to tell. Chalons, Franqe, — X7 — WITH AMERICAN ARMY IN FRANCE Rev. Mr. Kinsolving Writes Interestingly from the Seat of War. On Train to a Port of France, January, 18, 1918. Editor Record- Advertiser: I received yesterday two statements from Halifax friends that they had read my letters in the columns of your paper, and asking me to write again. So after nearly three months of life with the colors, both French and American, I feel like again recording more mature impressions of things seen in France. I served in a French Foyer du Soldat for a while, ate horse meat and potato "rata," a kind of soup; and slept cold, if I slept at all, under five blankets. Like the healed invalid in the Bible I always had to carry my bed, and mattress and blankets. I've traveled on ocean-steamers, river boats, trains, "trams," elec- tric busses, the underground; what is known as the cremailliere — a ca- ble car drawn up the mountain; in a side car of a motorcycle; in mo- tor trucks, autos, taxis, wagons, carriages and everything except an aeroplane and a submarine. My nephew Charlie, however, is a pilot aviator and not long ago made a raid with twenty-four other machines 160 miles over Germany. His brother, Arthur, drives a big ambulance car and is well spoken of by all. I spent Sunday evening at the American University Union, 8 Rue de Richelieu, and heard a most artistic musical recital and saw several University of Virginia men; among them Lewis Crenshaw who is in charge of our U. of Va. rooms at the Union. I heard of Jack Brown, son of Bishop Brown, of Virginia; of young Williams, son of John Sharp Williams, of Mississippi; of Joseph Wood ,of Farmington, near the U. of Va., with whom I dined at Farmington a short time before he sailed, and many other Virginia boys. I had spent some weeks out at two points, Rimancourt and Lan- gres, where I felt I was doing real service and had come in to get well of La Grippe. I am now en route to a coast town for like service with the Y. M. C. A. I sold $1,500 worth of American tobacco at one point a few weeks ago, gave out thousands of sheets of letter paper and envelopes, like what I am writing on now, and fitted up a comfortable hall in a town where we had two thousand men and I was the only secretary. Christmas we had a big entertainment. I led 1,200 men and French children in the carols of which we distributed copies to all, preached in English and French, and helped to give out a thousand presents from the Y. M. C. A. In the next post to which I was assigned I sold chocolate, tobacco, etc., to the sum of one thousand francs. I played the piano and sang every night until I was put to bed by La Grippe. The snow was over a foot deep. I was obliged to walk a mile or two, several times a day, to my barrack. The water on the floor was an inch deep and the French stoves were a joke. The main object of a French stove is to — 18 — save fuel and look as though it were actually emitting heat. Thank heaven I do not return to this place. Lieutenant Harrison, of the University of Virginia, was my friend at the first point. I did not see any Virginia boys at the second. I may see more where I am going. I certainly hope so. One learns a great many things here in a short time. Four visits before the war have not equalled in length of time one during the war. Our Y. M. C. A. is doing a great work where our department heads are efficient. I've had experience both sorts. To get a warm hall for the men in which they can associate, read, write, and talk, sing, play games, and attend religious services, concerts, lectures, etc., is a fine piece of benefaction. I was happy when I was personally providing for two thousand. Deficiency in mail facilities has been my chief deprivation. I went nearly three months without a word from my wife, and finally got all her letters in a pack after they had been held at one place a matter of several weeks! Meantime I cabled, and next day, getting the letters, had to cable again to keep from giving unnecessary alarm. Perhaps at a coast town this will be better. I have not got the Christ- mas box she sent me yet; but have received cards from Aunt Mary Green, Mrs. Garland Faulkner, and Mrs. Hankins, many Richmond people, and Baltimore and New York friends. I shall probably soon meet some of our boys from Virginia and may be from Houston. Bishop Brent. Bishop McCormick and Bishop Gwynne of Khartum, the first working with the Y. M. C. A., the second in charge of Episcopal chaplains, the third in charge of British chaplains. I've seen often Miss Gilman, of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, who is at the Hotel du Pavilion, Paris, and one of my very valued friends I've met many who knew the Bishops of Brazil and Texas. The first American I met at Bordeaux knew Brother Lucien. This was the first day after I landed. I've met the boys from Montana, California, Iowa, Georgia, Maryland, New York and almost all the States of the Union. I did not mention the big battle I was near, north of Chalons. It sounded like twenty-five thunder storms. We were ordered to get ready to get in the refuge trenches from the bombard- ment. I saw Boche aeroplanes cleared by the French shells bursting almost over our heads. I could never even before the battle go out without a gas mask strapped upon me and ready for immediate use. I was with several thousand French and one American; no woman, no stores and no good drinking water in twenty miles! It was in the devastated region — East of Rheims — in the closest Y. M. C. A. building of all to the Front. I ate snails in Paris before I went there and I remarked I was sorry if "a snail's pace" for me was to be the result in getting out of there! I ate horse, however, there and perhaps it was a race horse. If so I needed all his alacrity. Here was where I walked five miles to a Presbyterian service and was called on to make an extempore prayer in French, which I did. I told a Frenchman I knew the Lord knew what I meant and asked him if he also knew ? He gave a polite French af- firmative reply. — 19 — Will you send me a copy of this and my other letter to "12 Rue d'Aguesseau, Paris, care of Y. M. C. A." as I want to see if you well decipher my heiroglyphics ? You may see me in Halifax on my return, as I love the verdant slopes and beauteous ravines of that dear region. Thanks to my friends for their kind letters. I shall be delighted to get more, now and then. I will return to Virginia in a few months, I hope. I am now in Brittany, historic, quaint, lovely, full of charm. I believe it will be mild and we will have an early spring. With love to friends. FOUR MONTHS IN FIGHTING-FRANCE Notes of a Y. M. C. A. Secretary Returned From France Wythe Leigh Kinsolving, M. A., B. D. Probably the most profound conviction borne in upon my mind and riveted there by a residence of four months in France is that this world-war will last three years longer. I was speaking with Bishop Gwynne, Chaplain Superior to all the British Forces in Europe, who had sat at table the day before with Generals Haig, Robertson and Pershing, in a three hours conversation on the train from Langres to Paris, not more than three weeks or so before I left France. His tes- timony as to the British Generals' opinions of our American officers and men was the handsomest tribute to American manhood to which I have ever been privileged to listen. "We British expected the Amer- icans to be rather impetuous and over-hasty in their methods, and we have been amazed to find them the most humble and modest of men, sitting docilely at the feet of French and British leaders, keen and eager to learn the methods of modern warfare, resolute, unflagging and steadfast in their zeal to learn and know and put into effect the most effective plan by which our common foe may be exhausted and finally and convincingly defeated." This enconium of the highest authority among the British chap- lains repeating the sentiment of the superior generals of the British army is assuredly deserving of a national hearing in America. Com- pared and contrasted with it let us witness the testimony of the French poilu, whose contact with the American soldier has elicited from him a hopeful and sanguine admiration and respect. At St. Nazaire, at the extreme tip of the Western French coast, I had many interviews with Frenchmen who for seven or eight months past have observed the construction of great railroads, harbor facilities and other American enterprises with deepest interest and keenest appreciation. "Oh, you Americans are so practical," have not one, but hundreds of these Frenchmen said to me. "We are so glad you are with us, fighting our common foe. France was in great need of the young and vigor- ous American nation. Thank God, you have come!" When I would humbly suggest that from my observation of the tanned and bronzed soldier in the dugout on the French front; men who slept eight in a dugout eight feet square and six feet deep; men — 20-^ who had eaten horse flesh, dried and stale; drunk the ration of sour wine, and eaten the coarse black bread, and the potato rata; men of small statue, but of gigantic soul — when I would humbly suggest that could the American fibre stand such severe and austere asperities of life, there could be no doubt as to the outcome of the conflict, the little Frenchman's hand would go up ; his eye would flash with keen zest and a confident spark of enthusiasm, as he said: "They will be as great soldiers as the French; we have no fear of their valor being less than that of the French poilu, who has fought three and one half years." With these testimonials of the impressions made by the American army upon the British and the French, let me remind you simply that they are expressions of hope and not expressions of achievement. When I asserted that the war would last for three years it was with a full realization of the valid and splendid character of soldiers whom we have put already in France, but it was likewise with a knowledge of the well-nigh invincible and invulnerable character of the enemy against whom are aligned the most majestic and the most compelling agencies of civilization and power. Germany's intrenchment in Northern France; her three lines of intrenchment, in fact, cannot be penetrated by big guns, nor by over- whelming forces. Her one-hundred and ninety-five divisions north of France are a perpetual menace even now to the security and integrity of uninvaded central and southern France. When I say that the four or five million Americans must be sent to France before the end comes, you will recognize that I speak not for myself, but as voicing the sentiments of Great Britain and France alike in their full recognition of the almost unthinkable task that yet remains to be performed by the Allied armies. Thirdly, we shall find it very difficult to provide food and trans- portation for this vast army in France. Therefore our increase in ships, ever ships, and more ships, is the imperative corrollary of what has just been said. Let us visualize here the mighty achievement of the British navy for three years past. Without it, America would have been invaded, and already Teutonic ideas of Kultur and Teutonic claims for superman would have been thrust, along with their German bayonets, down the throats of Americans along our coasts. Let us never forget that unprepared America was saved from the degradation of her defenceless condition almost uniquely and solely by the mighty power of the British navy upon the high seas. Another most potent consideration with me just now is the vital need of airplanes to go over and behind that invulnerable line above described and to destroy not only railroad stations and munition plants but to destroy that more vital and destructive principle — the solid and unbroken security which the German has always maintained back of his apparently invincible battle line. In an interview with Mrs. Davidson, wife of the archbishop of Can- terbury, in Lambeth Palace two weeks ago, she informed me that the Archbishop's opposition to the use of aeroplanes was not extended to their use in bombing munition factories or any military agencies or in- ~21 a struments, but that he had pleaded for an absence of the spirit of re- taliation and reprisal, and had besought the British people not to stoop to the wilful desire for the blood of babes and women, blown into atoms by the explosions of bombs dropped from the clouds. Bishop Ryle, the dean of Westminster Abbey, declared he was convinced that a vast host of American aeroplanes would be needed to finish the war. Cannon James of Worcester, who preached that after- noon in the Abbey spoke most splendidly of the morale and the moral- ity of the British army, he having served as .chaplain to multitudes of those men from the beginning of the war. Let me here declare, as one of my deepest sentiments, my feeling of the imperative importance of a clear British-American understanding; of the recognition of Amer- ica that she has owed her life of late to the British naval power; and to the no less important recognition of Great Britain that she will owe her future life almost entirely to our long-deferred American inter- vention in this greatest war of the ages. Perhaps I should explain here just what opportunities for personal observation of the French, the British, and the American forces I have had. Briefly, one month's service near the French front; three months' service in mobilization camps of the American forces, the last month having been spent at a port of entry, where American trans- ports empty their burden of men and commodities, destined to be- come the means of Germany's defeat. One cannot visit the French front and fail to honor and respect the valor of France's soldiers. I have seen those men who have been in the trenches since 1914, unbroken in spirit, unf earful in nerve; con- fident and hopeful of victory, and of unconquerable determination to win. The book "Le Feu" of Henri Babursc, has not an exaggerated line upon their sufferings and hardships. But the determination of these men to win is not as fixed as at the beginning of the war, but a thousand-fold more fixed. When you ask a poilu on permission: "How long have you been in service?" He will say: "Nearly four years already; maybe four years still to come! How many men have the Americans got in France?" Then with a smile: "Are they in Paris or are they in the trenches ? We need several millions of them. We lost more than half of ours." The French like the Americans. Fraternity and equality belong to both of us. We'll fight for the liberty of the human race together, and God will win the victory as he did on the Marne, and as he did at Verdun. Do yon think, my friends, the Frenchman is irreligious or infidel. There was never a more serious error. I attended ten Paris churches; perhaps a score of churches all over France, and on a Sunday every church would be packed to the limit of its four walls. And soldiers and widows in weeds; young children and old men, would mingle in one vast concourse in praise to God for saving France from the Boche, and prayer to Him to drive the enemy back across the Rhine, — 22-* Oh, the generosity of that fine little Town Major, at Rimaucourt, who when I sought to leave a cold and uncomfortable room without a door upon the hinges and with a tiny ornamental stove which could not have heated a New York apartment room, aided me in a morning's effort, walking miles through deep snow to discover some other place where I might be billeted. His courtesy was unfailing; his kindly humor, characteristic of his Gallic race; he was a very prince of gen- teel good manners; he never stopped until I was comfortably located after three or four hours of his personal efforts, in a good room, with an excellent stove and with a plentiful supply of that rare commodity — the necessary fuel. I obtained from him three separate barracks, not one of them suited to our purposes for the Y. M. C. A., and finally an old cinema- hall, which became a most comfortable place for our men to come and find warmth, society and the canteen, and the religious service, and music, and the other activities of the association. But never anything but kindness and knightly service were elicited from my little Town Major at Rimaucourt, even though it must have taxed his patience to the limit to respond to my innumerable calls for assistance. At Langres the same shortage of fuel, the same difficulties in obtaining any fire for myself, for the highest officers of our army, and even more notably for the private American soldier. I walked to the caserne where I served the canteen, covering the two miles four times daily, through snow a foot and a half deep ; stood upon the base- ment floor in an inch of water, selling American tobacco, and choco- lates, and shoe polish, etc., over the counter. Sitting at the piano for four hours and shouting with a hundred other voices: 'Uncle Sammy, he's got the infantry." "We'll walk right in and win this war — and then come home again." "Way Down Upon the Sewanee River." "My Old Kentucky Home." "In the Cross of Christ I Glory." "My Country 'Tis of Thee." "America, I Love You." Or any of the inspiring melodies which brought tears sometimes to our eyes and tender emotions into our breasts that would cause the spon- taneous hug of one fellow for another, as he said: "Ah, Ole Kentuck — sing that once more for me, or can't you sing "Carry Me Back to Old Virginie?" These fellows were princes. God bless every one of them. The American private is greater than any king upon his throne. He has the heart of a hero; the soul of chivalry; the quick, alert mind of the Attic Greek and the unfailing humor of a Mark Twain. 23 — Y. M. C. A. DINNER SPEAKER Rev. Wythe Leigh Kinsolving, Young Men's Christian Association worker just returned from Franct.. who will be the principal speaker at the Y. M. C. A. members' dinner at the Central Building at 6:30 o'clock tonight, predicted yesterday that there would be no German offensive this spring. "German man power is a tremendous element just now," said the Southern minister. "Germany's man power is on the decrease; she is economizing. She has nothing to gain and everything to lose on an offensive in the west. Rather an Italian campaign is a possibility. "Germany, by intrigue, undermined the whole fabric of Russian and Italian morale. She prefers to face the chaotic Russian and the effete Italian than the indomitable poilu and the bulldog Englishman who will fight as long as there is blood in their bodies." M. C. A. WORKER RECENTLY RETURNED FROM FRANCE- GERMAN ENTRANCE INTO RUSSIA IS IMPORTANT FACTOR IN WAR NOW "The Western front is not the important factor in the war at present, however. That factor is the German entrance into Russia, opening the way to the Black Sea so that she has an open path for the transport of grain and other supplies from Eastern Russia. I can- not understand why President Wilson and the powers at Washington are unwilling to allow Japan to go in to guard the stores at Vladivo- stok but they are undoubtedly in close touch with the situation and have some reason for their hesitation. Should Germany try to force the Russians into her army to fight against the Allies it seems to me that Japan must be sent in to oppose them. German Failures and Gains "The war situation at present is this. The submarine campaign has been but 50 per cent efficient. The German navy has been bottled up since the beginning of the war save on one occasion when it came out and was badly beaten by the British. On land, the Germans have been out-fought and out-generaled by Joffre and Haig. They were held at the Marne, foiled and fooled at Verdun and defeated at Ypre and Cambrai. The Zeppelin campaign has been an absolute failure save as it has resulted in the killing of women and children, and the success of the German military aeroplane has been nothing. German credit is an inflated balloon, which would collapse at the first prick, and has only been kept afloat by the representation to the German public of campaigns of intrigue in Russia and Italy as military victories. "On the other hand, Germany has gained Belgium, Servia, Poland, Roumania and part of France and Russia and has established a con- siderable control over the Balkan States. To counterbalance this she has lost every colony she possessed. "She had 10,000,000 men at the beginning of the war and she can probably muster 7,000,000 today and she has gained possession of a large amount of food and other supplies by her entry into Russia, — 24 — "The German emperor said that he would make the name German more feared than that of Attila. If crucifying men and women, if killing of babes, if the destruction of 400 churches, if the razing of villages without leaving one house out of 1,500, if the inoculation of a nation with disease germs, as the Serbians were inoculated, if the stab- bing of ships in the morning twilight, if the bombing of hospitals, if the decorating of assassins, if the sinking of the Lusitania, if the plot- ting to bring Japan in against us through Mexico, if these are some of the German emperor's four-flushes, then Atilla would have been a poor poker player against him. "We don't need to sing a national hymn of hate in America and we don't need to compose any catalogue of reasons why we should fight Germany, for Germany herself has written down in blood the reasons why she must be crushed. Aside from our debt to Great Brit- ain and France for their protection of our coast from invasion during the past three years, there is every reason why we should stand with the Allies as a mighty unified force to repel the greatest aggregation of evil that has ever been brought together on this earth. "We shall win, as surely as there is a sun in the sky, as surely as there was a resurrection after Gethsemane and the cross and as surely as the God of men and angels reigns over men and affairs." Dr. Kinsolving, who is to be the speaker at the membership dinner at Y. M. C. A. tonight, has just returned from five months spent in Y. M. C. A. work at the front. At one time, while serving with a French division, he was for five hours under shell fire. Later he was in a town on the coast where he acted as interpreter for the French and the large number of negro workmen who were stationed there. He also acted as interpreter for the German prisoners. Of these, he says, the younger men are anxiuos for the war to stop at any price, but the older men are loyal to the Kaiser. The proportion is about 10 to one of the younger to older men among the prisoners taken and Dr. Kinsolving said that he had heard from eye-witnesses of German gun- ners found chained to their guns to keep them in the battle. Dr. Kinsolving was also at the training camps of the American forces and will tell tonight of the scenes in the camp and of the won- derful organization which is being built up to supply the American soldiers with food and other necessary material. —ROCHESTER TIMES-UNION, March 22, 1918. A NEW INTERNATIONALISM To the Editor of The Living Church: In the midst of such a great international paroxysm as that in which humanity finds itself, it is most interesting and profitable to study the past development of the human race and find in it a prom- ise of better things for the future. The world has seen three great efforts, or experiments, in Inter- nationalism. First, came Political Monarchism. The prophet Daniel appreciated the failure of these efforts. Second came Ecclestiastical Monarchism built on the plans of the political. Martin Luther and — 25 — others appreciated its defects. Third, after the fall of Ecclesiastical Monarchism, and on its ruins, was erected Socialism by Marx, follow- ing the earlier, cruder efforts of Owen, Fourrier, Proudhon, LaSalle, etc. Internationalism was now an economic and industrial organiza- tion. In Germany, allied with Social Democracy, so-called, it played unwittingly into the hands of old-fashioned Political Monarchism (which really, of course, belongs to Daniel's age, not ours!). Bakounin muddled things in the "International" programme by mingling anarchy with the Socialism of Marx. There is yet a fourth and higher effort which must be made in "Internationalism." The time is ripening for it daily. It is an effort at "Christian Catholicism." Now, no one can possibly confuse this with experiment number two, above, i. e., Ro- man Catholicism. That was monarchism and this shall be democracy. That was based on centralized power. This shall be based on local autonomy and federation. That belonged to the past. This has the zeit-geist of our century. Politics, aping ecclesiasticism and mere materialistic industrial- ism, will never unify human society. But "Christian Catholicism," as democratic as the early Christian Church which chose the "seven men of good report" and set them before the apostles; which spoke in the Council of Jerusalem: "It seemed good to the apostles and elders and the whole Church;" guided by successors of the apostles, but ex- pressing the voice of the "people of God" ("led by the Spirit of God," and therefore "the Sons of God") ; ought to be more successful in es- tablishing the Kingdom of the Prince of Peace on earth than any one of the three experiments in Internationalism already tried. Richmond, Va., May 29, 1917. GOD, THE INVISIBLE KING Editor The News Leader: If H. G. Wells were not widely read and more widely advertised it would be unwise to call any special attention to his "God, the Invis- ible King." The first third of the book is likely to do harm. It is full of glar- ing errors, owing to lack of knowledge both of history and of the New Testament teaching. This is not surprising when you consider that Mr. Wells is a reader of Atheism and speculation, which he quotes later at length, rather than of history and the New Testament. His pet aversion to the doctrine of the Trinity is owing primarily to his ignorance of its presence in not one questioned text of St. John, as says Mr. Wells, but throughout, for example, the fourteenth, fif- teenth and sixteenth chapters. As far back as Genesis i. the spirit of God cried in Psalm li.: "Take not Thy Holy Spirit from me." So when Mr. Wells speaks of a "Creator God" and the invention of a Holy Spirit as something pro- ceeding from Him," linking this "invention" (page 14) to the "sugges- tive influence of the Egyptian Trinity then worshipped at Serapeum," he is manifestly thousands of years in error as to the time of such an "invention." — 26 — When he complains of the "identification of the man Jesus with the theological Christ," if he means at the time of Nicea, he is 300 years off. Witness Colossians I and II, the Book of Acts, which Harnak calls the authenticated work of St. Luke, etc. Then, including the "elaborate doctrine of the Trinity" along with "teaching about the virginity of Mary and Joseph." Mr. Wells says: "It was left for a little red-haired, busy, wire-pulling Athanasius to find out exactly what their Master was driving at three centuries after their Master was dead?" Or perhaps to H. G. Wells twenty centuries after! But universal consent has nothing to do with what truth is! Carlyle is probably wiser than Wells. "Had Arianism triumphed Christianity would have perished from the earth," said the Scotch sage. Mr. Wells' worries about God not being "Providence" would not have arisen at all if he had carefully studied the temptation of our Lord to cast Himself from the temple pinnacle. We could go on and show dozens of glaring inaccuracies, brilliant confusions of thought, owing to sheer ignorance of the subject in hand. Yet we question if hundreds of readers will detect these marks. Will they not be rather attracted by the bold independence of attitude, the calm self-reliance of the writer? The very whisperings of a new religion which Mr. Wells claims to voice, which he says are to be noted in Islam, in Buddhism, etc., are they not the searchings of heart produced and caused by the arrival of the "reasonable, religious and holy hope" of Christianity ? May we not hope Mr. Wells may have the experience of R. J. Campbell and move onward to clear and definite faith? Richmond, Va., June 21, 1917. UNITED AFTER THE WAR Mr. Editor: More than once in the columns of the Church press has the undersigned advanced a new-old theory of the trend of events in the reorganization of society. But one feels strongly re-enforced in a position when he finds a great name like the late Bishop Wescott's (of Durham) standing for similar ideals and opinions. Bishop Boutflower's article in the "Constructive Quarterly" for June shows that Bishop Westcott believed in the abolition of the usual spirit of nationalism that is self-assertive, selfish and mean. This is what I advocated some months ago in my letter on "The Unities." Thus, on page 228 of the Christian Quarterly and on the following page, B. Wescott: "The Church is indeed finally the realization of the brotherhood of man, and it is the abiding pledge of that truth in the face of present separations and rivalries of nations." The whole article is illuminating. Now, in a recent letter, May 29th, I advocated Christian Cathol- icism as a fourth experiment in international unification. Political monarchy, then ecclesiastical monarchy (Roman), and, finally, economic determinism of pure Marxian socialism have failed in history. Let us strive for a new internationalism based upon the two — 27 — great unities: unity of all men and women in one holy relationship of children of God first; only secondarily members of nations. Only sec- ondarily also are they members of denominations. The one Holy Catholic or Universal Church of Christ is assuredly superior to mere denominations or fragmental portions of Christianity. I cannot see how after this struggle in Europe racial lines, dis- crimination between Orient- Indian, black-American, Japanese or white- American can longer exist. Nor can I see how Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic, Anglican, Baptist, Wesleyan or Presbyterian can any longer believe that the Christian hope of one is one whit better loved or more secure than that of the others. In the (not new religion, as Mr. H. G. Wells proposes, but) new or- ganization and reintegration of the old religion, shall we be so pain- fully powerless as men of God that we cannot obliterate our supremely silly and fanatically foolish fences and unite in Christ Jesus our Lord ? Shall we be so selfishly British or American, or French, that we cannot put humanity first and the nation second? The Rev. Fred W. Robertson, of Brighton, wrote in 1852 of his hope of an American and British alliance, these governments standing side by side in the "universal war" that he prophesied. Otherwise it would be all over, said he, with the cause of Liberty. We have the co-opera- tive effort now of these great giants. But they must stretch their ten- dons, quell the Teuton, strengthen Slavic democracy (the Slavs were anciently and primitively Democrats) and gather Gallic, Romanic and Celtic folk into the great garner of Christ's universal harvest crop. A true internationalism will be wrought out by this war that will make a melting-pot not of the United States of America, but of the world. A true Christianity will be evolved that will sweep out all the weak, timid rivalries of petty sects, or of narrow ecclesiasticism. A true humanity must be recognized which will exalt men and women more than any of social, national or racial groupings of individuals. Only by the acknowledgment of the two great unities, unity of all Christians in Christ, and unity of all nations in God's one family, will wars be made impossible, and man's inalienable rights established. Richmond, Va., June 30th, 1917. THE NEW INTERNATIONALISM To the Editor of The Living Church: If I understand him correctly, the Rev. O. W. Zeigler, writing of Internationalism from a legal point of view, agrees with my own senti- ments in large measure. "Sovereignty inheres in the ecumenicity of nations," he writes in your issue of June 23rd. His position seems to me to correspond with that of Professor Raleigh Minor of the University of Virginia Law School, son of that Dr. Minor who gave to this school its fame, a teacher whose opinions may have had in- fluence in shaping the thought of Mr. Woodrow Wilson, who was a law student in this University founded by Thomas Jefferson. The new Internationalism ought to transcend and supersede the world's present exaggerated and circumscribed nationalism. The theme of humanity that rings out in every utterance of Wilson can only be — 28 — appreciated by those who have s6nie sort of vision of a world-unity based on something better than the strife of nations and the survival of the militant. This Bismarckian, Bernhardian, Treitschkean concept is naught but revived Assryian, Babylonian, Chaldean, Macedonian, Roman imperialism. To return to my thesis of several weeks ago, the world has seen many times the political monarchism predominant; then ecclesiastical monarchism based on Roman political conceptions; then an attempt at industrial Internationalism which became entangled with the anarch- ism of Bakounin and failed. Now the time seems to be ripening for that larger pan-racial, pan-human federation, political, legal, social, and finally industrial, which will make a real world-unity. In thi3 cooperation of nations by means of the delegation of powers by each government to representatives elected to a world-convention, resem- bling the early conventions which drew up our "articles of confeder- ation" and framed the basic principles of our ultimate "Union," we may consummate a federalization of states (i. e., of existent govern- ments). This will resemble our Union of States, not the Bismarckian union of principalities and powers in Germany. Such I take it is Prof. Raleigh Minor's conception. Of course, to determine the extent of the powers of the separate states of our country and of the Federal Government centered at Washington, the Supreme Court's judicial decisions have been of greatest importance. We must therefore have an ecumenical court of all the nations of the world. Then, there must be armed force to com- pel obedience. Just at this time the armies of the Entente represent this force. It was the cogent logic of this necessity that drew us into this conflict to make the world safe for democracy. But limitation of national armaments, and a final elimination of strife and bloodshed, ought to result from a victory of Germany's opponents. President Wilson's masterful messages have clarified the issue and made it evident to mankind that we are fighting in behalf of hu- manity — for real democracy. It is a majestie, a magnificent idea! It is the heroic sacrifice of all things in behalf of all men. It is the| one just reason for such stupendous wastage of all that such a war consumes. By the successful prosecution of such a war, the great ideal of united democracies may be, must be, achieved. We may regard Great Britain as progressively more and more democratic, ruled by Lloyd George's cabinet and the House of Com- mons. A far larger participation of her colonies, Canada, Australia, African possessions, India, New Zealand, and the rest, in the control of her great imperial affairs must (think the Viscount Bryce and oth- er great leaders of opinion) result from these colonies' splendid shar- ing in her sacrifices at this time. Success to Greece, to Spain, yes, to Germany, in democratic ideals and efforts! After this war we, or others, must live in the same small world with them all. May we not hope to live in confederated unity, and human fraternity ? Or are we expecting to continue armed campg calling themselves nations ? Richmond, Va., June 25, 1917. SOME NOTES ON RUSSIA (Wythe Leigh Kinsolving) What a vast and elephantine space is comprised in that part of the world map with the big letters R-U-S-S-I-A imprinted over its huge outline! Nearly one-sixth of the landed surface of our globe! Uncle Sam regards it now as big in bulk and big in potentialities. Yet when three Scandinavian brothers of ancient days were invited to come over and rule some of the scattered inhabitants of the steppes, the black lands, and the wooded regions that comprise much of European Russia there was no territory called by that name. But this was long ago, in round numbers about a thousand years. Rurik Sineous and Trouvor were the names of these well-nigh prehistoric brothers who benevolently assimilated the tribes that dwelt in this area. Rurik had the preeminence, and at his death Oleg, a fourth brother of this Norse family succeeded to the rulership. After him, Igar, son of Rurick, and then Olega, widow of Igor, ruled: after her Sviatoslaf, her son, who warred extensively against the Greek power centered at Byzan- tium. VLADIMIR, son of Sviatoslaf succeeded to the throne. He was a sensual debauchee for his time, rivalling Henry the Eighth, having 3,500 wives and concubines. VLADIMAR, looking for a religion for his people, disdained Islam because it forbade wine; eschewed Judiasm probably for its rigor; and scorned Roman Catholicism, doubtless for lack of splendor in ritual and pomp; and finally chose Greek Christian- ity which centered in Constantinople. Baptized himself by Greek Hierarchs, he went to his subjects, drove them in herds into the Dnie- per and had Greek Priests read the Baptismal Service over them wholesale. Such was the introduction of Greek Christianity into these realms. Perun, the pagan divinity of the natives, a huge idol, was cast into the waters, and the people commanded to abstain from fur- ther worship of their pristine divinities. VLADIMIR died in 1015, that is 902 years ago, and Russia has been nominally a Christian land ever since. John R. Mott (one of Wilson's Commissioners to Russia with Root) said in one of his public lectures in Richmond College several months ago that Russia is one of the most religious countries in the world. Mott is an authority that Protestants of the most virile variety may trust. I might have cited the Bishop of London, whose visit in 1907 to Richmond many Virginians will recall, but his testimony would not appeal as distinctly to the ultra-protestant, as John R. Mott, the world secretary of the Y. M. C. A. movement. The religion of the Greek bodies, oriental Catholics, emphatically and historically apposed to Roman Catholicism, is numerically the strongest aggregate of Christians in the world except the PAPAL CHURCH of ROME. The third is the Anglican branches of Catholicism (including the Protest- ant Episcopal Church in the U. S. A.) which comprehend at least a part of the Christianity of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales; Can- ada, New Zealand, Australasia, and South Africa, besides missions throughout the world. This aggregate in its formularies is avowedly also Catholic, just as the Greek Church is, but each is definitely, pos- — 30 — itively and thoroughly opposed to Papal or Roman principles of gov- ernment and policies. I have written this to throw emphasis upon the religion of the Russians, because I believe their religion will have much to do with forming a spirit of democratic national unity, in spite of the German intrigues, and in spite of gross and vast ignorance of the peasant pop- ulation, of which twenty-two and a half millions were freed from serfdom as late as 1861. As yet I have said nothing of the different varieties of races and peoples that go to make up the heterogeneous population of the new democracy of "The bear that walks like a man." Finns, Lapps, Poles and Lithuanians, besides Tatars who came with the conqueror Ghengis Khan and Turks and Jews and some Buddhist who live in the country with separate and distinct religions and customs, have all mingled in some degree with the Slav element which is that to which we refer primarily when we speak of Russians. The Russians are territorially divided in WHITE Russians, LITTLE Russians, and GREAT Russians. The Slavic character is predominant in each of these three branches. One of the most notable traits of the Slav is his love of local cen- ters of SELF-GOVERNMENT. The village MIR is an institution as old as the race and its most normal and regular manifestation of racial character. Originally and primarily the family was the social unit, and the father the patriarch. The MIR was a sort of generic assembly for self-government in the village-communities which ex- isted before the NORSE or Varangian rulers alluded to in the opening paragraph came to govern. The ecclestiastical innovation that came in with the Baptism of Vladimir, the later influx of Tatar domination and autocracy that came with Ghengis Khan, the counter-autocracy that developed in opposition to Tatar rule, and the subsequent mon- archal history of Russia, none of them wiped out or obliterated the ancient, traditional, and inherent love of local autonomy which has always been the most salient and conspicuous mark of Slavic nature and custom. This is eminently important to observe if we would reckon with the forces that must enter into the moulding of the New Republic which liberty-loving citizens of the United States long to see upbuilt out of the chaos and seeming anarchy and ignorance which press re- ports from the Russian centers most frequently reveal to the popular mind in America. The Mirs and the ZEMPTSVOS, or district assem- blies, drawn from a group of MIRS, were instrumental in providing some equipment for the Russian armies a year or two ago when Ger- man intrigue had undermined loyalty and patriotism in St. Petersburg, and the autocracy was sending soldiers into battle with terribly im- perfect arms, munitions and rations. Secretly and unobtrusively, the democratic, local, community-organizations, federated together and working in united effort, provided necessities for soldiers otherwise shamelessly and perfidiously neglected by the rotten corruption at the heart of the Russian Court. — 31 — A word ought to be said about Nihilism Anarchy, and social un- rest in Russia. It is an old saying that a girl in a convent is liable to be unduly bent on liberty once released from restraint. So have the thinking minds of Russia, fettered and chained with a false discipline, a bugbear of centralized power, which came into the country with the Tatars revolted against this overwhelming tyranny and gain, and become surcharged with the violence of desperation. Annihilation of government and existing institutions: overthrow and ruin of the mis- erable perversion of power; were the key-notes of the anarchy of BAKOUNIN and his school. Yet, when we think of Russia we mus.t not limit our thought either to the ignorant peasantry, nor the violent and uncontrollable anarchist. We must not forget the superb ethical and spiritual veracity of Tolstoi. Nor ignore the music of Tchaiskovski; nor the historians, ar- tists, poets, and scientists that have been produced in Russia of late years. Again if we would minimize the worth of these people on ac- count of the diversity of races intermingled in Russia, let us behold Austria and its variety quite as remarkable. Among the various sorts of peril with which we are frequently threatened, the Yellow Peril, etc., the Pan-Slav peril was vividly urged on our attention by the Ger- mans at the beginning of the war. Perhaps a Pan-Teuton Bete Noir causes us more concern just now. One of the best bulwarks against German aggression, or to speak more correctly, against Prussian aggrandizement, against Prussian despotic extension of power in Europe; and Prussian illimitable ambi- tion; is the vast bulk of Russian immobility and stolidity. Where 175 millions are concerned, Germany may drive back a half million or so, but the cry is "Still they come!" It is not improbable that the vast bulk of Russia will yet be a safeguard to our American armies which we shall stnd to the Western Front in France. How? By looming up incessantly as a black sombre Slavic cloud in the East, frowning and ready to burst on Eastern German frontiers, notwithstanding the tem- porary checking of the recently reorganized Russian troops. The Russian problem is just as much Germany's as it is ours. The menace of "the Bear" is still with the Teuton. Russia ruined Napo- leon's ambitions — simply by retreating. She may yet ruin Germany's hopes by some unforeseen and sudden development not provided by the secret counsels of KAISER WILHEM. WILL MAN ABOLISH WAR? Wythe Leigh Kinsolving. The recent article in the North American Review by Harold Beg- bie, entitled "Can Man Abolish War?" is illuminating, but not final in its outlook. He seems to set the principle of arbitration over against that of a league of nations, (a Wilson plan, as he takes it); and while admit- ting the effectiveness of such a league, provided it were accompanied with the good will of the nations, he states that without good will such a league would be disastrous. Unless the league could hold down Ger- many, Austria, Turkey, and Bulgaria for an indefinite period there — 32 — would be no use organizing it. Perhaps it is the driving logic of this truism that dragged Uncle Sam into a "league" to "make the world safe for democracy." May I quote here an article I published on June 30th, before I ever saw Mr. Begbie's interesting discussion? Political monarchy, then ecclesiastical monarchy (Roman), and finally, economic deter- minism, or pure Marxian Socialism, have all failed in history. Let us strive for a new internationalism based upon the two great unities; unity of all men in one holy relationship of children of God first; only secondarily members of nations." * * * "Shall we be so selfishly British or American or French, that we cannot put humanity first, and the nation second?" "A true internationalism will be wrought out by this war that will make a melting pot not of the United States of America, but of the world. A true Christianity will be evolved that will sweep out all the weak, timid rivalries of petty sects, or of narrow ecclesiasticism. A true humanity must be recognized which will exalt men and women more than any social, national or racial grouping of individuals. Only by the acknowledgment of the two great unities, unity of all Chris- tians in Christ, and unity of all nations in God's one family, will wars be made impossible and man's inalienable rights be established." "In the (not new religion, as Mr. H. G. Wells proposes, but) new organization and reintegration of the old religion, shall we be so pain- fully powerless as men of God that we cannot obliterate our supremely silly and fanatically foolish fences, and unite in Christ Jesus our Lord?" "Bishop Boutflower's article in the Constructive Quarterly for June shows that Bishop Westcott, of Durham, believed in the abolition of the usual spirit of nationalism that is self-assertive, selfish and mean. e. g., Bishop Westcott wrote: "The Church is indeed finally the realization of the brotherhood of man, and it is the abiding pledge of that truth in the face of present separations and rivalries of na- tions." * * * In another published article I wrote June 25th: "The new internationalism ought to transcend and supersede the world's present exaggerated and circumscribed nationalism. The theme of humanity that rings out in every one of President Wilson's utterances can only be appreciated by those who have some sort of vision of a world unity based on something better than strife of na- tions and the survival of the militant. The Bismarckian, Bernhardian, Treitschean concept is naught but revived Assyrian, Babylonian, Chal- dean, Macedonian or Roman imperialism." The world has seen many times political monarchism predominant; then Roman ecclesiastical monarchism, based on Roman political con- ceptions; then an attempt at industrial internationalism, which be- came entangled with the anarchism of Bakounin. and failed. Now the time seems to be ripening for that larger, pan-national, pan-racial, pan-human federation, political, legal, social and finally industrial, which will make a real world unity. We may consummate a federation of states by delegation of powers to delegates representing the everal ~ 33 — governments of the world. Just as the Supreme Court's decisions have been of tremendous importance in determining the powers of our sev- eral states and the powers of the national central government, so a Supreme Court of the nations would adjudicate many questions in re- gard to the rights of the several nations represented. There must log- ically be an armed force to compel obedience. But this force should likewise be representative, even as Virginia, Maryland and ISew York and California are all represented in the army which is organized to stand for our nation and justice, as we, as a nation, not as distinct states, now see it. Limitations of national armaments, and a final elimination of strife and bloodshed, ought to result from a victory of Germany's opponents. We may regard Great Britain as progressive- ly more and more democratic, ruled now, as she is, by Lloyd George's cabinet and the House of Commons. A far larger participation of her colonies, Canada, Australia, Afri- ca, India, New Zealand and the rest, in the control of her great imper- ial affairs, must result from the colonies' splendid sharing of her sac- rifice at this time. So think Viscount Bryce and other great leaders of British opinion. To take up one of Mr. Begbie's cases of difficulty, which he pre- sents as examples of many more of like character: "Suppose India appealed to the court for self-government," he says. Well, if India can govern herself, would Great Britain put national selfiishness in the way of Indian autonomy, and would the British liberty-lovers that have wrung freedom from tyrants, papal, royal, aristocratic, or what not, stand in the way of India's self-rule, provided the question were sifted and justly adjudicated ? If good-will is the basal need before any plan of international con- federation can be attempted, then the best way to go about attaining good will, is to be overwhelmingly optimistic and be quit of our pes- simistic qualms. The closeness and proximity of islands and continents, brought into a world-neighborhood by means of transportation and communica- tion, render the world a small place today. The vastness of the en- gines of destruction, which, Hall Caine states, have slain ten millions of men in three years, render war not only barbaric, but super-human- ly atrocious, and ineffably mad. The hideousness of the thing, the foulness of its wholesale slaughter, make all former struggles seem as children's pugilism. If the fit were surviving, and the insane, the feeble and infirm, the effete, the outworn were sacrificed, then it would be lamentable, but bearable. As it is, when the flower of chivalry, the princely in courage, the aristocracy of endeavor and virility, are offered up to the Moloch of martial hatred and variance, surely Mr. Wilson, or any oth- er man who dreams of any sort of effort to prevent the repetition of such monstrous inhumanity ought to have the aid, the sympathy, the heart-felt prayers, the enthusiastic backing of all good men and women. Militarism has now only to exterminate militarism forever on God's earth. — 34 — ONE POSSIBLE PURPOSE OF THE WAR Mr. Editor: The evolutionary principles set forth by certain phil- osophy have always appealed to me as more or less clever and descrip- tive even if they were totolly inadequate to explain first causes. Development from the simple to the complex with variety in forms in the place of uniformity is certainly a law of the natural world, it matters not (for our argument) what have been the reasons for such variety. Now any book on sociology will probably indicate to us the various group relations of the human race, and the process of growing unities on the one hand and growing diversities on the other. Nations have grown up and some great national principles have unified them, such as the British Empire, the United States, Russia, or Germany. Yet the principle of local autonomy has developed side by side with this other movement. Unity in diversity has become manifested in these two contemporaneous movements. Now in religion modern diversity has manifested itself in most extravagant latitude. Yet the process of consolidation has not failed to apply in this field also. Not only has Rome and the Greek Church tended to consolidate each its own adherents. The Anglican Commun- ion has with remarkable success maintained and developed co-ordina- tion and relation among its branches. Great efforts like the Men and Religion Movement, the Laymen's Missionary Movement, the older Y. M. C. A., the Federation of the Council of Churches and other such organizations reveal the will of Protestantism to unify its widely diversified elements if possible and consolidate its parts effectively. In the political and governmental field the most vigorous minds of all the continents are desiring international unity, a new organization that shall embrace all the nations, and shall cement together the peo- ples of this globe in a new order of common humanity that transcends all lower systems of organization. Now the war itself is a great weld- ing agent. Religion is being cemented together, its forms are being welded, its barriers and fences are being obliterated. The real, the vital and the permanent things are standing. The needless, the in- significant, the merely sectarian, trivial or selfish are all falling away. Likewise in a war of a score of great nations, every nation is duly recognized, each has its mode of praise and unity of command. So a reasonable sort of international unity will certainly come out of this war. Perhaps that is God's purpose. Yet one may well be modest in saying what is the divine purpose or purposes. In England's history the Church was unified first and then the hep- tarchy became consolidated into a united nation. In the United States the remarkable Federal unity of states has become perfected long ahead of religion. Although Rev. Dr. Newman Smyth's plan for a body of chaplains authorized by Bishops and sent to minister to Christians in general, or people in general, in the army, has not been worked out in actual fact, yet it is one of the many manifestations of the desire for a united front on the part of American Protestantism. — 85 — Meantime the very Spirit of God seems to be increasing reciprocal respect between this and that body of Christians; widening and deep- ening the views of the man in the street in regard to his Christian brethren of all names, and making the flowers of our common Chris- tianity spring into blossom in magnificent and munificent labor and gifts and prayers for God's blessing upon the whole race of men. Thus it is that Unity of Religion and Unity in great international harmony and peace are making progress even while great guns belch fire, noxious gas suffocate, and shells mutilate, and machine guns extermi- nate. So doth the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ make the knowledge of His love to cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. Chattanooga, Tennessee. BISHOP GORE'S ARTICLE ON LEAGUE OF NATIONS Editor The News: I am sending you the enclosed article of the Southern Churchman, Richmond, Va., Aug. 10, because this particular article was prompted by an editorial I read in The News quoting at length the paper of Bish- op Gore, of Oxford. Having read a number of Bishop Gore's books, I am of the same opinion as that expressed by the author of the editorial in question, stating that Bishop Gore is in influence probably second to no other scholar in his country. The present letter sent to the Southern Churchman is one of a se- ries I have written on the subject of these two great unities: The Unity of the Christians and the Unity of the Nations. The Living Church has published several and the Southern Churchman others be- fore this. I have not advanced in these letters exact modes or steps by which the Christian people of the world are to be brought into that unity for which Jesus Christ prayed in the 17th chapter of St. John. Neither have I dogmatized in regard to the political principles by which the nations are to be harmonized and united into a United States of the world. I have simply shown that the trend of great minds has been working toward these two ends of late. I have merely pointed out the fact that the philosophy makes these two ends the normal and nat- ural goal toward which society ought to strive. Believing that human wills working together with God, effect his- tory, and bring about events, I am convinced that agitation and discus- sion of such truly great and inspiring aims rivets men's attention on them, and tends to help to bring them about. Lookout Mountain, Aug. 10, 1918. The article follows: The Unity of the Race and the Unity of the Church Mr. Editor: The Southern Churchman has printed several letters and articles from the undersigned advocating the two great unities which must be the ideal of the human race if we would escape from the toils of our present encompassing evils. — 36 — I quoted at length from Bishop Boutflower's article setting forth Bishop Westcott's views as to the senseless vaunting of that sort of nationalism which is selfish, materialistic and mean. While in London recently I heard in St. Paul's cathedral a sermon from Canon Knox Alexander sharply and clearly accepting Woodrow Wilson's ideal of a league of nations, an international tribunal and disarmament, as the only conceivable ideal for the nations to fight for in the present strug- gle. The two unities which I have been advocating in the above men- tioned letter are the unity of the Christians in one Holy Catholic and apostolic fellowship: and the unity of the nations in one ecumenical and catholic (using these words in their original Greek sense) federa- tion. I am prompted to write just now by reading Bishop Gore's won- derfully vigorous plea for these same unities. A secular paper speaks of Bishop Gore, of Oxford, one "whose influence is probably second to no other scholar in his country." We simply cannot face the future without some fundamental re- pentance or change of mind in the nations — corporate repentance on the widest scale. We cannot face the prospect of peace, patched up with what ever balance of success on one side or the other at the end of this war, which shall leave every nation to expend its resources again in piling up gigantic armaments and entering into rival alliances, ready as soon as an interval of time has supplied a measure of recov- ered strength, to break out again in renewed war. "Upon what then can we rely for hope and resolution ? The first is the despair of the future which fills the minds of the people of all kinds when they contemplate the tendencies of national rivalry as they existed before the war and led to its outbreak, unless they can be pro- foundly modified or effectively restrained." He then advocates as a remedy a league of nations. Now in every city a small police force preserves the peace. Were the people not in full sympathy with this small force's authority, the gigantic titan power of a mob would rise like a French revolution and crush it at any time it wanted. But the consent of the governed gives power to the small group of police. In a league of nations a world police force could be appointed. Again the consent of the governed would give authority and effective power to the really intrinsically weak group of ships, guns, men and other agencies which might patrol and police this little globe as effec- tively as a modern city is protected. In God's name what nation other than Germany wants to fight any more ? Are not tens of millions adequate to satisfy the insatiate man of war? Of course H. G. Wells is blankly, baldly wrong when he talks about a finite God, and indicates that God could not prevent war if He would. To know more than the omniscient God knows about His own plans is some human wisdom indeed. But we mortals can organize our efforts to prevent if God wills, millions of deaths, millions of beds of pain, millions of agonizing widows, orphans and grieving parents. -37- To accept it all as fatalism, inevitable and necessary evil, this is a supine attitude indeed for nations to take who perform the stupendous tasks that England and our land have performed, the one in four years, the other in one year and a fraction. When men like Bryce, Balfour, Wilson, Baker, Taft, Clemenceau, and others of this calibre put their heads together, we may hope to see real effective plans formed to prevent the recurrence of international bloodshed, and to launch in its stead an era of international peace and harmony. The Christian sentiment of all God's people must be strong- ly marshaled to this end. Unity in faith and love, co-operation in prayer and earnest zeal in working together to this great common purpose will weld our Christian forces in every nation, and make us move forward toward that unity for which Jesus our common Lord prayed so fervently and with abso- lute assurance of His prayer's fulfillment. Chattanooga, Tennessee. REV. WYTHE KINSOLVING KNOWS JOHN POWELL WELL The Rev. Wythe Leigh Kinsolving, acting rector of St. Paul's church has known John Powell, the great American pianist, from childhood. Yesterday he wrote the following interesting sketch of the musician: "John Powell plays here Tuesday evening. Music-lovers have asked me to tell some things I know about John Powell. I knew him when he was a babe, and he played the piano sitting by his beautiful sisters, all of whom played splendidly, and reproducing Chopin's mel- odies, from the valses or nocturnes, even when he was not acquainted with a note of written music. His father was one of the handsomest men I have ever seen. His was a large and famous school for girls in Richmond, Va. His mother was a Miss Leigh, of my native county, Halifax, Virginia. At the University of Virginia, John took his B. A. in two years. It was said he never seemed to look at a book. It is considered three or four years' work to take a B. A. of the University of Virginia. He played Christ Church organ in Charlottesville while I sang there as a college boy in the choir. His mastery of the organ was remarkable, since the piano is his instrument. He went to Ger- many, later he graduated and spent most of the next ten years in Eu- rope studying and of late giving concerts in the great European capi- tals. "When John comes back to Halifax there is always great interest He is a remarkable genius and has a few of the eccentricities, but they are not disagreeable ones. "His sonata 'Teutonica,' played at the beginning of the world war, indicated the strange German spirit, almost the arrogant boast of the Hun, but John stopped playing this work, I presume, when Uncle Sam got wide-awake and rolled up his sleeves. "I heard John Powell in Aeolian hall, New York, play Schumann in a marvelous manner, the audience, some of New York's greatest musicians, encored him back to the stage eight or ten times; finally, — 38 — when it was all done; they went to the withdrawing room, brought him back again to the piano, and almost compelled him to play a part of the program over. And he really did acquiesce. I had seen him in his private withdrawing room practicing just before this triumph. He greeted me with warm and kind affection, and after the performance gave my mother a hearty embrace and a kiss. I love John Powell, I loved his father, and I commend him as one of the greatest pianists in the world. He spent a week or two with Paderewski some time ago, and the great Pole did not fail to value his friendship nor his genius. May these little sidelights but add to his success in reaching the hearts of Chattanoogans." TRIBUTE TO COL. LAURSON Beautiful Memorial Service at St. Paul's Church Mr. Kinsolving, in an eloquent eulogy, paid tribute to Col. Laur- son, who, he said, had all three of the virtues of the soldier, faith, courage and loyalty. He declared that America was not fighting for glory or honor, but that the weak might be protected and the down- trodden uplifted. "America was called into the strife by the will of Jesus Christ," is the way the minister phrased his declaration that this is a holy war for righteousness. "Brute force must yield to God- like righteousness" was his word picture of the outcome of the great struggle. He said that the service was one to hallow and to honor the mem- ory of the first high officer to go out from the parish and to give his life for his country and his God. At the conclusion of his eulogy the bugler sounded "taps" and the benediction was said. OBITUARY Rev. W. L. Kinsolving said the the life of Lewis Coleman was an exemplification of three great virtues — honor, generosity and chivalry. He explained that since the earliest history of the south, her sons have been taught to esteem and exemplify these virtues. "He came into the world a scion of famous stock descended from Revolutionary heroes and from Virginia educators," stated the speaker. "He was reared in an atmosphere of gentility and of purity. It is little wonder then that he was honest to the core. His word was as good as his oath. He knew naught of scraps of paper. When Louis Coleman said a thing, men knew his promises would be performed; he spoke the truth al- ways. "His generosity was extended to all with whom he came in daily contact. It was a part of his great being. "Again, he was a true and noble representative of the sunny southland in his exemplification of chivalry, in his tender regard and appreciation of all those beautiful traits which go to make up lovely womanhood. These were a few of his virtues. Of others there are — 39 — many. They shall cause us to remember him long after his body has been molded into clay by Mother Earth, and when the last great day conies we believe the Maker of all things will greet him with words, 'Well done thou good and faithful servant; welcome into the kingdom. Thou hast been faithful in a few things, I will make thee ruler over many.' " THE LATE JOHN HOWE PEYTON With something akin to a sharp pang I read of the death of John Howe Peyton, the President of the Nashville and Chattanooga Rail- road, until it was taken over by the Government. A scion of one of the finest old Virginia families, he had com- menced life r.s a boy without means, been educated at Roanoke Col- lege, forged his way by sheer character and perseverance to the pin- nacle of a prominent career as a civil engineer and a railroad organizer and builder. But his energies were not limited to his business and pro- fessional success. He was on nearly every prominent committee of church work in this Diocese of Tennessee, a leader of Christ Church Bible Class, a prominent spokesman among Christian men, a splendid example of regular and vigorous lay activity in the Church. Moreover in agriculture, in the importation and establishment of a Belgian colo- ny near Tullahoma, and in every sort of benevolent enterprise, Mr. Peyton was the type and model of a fine, unselfish Christian gentleman. I cannot fail to offer this poor verbal tribute to one whom I knew and honored and loved as I did Mr. Peyton. Chattanooga, Tenn., Sept. 18, 1918. VICTORY OF NATION SOLEMNLY CELEBRATED Impressive Service at St. Paul's Church. Rev. Wythe Leigh Kinsolving Preaches Great Sermon. World Crisis. Victory of the nation was celebrated at St. Paul's church yester- day with a solemn and interesting service. The services consisted of a celebration of the holy communion, with thanksgiving for victory and prayers for the reconstruction and upbuilding of damaged and ruined European countries was offered to God by the minister in charge of St. Paul's church, Rev. Wythe L. Kinsolving. This service will be repeated at 10 o'clock Thursday morning. Rev. Kinsolving, rector, preached an instructive sermon at the Sunday morning hour, taking as his text II Corinthians, iv:3-4 . He spoke in part as follows: " 'But if our Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost, in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believed not, lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, Who is the image of God should shine unto them.' "St. Paul is writing to the people at Corinth, that great and beau- tiful city known as the 'eye of Greece.' "Now it seems that in the world today we have come to a great crisis in human affairs. — 40 — "Now where the spirit of Jesus Christ is there is liberty, wrote the apostle. The downfall of monarchies, the rise of republics, the over- throw of tyrants and the liberation of human wills came on earth with the birth of Jesus Christ. Yet for two thousand years the titans have struggled to retain their tenacious grip upon the peoples of the earth. But now the peoples of the earth are being made free to become the sons of God. Now the nations are obtaining their right to rule them- selves. Now the people of each nation is acquiring their right to rule their own country for themselves. It is marvelous. It is almost mir- aculous. It is amazing. It is clearly the power of the spirit of the living God descended from heaven and guiding the destinies of men upon this earth. "But yet there may be some people who cannot even yet see all this. There may be some men and women who are fools enough, blind enough, callous enough, ignorant enough, thick-skulled and ob- tuse enough, even now to fail to observe the infinite mercy of God in Jesus Christ in thus saving the world from autocracy, tyranny, des- potism, monarchical selfishness and meanness. "But, as St. Paul says, 'But if our Gospel is hid, it is hid to them that are lost; in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not, lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, Who is the image of God, should shine unto them.' "What is our duty as an alleged Christian nation at this time? Shall we stay in our comfortable homes on the Lord's day, Sunday, and fail to enter in God's courts with thanksgiving and into His gates with praise? Shall we neglect the gift that is in us by the laying on of apostolic hands ? Or shall we remember that St. Paul said to St. Tim- othy, 'Neglect not the gift that is in thee by the laying on of my hands?' "Shall we eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, or shall we forget that Jesus said: 'Whosoever eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath the eternal life?' " THE OBSERVANCE OF BRITAIN DAY Why our Nation Should Have Strong Feeling of Friendship and Gratitude for Great Britain. Britain Day, December 7th, was observed in many cities and towns of the United States in response to the suggestion, as a rule, of clergy- men of the Church, and in most instances the exercises or services were held in Parish churches or Parish houses. The day was more generally observed than in former years and has resulted in a better understand- ing on the part of Americans of our kinship and similarity to British thought and culture and traditions, and sentiments and tendencies. Prior to the observance of the day at Chattanooga, Tenn., in St. Paul's Church, the Rev. Wythe Leigh Kinsolving, acting rector, by special re- quest, contributed the following paper to the Daily Times of his city, setting forth the reasons for observing Britain's Day: — 41 — The committee who are arranging to celebrate December 7th, Britain Day, have requested me to say something in regard to the rea- son for our country observing such a day. What day in our history this is I do not know, but certain New York organizations have requested cities and towns in the United States to unite on this day in the com- mon observance of Britain Day. My function is to. state briefly why our country ought to honor the work of Great Britain in the war just ended, and why our nation should have strong feelings of friendship and gratitude for Great Britain. We are Primarily Scions of the Stock of Great Britain. In the first place, because we speak the English language, indi- cating thereby that we are primarily scions of the stock of Great Britain. Whatever other blood we have infused in this nation came later. The cavaliers and English Churchmen came first to Virginia; the Pilgrim Fathers and Puritans came second to New England. Vir- ginia was named for the Virgin Queen Elizabeth. New England was named for Old England in loyal love and regard for her institutions. But this question of language is the index of other things. With the English language, we have the English ideas. The home, the family life, the love of the Bible, the clean moral sense of our men in regard to their wives; the loyal regard of women for their marriage vows; the sanctity of home and marriage in fact; these are derived along with our language from our English ancestors, or, if you please, Scotch, or Scotch-Irish. Then there is our regard for the Lord's Day. The Eng- lish Sunday has for centuries been different from the continental Sun- day. One has only to leave Virginia or Tennessee, and go to St. Louis, to feel the tremendous difference between the Sunday of one section and that of the other. Where the old English or Scotch Presbyterian, or Scotch-Irish Episcopalian sentiments prevail — where the Roger Wil- liams Baptists, or the Jonathan Edwards Congregationalists, or the Coke and Ashbury and Dwight L. Moody Methodist types prevail — to say nothing of other such influences — we have quiet orderly Sundays. In St. Louis and such German-impregnated cities, where continental ideas have been introduced, you will find dance halls open and Sunday churches empty; Sunday transformed into a holiday and no longer a holy day, set apart for worship and reverent abstinence from up- roariouc sorts of pleasure. We Did Not Cut With Great Britain For Good in 1776. Another question, however, comes to my mind in connection with our observance of Britain day. Did we not cut with Britain in 1776 for good ? I answei : No. We cut with Autocracy. A German king ruled England. Burke's speech on "Conciliation With America" is a magnifi- cent classic that pleads for justice to the colonies. Pitt, Lord Chatham was scarcely less just to America. The pig-headed characteristic stub- bornness of the mind, however, prevailed. The stamp act was enacted. The Boston tea party occurred. Patrick Henry spoke. George Wash- ington, Braddock's former subordinate officer, now became the colo- nists' protagonist for liberty. Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. Later Madison, Monroe, Adams, Richard Henry Lee ■ — observe the names of all pure British names — proceeded to construct — 42 — the fabric of a new government that drew its finest and best princi- ples from the Magna Charta, and other sources of British law. Where did these English-speaking and English-thinking men get their ideas of liberty, of law, of fine balance, of equity, of sober justice, of clean fair-mindedness ? Where but from their mother, Old England herself ? The Mighty Daughter Has Grown Into Womanhood. But we must jump from the beginning of the last century to the beginning of this century, from 1814 to 1914. In 100 ordinary years events tremendously extraordinary have happened (if anything does really happen.) The mighty daughter of a mightier mother has grown into womanhood. Columbia rises to imperial strength and obli- gation. A world war originates from the covetous malice of the Hoh- enzollerns, combined with the fool's paradise — dreams of world con- quest of Prussian war lords. Great Britain, with her usual sense of justice, condemns the vio- lation of Belgian neutrality. Germany with ten million soldiers ready to fight, first hypocritically avows her fears of a panslavic invasion, all the while looking forward to a Russian debacle by reason of her un- remitting agencies, economic, industrial and political at work in Rus- sia to destroy that elephantine but flabby monarch. The first British 100,000 are rushed to meet and help to block the oncoming hordes of Hunnish ferocity in France. They are almost exterminated. This is the mark of what follows. One million and more of Britain's subjects fall in battle. Her wounded, killed and unaccounted for amount to nearly four millions. German intrigue undermir.^ Italy. A year ago, when I arrived in France, Italy had undergone crushing defeat. With Russia and Italy so weakened, Great Britain and France were undoubtedly in dan- ger of a German conquest. Without the intervention of American arms Germany would have dominated the world. But it was not so to be. Pro-German pacifism in Wisconsin, Missouri and other German impregnated sections of the country was defeated by the sober, right- eous and godly judgment of the English-speaking and English-think- ing element of our nation * * * While the pro-German element whip ped up jealousy of Great Britain, the sane and steady mind of America chose British sea power, with all the worst it might ever have done, rather than German military rule with its unspeakable train of blood and cruelty of lust, of tortures of fiendish wickedness and godless bar- barity. And Now the Die is Cast. And now the die is cast. We are united, in sentiment and in lan- guage, in fixed ideas of liberty and representative government, in re- gard for the individual, and respect for local autonomy, with British ideals and British postulates. The greatest fighting power on earth right now is the British fleet. The most rapidly growing commercial power on earth is the American merchant marine. The center of the world's finance today is New York. The second center is London. Britain is powerful on the sea. We are powerful in wealth and finan- cial control. By means of our wealth we could vie with Great Britain — 43 — . in attempting to outgrow her fleet. Or we can combine with Great Britain and together use the combined power of money and naval strength to police the world in righteousness, and direct human affairs in justice. By the league of nations we shall extend to other powers priv- ileges and opportunities. Thus national jealousies and animosities shall be prevented. "Noblesse oblige." Power entails responsibility. United we stand, divided we fall. Great Britain and her daughter, the United States, strong, courteous, Christian, shall note with magnificent recognition the sacrifices of Belgium, the unspeakable outpouring of French blood, the loss of more than a million French lives; yes, and the terrible sufferings of disintegrated Russia, the rebudding of Polish national ambitions, and all the other nations' hopes for a place in the sun believing as we do that God makes His sun to shine on the evil, as well as on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. Thus having taken out the fangs, we shall allow Germany to exist! Even though the eradication of the Amalekites was the divine law of the ancient Hebrew! But our British forbears and ourselves are the followers of Christ. And His standards are above those of ancient days. Thus the fleet that protected us, the fleet that supplied four- fifths of our transportation to Europe when we had to transport our two million soldiers, the fleet that belted the world with a cordon that strangled German sea serpents and saved our men from their maws; the fleet that provisioned and protected Great Britain's eight million soldiers and sailors through four years of titanic and satanic writhing of Teuton malice — that fleet shall be honored and respected by us with gratitude and kindly affection — certainly not to be eyed by us with envy or pusilanimous and timid apprehension. Let the Mother England and the Daughter Columbia, join hands and vow justice for God's children everywhere. REV. W. L. KINSOLVING DISCUSSES PRAYER Two of the old familiar hymns were sung at the opening of the Lenten service yesterday: "Jesus, Lover of My Soul," and "Come, Holy Spirit, Heavenly Dove," and the devout singing of the congrega- tion prepared the way for the excellent address on Prayer that follow- ed. The creed, Lord's Prayer, collect, and benediction were led by the Rev. A. G. Head, curate of Christ Church. Mr. Kinsolving, who comes of a family highly distinguished in the ranks of the Episcopal clergy, is a vigorous and thoughtful speaker, tall and slender in physique, earnest and practical in his mode of speech. "Lord, teach us to pray," he said, was the appeal to the disci- ples to Jesus, and in response He gave them what we call the Lord's Prayer, and said "after this manner pray ye." Not always in these words, but in the spirit of this prayer, men are to worship. The ra- tionale of public worship, said the speaker, is to teach men how to pray. The historic prayers used by the liturgical churches are design- ed to cultivate the habit of sensible, rational, acceptable praying. In the Holy Communion we perform an act of thanksgiving and prayer — 44 — in obedience to the Lord's command, "Do this in remembrance of me." In addition to ceremonial or public prayer, continued Mr. Kinsol- ving, we have mystical, personal, secret or private prayer. There one meets God face to face, &s Jacob did at Penuel. We may express to Him our private thoughts. The unjust judge of the parable vindicated the poor widow against her persecutor, not because of the justice of her claim, but because her frequent appeals disturbed his comfort. How much more will our loving father hear our secret petitions! A great obstacle to private prayer is lack of right relations with our fel- lowmen, continued the speaker. How can a man pray while he is at enmity with his brother ? We are taught to say, "Forgive us our tres- passes — that is "our blunders" — as we also have forgiven those who have tresspassed against us." Some prayers remain unanswered, said the speaker. David prayed that his child's life might be spared, but God let him die. David did not repine, however, but resumed his usual life in submission to the will of God, who had denied his request. Paul prayed that the thorn in his flesh might be removed; God let the thorn stay, but gave him grace to endure it. Jesus in Gethsemane prayed that the "cup" of sorrow might pass from Him, but God let Him drink it. Yet the Father gave the Son of that superb patience that He manifested on the cross. Again, said Mr. Kinsolving, prayer is a practical thing. That is, you are to do what you can to answer your own prayers. This is one of the most important things about prayer — that we should do what we can to help God to answer our petitions. In this spirit of "co-operative prayer, we should enter upon every undertaking in life. Elijah did this, and so did Moses. Jesus in the wilderness spent forty days in prayer and resisting temptation; and then he came forth to proclaim the kingdom of God, to teach His disciples, and to lay the foundations of His Church. This combining of practice with petition is the thing that moves the world. Columbus, Galileo, Kepler, Copernicus and Sir Isaac Newton lifted their petitions to God and then they went forth to discover continents and to unveil the secrets of the stars. In fact, everything in history that is most worthy has been brought about through the prayer that is earnest in its working. This was in the thought of Christ when he taught his disciples to pray, "Thy kingdom come." A large congregation listened with close attention to this helpful address. Rev. Mr. Kinsolving will speak again today at the noonday THREE ELEMENTS OF RELIGION Rev. Wythe L. Kinsolving, of Richmond, spoke at the noonday Lenten service at the American theater yesterday, taking as his text the words of Christ in the Sixth chapter of John, "I am the Bread of Life." Beginning with the statement that there are three elements essential to all religion, he discussed each one briefly and with great vigor. 1. The mystical or contemplative element, leading the soul to in- — 46 — timate communion with God. This exists in Buddhism. Mohammedan- ism and Christianity— in fact, in all religions, Methodism, he said, has put great emphasis upon this phase of religion, and Martin Luther did likewise. 2. The practical element, which predominates in many persons. Such a man says, "If one does right, acts according to his conscience, and does good, that one has religion." The speaker went on to show that St. James made much of this element, that Christ emphasized it in the Sermon on the Mount, and that Socrates and other heathen moral- ists had laid stress on the value of good works. Philanthropy, the fruits of the spirit — love, long suffering and the rest — are absolutely necessary to all religions. 3. The ritual, or ceremonial, element of religion was next discuss- ed. Mr. Kinsolving gave the opinion that Americans as a rule have paid but little attention to this element. But Christ was a priest after, the order of Melchizedek, and He instituted the Holy Eucharist, having this ceremonial element of religion in view. Signs of this element are seen in the early church in the regular assemblies of Christians, and in the "breaking of bread and the prayers." All religions, said the speak- er, have a ceremonial feature; even the Quaker has his ceremony of silence. Christian Science, he declared, substitutes for the ritual of Christ a ritual of its own. While Christ did not ordain the Order of Morning and Evening Prayer in the Prayer Book, He did ordain the Holy Eucharist. Why should not that be the center of our ritual? Christ satisfies the hunger of the mystical soul, that of the practical one and that of him who hungers after the ceremonial of religion. There was a large congregation present, and Dr. Steinmetz, rector of Christ Church, presided and led the ritual service. There will be no meeting at noon today. THE FOUNTAIN OF ALL TEMPTATION Where temptations come from and how they are to be overcome was the topic of the Lenten lecture yesterday at the American theatre by Rev. Wythe Leigh Kinsolving. "Make me a clean heart, O God," and various scriptures bearing on the source of temptation and sin were recited, and the speaker went on to declare that "Man is his own Devil, his own tempter and worst enemy. Out of the heart proceed all things that tempt men. When the psalmist prayed for a clean heart he meant that the fountain and source of all temptation must be cleaned." The Holy Spirit leads men into places of temptation, the speaker further declared. And yet, as St. Paul says, "God will not suf- fer us to be tempted above what we are able to bear." St James says that "every man is led away of his own lust and enticed," so that God does not entice any one to do evil. It is the evil desire of the heart that produces sin. "We could very well eliminate the Devil from our theology," says Mr. Kinsolving, and then he suggested that our con- ceptions of Satan are largely influenced by Milton's "Paradise Lost" and Goethe's "Faust." — 46 — "What is temptation?" he asked. "Is it not to be subjected to test or strain?" He then cited the example of Christ, who was "God walking on human feet, thinking with a human brain, and sharing with us all the human passions." Having been led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit. He was subjected to temptations that are common to human nature, and that were also representative of what He en- dured all through his earthly life. The three temptations mentioned appealed to his body, his mind and his spirit. The third temptation was explained as a solicitation to subject His spirit to the lower part of His nature. So then, continued the speaker, the Holy Spirit subjects men to temptation by bringing them into places where it exists, but the thing that actually tempts is in our passions and wills. If our hearts are clean none of these enticements can touch us. So it was with Christ. "The fruit of the Spirit is self-control," was quoted from the writings of Paul. Men must learn self-control, declared Mr. Kinsolving, by ex- ercising their own faculties, and not depend upon the intervention of the State. "This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith," said he, and "Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ." Christ learned obedience by things that he suffered, and so must we learn in the school of temptation. If we can truly say as the apostle said, "Christ liveth in me," and real- ize that He is in us "the hope of glory," then we shall be "more than conquerors" through fellowship with him. Rev. Dr. Steinmetz, rector of Christ Church, presided at the ser- vice and conducted the devotional exercises. FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT (Written for The News, by Rev. Wythe Leigh Kinsolving.) "The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, gen- tleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law."— Galatians v:22-23. I never like to hear the love of God limited. It irks me to hear men set confines and bounds to God's grace. I am almost grieved to hear any form of gospel preached that make God's infinite love and compassion "cabin'd, cribb'd, confined." I believe that God so loved the world that He gave His only be- gotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should have eternal life. I stake my whole faith on the statement God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. Now these savings of God places no conditions upon His will to save men. Of course man himself may place a condition upon His will to save men. Of course, man himself, may place a condition upon his own salvation. He may not believe. He may re- fuse to seek God, to ask that He may receive, seek that he may find and knock that God may open to him. But this is man's failure, not God's will for him. "It is not the will of My Father that one single one of these little ones should perish," said our blessed Saviour when He shows the apostles the Father's will for little children. Why did — 47 — He love children? Because they loved Him with all their hearts. His nature was exactly like theirs, pure, clean, sincere, frank, mirror-like in its simplicity. "Except ye become as little children ye cannot enter into the kingdom of Heaven." The angels of God must look and act very much like children. Jesus said that little children's guardian angels were be- fore the throne of the Father always beholding His face. Now this simple nature of a child is the kind of character that not only the Saviour describes as godlike and desirable for all His follow- ers. It is the same character that the apostles depict in their pen pictures of true Christian life. Almost every virtue named in the list chosen for our text is a child-like quality. A child is filled with love, and joy and peace. A child becomes wonderfully long suffering ofttimes when brought to bear pain or anguish. The patience of sick children is some times a miracle of beauty. The gentleness, goodness, yes, and the faith of children is remarkable. A gentleman is just a grown up child. "Jesus, Meek and Gentle, Son of God Most High," we teach chil- dren to sing because His gentleness is like theirs. We often heard it said of little boys or girls: "He or she is so good!" Goodness is not abnormal in a child. Badness is often the fault of thoughtlessness, un- sympathetic fathers or mothers who leave the maid or nurse to bring up their children while they play cards or go to teas or engage in Red Cross activities, or visit orphans, or do other such altruistic or patriotic service to the state or society. But the normal trait of a child is gen- tleness, and likewise goodness, and, moreover, faith. Do we not say "As trustful as a child?" A suspicious, untrustful child is either dis- eased or has not been treated right. The healthy and well treated child is full of trust. Faith in people as well as faith in God belongs nat- urally to children. Now meekness is likewise a child-like virtue. A child knows that he does not know everything and has much to learn. A little girl is usually timid and bashful chiefly because of her meek spirit. We speak of a young boy as tied to his mother's apron string because in the ear- liest stages the help and care of the mother is needed, and afterward we think he should be loosed from the apron strings and made able to fend for himself. Most children are a little shy, and need encourage- ment to overcome their backwardness. It is usually meekness that makes children hold back. But meekness is the trait that throws us upon God to find aid when we lack confidence in our own powers. It seems to me a child-like virtue. The last in the list of Saint Paul is temperance. Now a child is temperate if wisely brought up by the parent. Tennyson says: "The baby, new to earth and sky, What time the little hand is pressed Upon the circle of the breast Has never thought that this is I." — 48 — No, the tiny babe has never thought that "This is I," nor has the little visitor from another sphere, as we are wont to think, any knowl- edge of limits. The mother guides and directs his desires, and satisfies his wants. Yet, nature, that is to say, his own organization, working like a clock, demands at regular intervals food and sustenance. The normal babe is temperate. Having enough he is satisfied. Not satiety, not over much, but just enough to sustain the processes of nature is his demand. Of course, sickly, unhealthy, and abnormal children cannot be classified under this head. But the truly normal child wants enough, not too much. And that is real temperance. Temperance is not de- nying oneself food or drink. Temperance is limiting our bodies to the standard of sufficiency. Now, love, joy, peace, long suffering, gen- tleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance — these have been shown to be in some respects all the virtues of children. They are said by Saint Paul to be the fruit of the spirit. He means they are the product, the result, the effect of the holy spirit dwelling in us. Jesus laid His hands on little children and prayed for them that they might receive this blessed holy spirit. The apostles laid their hands on the baptized at Samaria and gave them the gift of the holy spirit. Saint Paul laid his hands upon the group at Ephesus and gave them the holy spirit. Saint Paul re- minds Saint Timothy of the gift that Timothy has in him by the lay- ing on of Saint Paul's hands. Now the spirit of God illuminates, en- lightens, develops and improves every facility of mind and body. A spirit-filled child is more loving, joyous, peaceful, long-suffering, gen- tle, good, faithful, meek and self-controlled than a child without the spirit of God. Do you say that every child has the spirit of God ? Well, yes. But still Jesus did breathe upon the apostles and say: "Receive ye the Holy Spirit." . . . Jesus did say: "Tarry ye here at Jerusalem until ye be clothed with power from on High." The apostles did receive the holy spirit at Pentecost, tongues like as of fire resting upon each of them. Jesus did command: "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, baptizing them into the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit." No, Saint Paul tells us there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, on God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all." He tells us there are diversities of gifts, but the same spirit. Now, what can we gather but this? The holy spirit is given in baptism and in the laying on of hands. Whatever gifts and graces men, women or children had before this special reception of the holy spirit are enhanced, increased, developed, amplified, intensified. All these virtues of the text: Love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control (that is the Greek word for temperance), are child-like virtues. But to retain these virtues, to nourish these virtues, to feed and make them grow we are told to use means of grace. Thus in baptism the child renounces the spirit of evil and the sin- fuj desires, promises faith toward God as expressed in the creed oi Christendom, the common faith of all Christians; and promises to keep God's holy will and commandments. Now if we enlisted a soldier and told him of no foes to fight, would it be fair? If we baptize a child and tell him nothing of sin and its seductiveness is it just to the child? Certainly not. There- fore the children of the church are taught to be on guard against the sins of our mortal nature. Later when they have verified this fight in actual experience, when they have seen how hard it is to be a Chris- tian, they long for a further gift of the holy spirit in confirmation or the laying on of hands. They long for frequent food that their souls shall not starve. They long to eat Christ's body and drink of Christ's blood that He may dwell in them and they in Him. They want the fruit of the spirit, and what means of grace Christ has given His church these means of grace they would use, and continue to use that they may sustain and develop all the virtues and that the grace of God may mortify and kill all vices in them. Therefore, it is that the spiritually minded, normally and naturally, long to come to the Lord's table, joyously praying in their hearts as they draw nigh to take the body and blood of their Lord. "And so we come: oh, draw us to Thy feet, Most patient Savior, who canst love us still; And by this food so awful and so sweet Deliver us from every touch of ill. In thine own service make us glad and free, And grant us never more to part with Thee." But when the daily toil, the routine of life, the things of the world and of sense, cut in upon their will and intention to be better; when the evil that is in every one of us, and which is a barrier to the success of us in being and doing what we ought; when, in short, they soon feel their weakness and need of Jesus Christ's holy arm to sustain and guide and restrain and uphold, then again they seek the threshold of His holy temple. Then again they lay their heads upon the breast of Jesus Christ; then again they become as little children, asking bread of the Father, who will not give them a stone; asking for the Holy Spirit, because He has promised: "How much more will your Heavenly Fath- er not give His holy spirit to them that ask Him." Cried the ancient prophet, "Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters; come buy wine and milk, without money and without price!" Cried St. John in Revelations: "Let whosoever will come and take of the waters of life freely." Cries Jesus Christ: "Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will refresh you." And when you reply, Why the church? Why the sacraments? Why not solitary seeking God in my own house? Why not the fruit of the Spirit without the church and without the sacraments ? With- out organization? Without association? Without churchianity ? Without ecclesiastical conventions and discussions, and all the hum- drum of religious business ? Friend, why the cantonment, the drill, the camp, the military pis ganisation before war and victory ? — 60 — Jesf.s said, "On this rock (of Peter's confession and faith) I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it." Can you with your frail conceptions either tear away His promise or His church's foundation? The fruit of the Holy Spirit is love and joy and peace, longsuffer- ing, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness and self-control. The sacraments of baptism, confirmation and holy communion are means by which we receive more and more of God's gift of the Holy Spirit, and bring forth in our lives this same fruit of the Spirit. Inconsistency, failure and disgrace are nearly always found in him or her who neglects, not in him or her who uses and loves God's holy sacraments. If you believe that you are better without these things than those who use these means of grace, that very boast makes you a Pharisee. If you desire to use every means of being better and are not satisfied with yourself, this very spirit makes you humble and penitent. You are in a ripe mood to receive the grace of God and bring forth the fruit of the Spirit. Amen. SERMON FOR CHURCHLESS SUNDAY THE WAY, THE TRUTH, THE LIFE (By the Rev. Wythe L. Kinsolving, Rector of St. Paul's Episcopal Church.) Text — St. John xiv:6 — "I am the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me." We may take these words as the substantial utterance of Jesus Christ Himself. The spirit of this Gospel according to Saint John, the inner essence of it, is of the same warp and woof with the inner essence of Saint Paul's deepest teaching of Jesus Christ. This Gospel makes no higher or deeper claims for Christ's divine authority than passages in Saint Matthew or Saint Luke such as "No man knoweth the Son but the Father, and no man knoweth the Father but the Son, and he to whom the Son hath revealed Him." Again from Matthew: "Ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time — but I say unto you." Or, "When the Son of Man shall come in His glory and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory; and before Him shall be gathered all nations; and He shall separate them one from another as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats." When Jesus says that He is the way, He means, does He not, that His is the true ethics, the true morality, the true mode of existence, the right manner of going, the right walk? We have had the ethics of Confucius, the sacred books of the Per- sians, the philosophies of the Hindus, the sublime discourses of Soc- rates and Plato, and many manifold efforts at the regulation of human life and conduct. Yet a man might spend his three score and ten years in perusal of these systems and he would never find the way. Intricate and confused would be his path. Like Justin Martyr of old, who trod, "" §1 —* the byways of all the philosophies, who had read Philo and Josephus and all the Greeks, but delighted to discover the truth as it is in Jesus; so any modern mind who will spend years of investigation of the sys- tems of old or the modern systems of ethics which leave Christian teaching out of the account will find that there is nothing final outside of the New Testament. Second — "I am the Truth," is the second assertion of the text. This deals, I take it, with the matter of doctrine, of teaching, even, we may say, with that taboed thing, Dogma. Dogma is what the church has decreed about Christ. Now if the church does not believe and has set forth by authority the same thing that Jesus taught about Himself, then dogma and truth are synonymous terms. Now the church says that Jesus Christ was born of a virgin, was crucified, dead and buried, rose again, ascended into heaven, and shall come to judge the living and the dead. The church believes in the holy spirit, the holy church, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Now is the truth as it is in Jesus consonant with this faith of the church. Well, Jesus says, "Before Abraham was I have existed." He says: "I and My Father are one." He says to the Heavenly Fath- er: "And now O Father, glorify thou Me with thine ownself with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." This claim is in Saint John. But note the end of Saint Luke, acknowledged by Harnak, as the valid work of the companion of Saint Paul. "And it came to pass while He blessed them He was parted from them and carried up into heaven and they worshipped Him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy." Third — "I am the Life." This third asserveration of Jesus Christ means that Jesus Christ is the mystic source of spiritual being. He is the fount of spiritual strength. He is the ultimate reality. Just as a seed is sown a bare grain, but God giveth it a body which it ultimately assumes, so there is a spiritual nature in man which is planted, in- creases, develops, matures, blossoms and bears fruit. Wesley was right. The human heart must consciously turn to Christ for salvation. Roger Williams was right. The individual must know Christ for Himself. Martin Luther was right. "Here I am, I cannot do otherwise, God help me," is the cry of the individual voicing his personal faith. That horrible German empire has been compacted about the kaiser, and its unity has been satanically strong. Alas, the Christian church has been worse than the allies when they had no common head. Let us remember that Jesus Christ is the life. There is no life in any part of the church except from Him. There is life in every part from Him. It is His holy declaration that: "I am the way, the truth, and the life/' and that "No man cometh unto the Father but by Me." UNITY IN CHRISTENDOM. (Sermon preached recently by Rev. Wythe L. Kinsolving. From Mal- achi First Chapter and Eleventh Verse.) "From the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same, my name shall be great among the Gentiles, and in every place incense shall be offered unto My Name, and a pure offering, for my name shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of Hosts." — The prophet, Malachi second verse. Men asked a year or two ago, "Why did God permit this great world war? If God is almighty and loving why does He not put an end to strife and bloodshed ? If Jesus is the Prince of Peace, how can He let men fight like mad dogs ? If God sent Jesus Christ to save men from their sins and to bind up broken hearts, how can the merciful Father allow a million broken hearts and a million desolate homes? Why does not God stop this wholesale murder and destruction?" These were the problems in men's minds. But now we are beginning to see the dawn through the morning twilight. Now we can almost see the sun burst over the horizon beyond the mountains of hope. Now we can catch a vision of the vast and changeless purpose of our Almighty Father. God is the Almighty and God is the All Merciful. In the realm of righteousness, might and mercy are united into one. "Mercy and Truth are met together, Righteousness and Peace have kissed each other." In the realm of reality ability creates responsibility. Competency to achieve purpose in the moral world is equivalent to the obligation to perform that function. To be able to do a thing means the bind- ing moral obligation to do that thing. Capactiy for certain kinds of service to others makes that service to others an imperative duty. Duty is the sublimest word not only in the English language, but in any language. England expects every man to do his duty, was Nelson's cry; it is applicable now to every living soul on this earth of God's. God our Father, expects every living soul in the flesh to do his and her duty. Now it is the realization of this truth that is blessing the world today. War came upon this country of ours like a powder thrown into a caldron of still liquid. A seething movement was created. Every one got busy, women and children knitted, men were mobilized into camps. A vast army has been created. Factories and plants have been crowded with orders. Cities are humming with renewed life and bustle and stir. Women and men are busy all over this nation today. Idleness is taboo. Loafing and laziness are excluded. Everybody is working with a will. A grand united effort is being made by our nations. To do what? To win the war? Why? Because we believe that out of the chaos of war will come a better human society. Out of the toil and tribulations of battle will come a new era of righteousness. Out of the boom and roar of the cannon will come a social regeneration and a moral purification of the human race. But let us think clearly, and vision keenly the way that lies be- fore uj, Th§ Church of God described in the New Testament waj 9Hf «■» 68 *■* i united church. Now the Roman Catholicism that developed in the middle ages holds not much more, if any more, than one-half of the Christian allegiance of the whole world today. As a church Roman Christianity has failed, and cannot and shall not regenerate the world and society. The Greek Catholic church, the church that holds a hun- dred millions of Russians, has also failed. It has met with a rude shock and gone to pieces upon the rocks. The total Protestantism of these United States has most assur- edly and unqualifiedly also failed. The divided Protestantism of the United States cannot and shall not regenerate humanity. But there is something that the Roman Catholic, the Greek Cath- olic, the English and American Episcopal church, with its total adher- ence of perhaps forty million souls, and finally American Protestant- ism, with its twenty-odd millions of adherents — there is something I say, that they all hold in common, a Christian faith that belongs to all, a Christian standard that is no more of one than it is of another kind of Christianity and this Christian faith has not failed, will not fail, cannot fail, but shall exist on this earth in all its fullness and vitality when Jesus Christ comes to judge the living and the dead. This common faith is the faith in the power of Jesus Christ to give new life to the human soul. It is the faith that recognizes the voice and teaching of Jesus Christ and teaching of the Everlasting Father. It is the faith expressed by St. Peter when he cried "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God." It is the faith that St. Paul declared justified the soul in the sight of God, and made him cry, "There is therefore no condemnation unto those that are in Christ Jesus." It is the old-time religion, the religion of Paul and Silas, the relig- ion of Peter and John, of Justic Martyr, of Polycarp Bishop of Smyrna, of Timothy Bishop of Ephesus, of Titus Bishop of Crete, of Pothinus Bishop of Lyons, of Archbishop Remigius of Rheims, who baptized Clovis, the ancient kind of the Francs, the religion of Queen Bertha of Kent, of St. Martin of Tours, of St. Alban, Britain's first martyr, the religion of the ancient Scots and Irish Britons, the religion of Mother England for twelve hundred years before, the Protestantism of the Re- formation. It was the religion of Wycliffe, the morning star of the Reformation, of Calvin before he went to Geneva, of Luther before his clash with the pope. Well, you say, but what church is this? What modern church preserves these principles and carries them out abso- lutely? May I answer this question politely: No modern church does. Not one. Nor can any one. We must have a new inclusive, comprehensive, all-comprehending church that will not exclude but include, will not anathematize but will sympathize. That will not damn men by her course, but will bless men by her love and charity. This church must prove the deity of Jesus Christ by doing His works. It must draw all mankind unto Jesus Christ by lifting Him up on the cross in its own life and activities. Christ must be crucified before men in the person of His saints in His church who must suffer to lead all mankind to follow the exam- ple of His humility. We are catching this spirit afresh, The war has -54- wrought miracles. The might of the moneyed men is united with the might of the arms of the working men to save society from German lust and cruelty and vileness. Like a great fire sweeping over a city the war is purging out and purifying pride and class feeling and social snobbishness and the sins of envy and malice and uncharitableness. Sympathy and cooperation and kindly fellowship have been born of the womb of war. Men and women today are not Virginians or Tennesseans, but Americans; not Americans merely, but members of the allied forces. We fight, we labor, we pray, we give our money, our zeal, our un- stinted toil not for a state, not even for the United States — no, we do all for the help of humanity, for the saving of human life, for the up- lift of human society the world over. We believe in the salvation and regeneration of the sons of men everywhere. We want free seas for commerce, free trade for the world's goods, the common realization benefits of production given widest possible distribution, the rights and privileges of the so-called upper classes to be bestowed upon the once-termed lower classes. We want the mercy and truth and the righteousness of Jesus Christ and the will of His father to be done on earth even as it is done among the angels and archangels in heaven. We want, in short, the vision of the ancient prophet Malachi to hasten its realization. What the prophet desired then that we are de- siring now, not one isolated American so desiring, not a few English here and there so hoping and praying, nay, but a great, mighty, mas- sive will of millions of minds aspiring, praying, working, striving to bring about, by every means possible to human wills, this result. We want to win the war and we want to win the world to alle- giance to Jesus Christ and His democracy, His equality, His fraternity. We know that the church of the living God, the pillar and the ground of the truth shall be His agency. Out of the church comes the wisdom of Woodrow Wilson. Out of the church comes the justice of Arthur Balfour. Out of the church comes the inflexible zeal of Lloyd George. Out of the church the un- bending energy of Gen. Pershing. Out of the church the courage and penetrating acumen and amazing strategy of Marshal Foch. Out of the church the marvelous and magnificent valor of British, of French and American, Portuguese, Italian and Belgian troops. When Christianity and Christian purposes shall have triumphed ovfer the silly and stubborn nationalism of the deluded German nation, we shall see that the world has moved onward toward the fulfillment of the words of the text: "From the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same, my name shall be great among the Gentiles, And in every place incense shall be offered unto my name and a pure offering for my name shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of Hosts." — Malachi second. For from the east to the west, and among all nations on this earth of God's the Christian Altar shall be erected. The Christian faith shall be established, and prayer, like incense, shall rise heavenward, and the pure offering of the body and blood of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, shall be offered daily unto the Holy Father in, heaven. Amen. — f 3 — SAYS CHURCH UNITY WILL COME ALONG WITH LEAGUE OP NATIONS Rev. W. L. Kinsolving Preaches Sermon and Writes Article on the Future Church. Rev. Wythe L. Kinsolving, of St. Paul's Episcopal church, is in favor not only of a league of nations, but of unity among the christian churches. He believes that out of the war will come such a movement. In a recent sermon he elaborated on his view3 on this matter. An ar- ticle which Mr. Kinsolving contributed to the Southern Churchman was embodied in his sermon. The subject is so full of interest that the article is reprinted herewith. Mr. Editor: The recent interchange of letters of Christian love and esteem that have passed between some of our American bishops and the Russian church (which we often term the "Greek church" be- cause it represents a development of the Greek branch of the original church and not a development of Western or Roman Christianity with its center at Rome), signfies a longing on the part of the bodies or parts of the body, to effect a closer relationship. There seems to be a tendency in American Protestantism to draw its separate parts and divisions into a closer organization. Men are saying that the war is breaking down denominational barriers and welding these forces into a unity of spirit in the bond of peace. This is a consummation devoutly to be wished, but it is not all that God's Word seems to require. If the church is a kingdom it is nowhere said to be a monarchy. The King, the Head, the only King and the only Head named in the Gospel or the other Scriptures of the New Testament, is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Yet this King and Head sent at Pentecost and de- clared as His vicegerent could not perform his function of leadership and direction of the Church. It was generally thought that the councils of the bishops, the ecumenical councils of the early centuries expressed the voice of the Holy Spirit, the will of Jesus Christ, the King and Head of His body, the Church. A new factor is arising in the world to point the way toward the solution of our problem of getting the voice of the Holy Spirit heard and accepted by every part and every individual who are comprehended in the Kingdom of God on earth. For the moment we may consider the Kingdom and the Church to be coterminous. This is a concession to such as believe the church to be a kingdom. The downfall of monarch- ies and the uprearing of republics is at hand. The overthrow of auto- crats and the rule of democracy is at hand. The representative gov- ernment of the people, for the people and by the people is winning its way upon the earth. Can the Roman monarchy remain an autocracy, a kingdom amid the general change that is near ? Shall not the representative principle prevail in the Roman organ- ization, and shall not the remodeled organization of the Jtoroan branch of the church then be accepted as a valid and integral part of the Holy Catholic church, with which branch the rest of Christendom can confer and determine and determine upon closer affiliation and a real organic unification ? There can be no Christian unity with Roman Christianity left out. Nor with the Russo-Greek Christianity left out. Nor with the Angli- can branch of Christianity left out, including the Episcopal church in these United States. We can certainly pray, and it is our duty to pray on scriptural grounds for the growth of principal of consiliar expres- sion in the Roman Communion. We can and ought to pray for the loosening of the tight bonds of monarchial control in the Roman or- ganization. Kaiserism, Caesarism, monarchical rule, are growing rapidly un- fashionable upon God's earth. This is the center or heirarchy. "Ye shall sit upon thrones judging the twelve tribes," Christ's promise to the twelve, is fully balanced by His statement, "Let him that is chief among you become as he that doth serve." "If I, your Lord and Mas- ter, have washed your feet," cannot mean a formal ceremonial act. It must mean and does mean, the bishop be the true servant. Let the priest or the minister be a minister indeed, lowly, humble and self- sacrificing, like the Saviour Himself. It is not the idea of a priest offering the sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ as the agent and servant of the people present that is repugnant to and unpopular with our national democratic mind. It is the insiduous power of the priest, the arrogance and haughtiness of bishops, and the cruelty and tyranny of medieval papal rulers that men and women detest and abominate, just as they do the same things in Kaiser Wilhelm. And for the same reason. Both are ungodly and unscriptural and contrary to the teachings of Jesus Christ. Could the whole church on earth be organized with ministers duly ordained ac- cording to Apostolic practice, organized into Diocese, guided each by a true shepherd or bishop, with national conventions and an international ecumenical representative council at intervals of five years or so, I can see no reason why the church could not be so reorganized and re- united according to the mode of organization that seems to have pre- vailed in the first two or three centuries. The Methodist Episcopal and Presbyterian bodies would not re- quire much readjustment, the Baptist bodies might be allowed with full authority the practice of immersion, even adult immersion in any case where infant baptism was not acceptable to the believer as entirely ad- equate. Lutheran bodies and the Christian disciples would not find such an organization distasteful, especially if lay representation in the original group conventions became an accepted principle. As to liturgical modes of worship, the great liturgical forms of the past should be utilized, but great liberty in the use of ejaculatory, im- promptu and extemporaneous prayer should be granted. We have no more right to gag individual members of the church today than St. Paul did in his day. But to lose the liturgical glories of the past would be as silly as to give up the Old Testament itself be- cause we have the New. When the Holy Spirit in the whole body of — 57 — the church had free expression, the pneumatic gifts would be multi- plied and the voice of the Christianized people would become more and more the voice of God. An enlightened and reunited church would be- come the stabilizer of society, the bulwark against selfish nationalism and the agency by which the former kingdom of this world should be- come the Kingdom of our God and His Christ. Lookout Mountain, Tenn. REV. WYTHE LEIGH KINSOLVING ANSWERS WM. T. ELLIS ON Y. M. C. A. (An Open Letter to The Editor of the News.) William T. Ellis has been writing at some length in the papers, under what sort of a syndicate, or under what auspices I know not, and registering some interesting views and impressions upon the general religious institution. In an article that appeared in The Chattanooga News on Saturday he notes that our nation is remarkably religious, humanitarian, altruistic, philanthropic, and devoted to Christian social service, but men do not go to church as much as they used to do. He then complains of the varied and unreal character of a great deal of preaching, and even boldly suggests that community gatherings might take the place of church-going. I was reminded of what Canon James, of Worcester Cathedral said in Westminster Abbey at the end of last February when I heard him speak of his impressions derived from experience as a British chaplain. Canon James said the soldiers would bring back with them from the trenches a very vital and real religion, the religion of duty and obliga tion to do a man's part in the world. They would scorn anything that was ultra formal, or tediously labored in the way of religious services, but they had a most splendid sense of justice and righteousness, an ad- miration for manliness and virile devotion to high and noble principles of. conduct. I have also read with deep personal interest the criticism of the Y. M. C. A., published recently in the Churchman, New York, and reprint- ed in the Literary Digest of recent date. The critic seemed to find cant and sham replacing reverence and the actuality of worship in some forms of Y. M. C. A. activity. These were his impressions, not mine. Yet, I would record here some defi- nite views of my own which, like Canon James,' are derived from per- sonal observation and experience in work here in America and in France with soldiers. The pan-protestant organization, the Y. M. C. A., does not stress the importance of Sacrament of the Holy Communion. As a secretary of the Y. M. C. A., the writer was told that one was not to be permitted to "perform any priestly functions," as an expeditionary secretary of the Y. M. C. A. Yet, when I arrived in France there was a dearth of army chaplains, and priestly functions were rare indeed, at that time among the American troops. — 58 — On the other hand, the Roman Catholic church holds vast and elab- orate celebrations of The Mass, that is the Roman Celebration of the Holy Communion in Latin, and if newspapers are true, thousands of Roman Catholics attend these services. Thus we have a strange anomaly. Protestantism seems to be es- chewing the celebration of the Sacrament of the Holy Communion; and the Roman Catholic church, building its own Knights of Columbus buildings, and segregating its religious adherents unto themselves, is laying heavy and potent emphasis on that which pan-protestantism is voluntarily omitting and intentionally minimizing. Now, the Saviour in the sixth chapter of Saint John, prefigured and prophesied the importance of this great ordinance and rite. The night before He was crucified He established it with definite and un- questionable command. "This do in remembrance of me," Saint Paul in the letter to Corinth, the eleventh chapter and twenty-fourth verse reiterates and re-emphasizes this observance with most positive and unqualified urgency. To hedge or to dodge the will of Jesus Christ in this matter to evade the commands of the Apostles, is to depart from Christianity and to try to work out something new in the place of that which the Founder of His religion established. If men are to go to church to be entertained by preaching, by lively and moving music, by spicy and racy political utterances, by anything in fact that merely seeks to interest and amuse, why should they not rather go to the theater and the opera ? There they will get better entertainment, far better music and find a more pleasurable ex- citement than at church. If however, the Christian religion is insep- arably bound up, as Saint Paul says it is, with the sacrifice of the death of Jesus Christ, and the benefits which we receive thereby, why shall we not all of us Christians place emphasis there, upon the cele- bration of this rite, this ordinance of Jesus, this thing that He com- manded and lovingly enjoined upon all His true followers ? Sacerdotal acts will only be despised when they aye the acts of men who seek to build up and control, by virtue of their office as priests. If ministers of Christ are priests in the same sense as Jesus Christ Himself, a priest after the order of Melchizedek, one who served in every act His terrestial experience, One who ministered and gave His life's blood as proof of His willingness to minister, a ransom, as He said, for many, whereby the Father forgave men their sins and filled them with His Spirit of truth and love — if ministers of Christ, are thus indeed servants of all, and if they lay stress on this act of obedience to their Lord, shall they not be followed? Shall they not be leaders in spiritual affairs, not by virtue of any priestly arrogating to themselves the power of a caste, but by virtue of their humble obedi- ence to lead all men into fellowship and obedience to Jesus Christ? In the reorganization and reintegration, in the renovation and new concentration of Christian thought and this great world war, shall we not purpose that are bound to come after get back to Christ, indeed, back to the simple faith of the apostolic age, back to the Breaking of Bread and the prayers, and not depend too largely on more excitable preaching that so often stirs momentarily, and leaves the souls slack i» — 59 — carrying out the momentary stirrings for lack of later nutrition and spiritual food. The Body and Blood of Christ which are spiritually taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper are the soul's life and sustenance. If men and women would hold to their allegiance, and try to keep worthy motives and principles of daily life and charac- ter, what better way than to feed, as the Lord hath commanded, upon the spiritual food ordained by Christ Himself for the soul's nutrition. JACOB'S LADDER SERMON. Genesis XXVLI and John I: the End. Being the story of 'Jacob's Ladder' and Christ's parable in regard to Jacob's ladder. "The presence of the Almighty was made manifest to Jacob in his dream. Bethel, the house of God, was the material result of this vis- ion in sleep. Nathaniel or Saint Bartholomew was brought to Christ by St. Phillip. Jesus had seen him at prayer under the fig tree, where it was his custom to pray in private and alone. He was mystified by Christ's having observed him at prayer. Jesus told him that hereafter he was to see angels ascending and descending upon Jesus Christ Him- self, the son of maa, just as Jacob had seen in his dream the vision of angels ascending and descending. Jesus, the Son of God and the Son of Man is then Jacob's ladder, according to His own testimony of Him- self. He bridges the gap between God and men. Direct communion between earth and heaven are through Him. He is the one true media- tor between God and man. But a mediator is a priest. In the Epistle to the Hebrews, chapter after chapter describe Him as the great high priest, the true and only mediator of God to us and of us to God. "He learned obedience by the thing which he suffered." Inasmuch as he Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succor them that are tempted. "He was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin. The presence of God was embodied, enfteshed, incarnated in Jesus Christ Himself. In Him dwelt all the fulness of the God-head bodily. He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father. He afterward said to this very St. Phillip that brought his brother Nathanied to Him, "I am the way, the Truth and the Life. No man cometh unto the Father but by Me." He said in the same context not only was His body the temple of the Holy Ghost, but He said He would raise this body up again. When He arose from the grave He fulfilled this promise. St. Paul says that the church is this same body of Jesus Christ. 'We are members of His body, His flesh, and of His bones,' says St. Paul. "The church of the living God, the pillar and the ground of the truth is the body of Christ in which His spirit dwells.' When we are baptized we are made mem- bers of Christ. When we eat His body and His blood in the holy com- munion we are joined to Him and joined together with one another in one body. This body, says St. Paul, is the holy temple, the habitation of God as spirit. "Jesus Christ is then the mediator between earth and heaven. His body is the Holy Catholic church, the communion of His holy ones, or — 60 — His saints. Jesus Christ is the Great Sigh Priest who ever liveth to make intercession for us. He pleads His own life and sacrifice eter- nally before the throne of God on high. "Now the holy communion is the place where we find Jesus Christ especially. Every reception of the holy communion rightly received is climbing one round upon Jacob's ladder, and coming closer to heaven. For Jesus Christ is the way to heaven. There is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we may be saved.' "When the ancient priest Melchizedek met Abraham, he brought forth bread and wine and with religious rite Abraham and Melchizedek celebrated a mutual covenant. He was the priest of the Most High God. He was king of Salem, which means peace. He was Malek Za- thek, in name, which means King of righteousness. Long years after- ward the Psalmist wrote of the Messiah, Who has to come, 'Thou art a Priest forever after the order of Melchizedek,' — The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews writing to Jews who knew Jewish history states that Jesus Christ is thus the King of Peace and the King of Righteous- ness being a Priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Likewise, as Jesus Christ is the Great High Priest after the order of Melchizedek, so are we all a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. We also, says St. Peter, as living stones, are built up into a spiritual house (note the unity of the Church of God) a spiritual house, an Holy Priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Now only in and through Jesus Christ are our sacrifices ac- ceptable to God. But ye are, says he, a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation (note that he calls the whole church a na- tion, although of course from all the nations, and has members of every nation in it). "What then of the ministers of Christ? What of those set apart by ordination to offer the consecrated sacrifice of Christ's holy body and upon His altar ? They are likewise kings and priests unto God the Father like all the rest of true Christians. They share Christ's eternal Priesthood and Kingdom like all other Christian People. "Just as Jesus Christ is interceding on High, so these priests of the church militant on earth are pleading and interceding for the peo- ple while they minister at the Altars of Jesus Christ. Just as God sent Jesus Christ to forgive the sins of the penitent, so Jesus sends these priests to forgive in His place and by His authority the sins of those who want to reform. "Jesus Christ, the Great High Priest, said to the Twelve, 'As my Father sent me, even so I send you.' Whose sins you forgive are for- given unto them, whose sins ye retain are retained ; Christ's authority cannot be questioned. He proved it by offering Himself as a Lamb without spot or blemish, as a sacrifice for our sins. His willing death, His rising from the tomb, His ascension into heaven, His sending the Holy Spirit with power from on High, His promise, "Lo I am with you even unto the end of the ages," all these prove His absolute authority to forgive our sins. . .. "But what Jesus Christ Himself can do is to forgive me if I am truly resolved to be and do better. And this same thing any of His or- dained ministers and priests of the sanctuary has the same power to do that He has. Else His words are not true when He says, "Whose sins ye forgive they are forgiven unto them, and whose sins ye retain are retained. Or, whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.' "The church is the place for confession to the Name of Jesus Christ. Not to enter into His gates with thanksgiving and praise is to deny Him before men, and be denied before the angels of God in heav- en. Why and how? Because the corporate church is His body. The people of the church are the people of God. The priests of the sanctu- ary are the agents of His laws and His rules and His teachings. The priests of the sanctuary are His representative in heaven. They have authority to bind and to loose. They have the command to forgive or retain sin. "Only through the character and goodness did Christ win His holy right to purge human souls. Only by preserving character and goodness and love can or ought His ministers of the sanctuary to re- tain their hold upon the conscience of men. Christ Himself, is the lad- der on whom we climb to heaven. The holy church, His body, His flesh and His bones, is the ladder because it stands for and represents Christ Himself. Therefore, if we want to go to heaven we ought to go to church. "I am most doubtful if those who do not go to church, although living under its very protection and influence, will be considered by Christ fit to go to Heaven. They are denying Christ before men. If communicants, they are violating their most sacred oath of allegiance to Christ. "If they believe by their civic acts and their social prominence they shall be saved, they ought to remember the destiny of Dives, the rich man, and the tender loving Saviour's scorn of riches and social place. Humility and penitence, lowliness of heart, and sorrow for our ignorances and negligences are acceptable to God. Pride, vain glory and hypocrisy are burned up in the fiery glance of His all seeing eye. If we would reach heaven, we ought to set our feet on the first rung of Jacob's ladder in baptism, climb higher rungs in holy communion, over and over, always truly repenting for our previous sins, stead- fastly purposing to lead a new life, and have a lively faith in God's mercy through Christ, with a thankful remembrance of His death, and being in love and charity with all mankind. We eat and drink condem- nation if we are not so minded. We despise God, dishonor Jesus Christ, do not discern His body, spurn His blood shed for us, and put Him to an open shame. Only by penitence and prayer, only by humility and sorrow for sin, only by earnest desire to be like Christ in our own life and char- acter, can we fitly and reverently receive His body and His blood from the altar of His presence." — 62 — REV. W. L. KINSOLVING. New Minister of St. Paul's During Absence Chaplain Loaring Clark, Who is Serving With the Red Cross in France. Patriotic St. Paul's Episcopal Church has as temporary successor to the pastor Chaplain W. F. Loaring Clark, U. S. A., during his period of service in France, the Rev. Wythe Leigh Kinsolving, M. A., B. D., lately returned from the war zone in Europe. Mr. Kinsolving went to France as a Y. M. C. A. expeditionary secretary, returning two months ago, since which time the minister has been engaged in making patriotic addresses. Epitome of Ministry. Since the completion of his education in 1906 Mr. Kinsolving has hejd several important charges, the first being the Church of the Epiphany, in Richmond, Va., 1906-1909. Later, until 1911, he was in charge of St. George's church, at Perryman, Md. One year was spent in charge of Mount -Calvary, St. Louis. After this, Trinity church, Winchester, and St. Barnabas, Tullahoma for three years preceded his call to the Church of the Holy Communion in New York City, where he served as assistant. Interest attaches to the fact that Mr. Kinsolving was educated in the south. A course in the Episcopal High school in Virginia in 1897; his M. A. degree in the University of Virginia in 1902, his B. D. in the Theological Seminary of Virginia in 1906 forms the roster. Rev. Kinsolving is the youngest of six sons of Rev. O. A. Kinsolving, for fifty years a clergyman of Virginia. He is an uncle of Rev. W. O. Kinsolving, of Calvary church, Summit, N. J., and a cousin of Bishop Otey, first bishop of Tennessee. 63 — LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 021 544 930 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 021 544 930