oo ¥ po Emme Sener-- | THE FAITH By H. F. Gadsby ARTICLE the returned Has he any re- What religion will soldier bring back? ligion at all? The classic story at the front is that Bill says to Tom: "If your num- ber's on it you get it, and that's all there's to it. You don't die before your time." To which Tom replies: "Well, if that's so go and bring in that German helmet out there in No Man's Land." Of course Bill renegs. He does not spring over the top and say: 'Here goes nothing." His fatalism does not take him that far. Predes tination has its limits. One's doom overtakes one. One does not go out to meet it. As a matter of fact, Bill's fatalism is a bluff. So are his ribald songs, his loose stories and his sanguinary language. With them he masks a great faith and a firm hold on the verities. He hig spent many an honest hour questioning his soul with Death only a dozen steps away, and he bas come to certain. inevitable corerusions. These conclusions are his religion---they bring him within touching distance of The Sermon on the Mount. His religion is not one of metaphysics and dogmas--it is one of deeds. © Serxice Is its root Out of all this welter of hate and blood Bill has formed his idea of God--and that God is a Ged of love not the German God who is ' the slaughter-stained Odin, renamed for advertising purposes, the State. Bill's 'God is not the Kaiser's Goll---not the God of that blasphemous. allocution "Me und Gott"--nor yet of thal egually blasphemous attitude "You know me, Allah." Bill's God is the 'good, kind, fatherly God his mother taught him to pray to the God who moves in a mysterious way, which is sometimes hard to explain, but whe in the long run takes ¢are of his chil- dren. Bill himself, bding for the most part inarticulate. may not be able tc define what his God is, but he know: Him and feels His presence. This 30d of his may not be on Bill's lips but he is in his heart of hearts. He is much too sacred to be . talked abont. Bill understands God better than he did before the war. * He under: stands God because he has put him self on God's plane--by the great ness of his sacrifice. God so loved the world that he gave His only be gotten Son to save it. Thése boys of ours so loved the world that they gave their own lives for it. Bill's faith and his work hand in hand Greatér.lova than this hath no man that he lay down his life for. his friend. EN We were in the Rabit of complain ing that courage and chivalry and the other flowers of the noblest vir tues had An: this cries, mer: cenary and unspiritual age, and ye! when Calvary became worth repeat ing for. the first time in two thous 'and years, Bill and millions of ob scure saviours Ike him took up the cross to rescue and confirm the Bro therhood of Man. They loved us sc much that they submitted to be cru cified Tor us. Crucified ? Yes, a thousand times with wounds, pifns torments, manglings, such as Chris! himself did not suffer. And they were erucified for like reasons--{o) love. Love of mankind, of freedom of home, of kin, of country" All the padres whom I interviewed at the fromt were of the opinion that the soldier' religion was broadly speaking "more tolerance." They themselves had experienced this strange new religion of pardoning the other fellow's mistakes because his heart was right. Some of them even said that when they come back to Canada they would think less o! creed and more of conduct than hac heen their custom. One of them indeed an active member of the Lord's Day Alliance, told me that his mind had been opened and that he now saw no harm in Sunday basebal! and other recreations, so long as they were not pursued for gain and one had gone ter church in the morning Thus do Bill, and the padre get to: gether at long Iast--Bill was human before, the padre has become 80 but it todk a war to do it. Talking of padres * want to sa) that Bill has always preferred the old or middle aged padres to the young ones. The young ones he did not feel at home with---they were too much of Nis own age to have earned a title to reverencs. @ old ones he respected om account of thelr years, their good advice and. thei worldly wisdom. Good advice and worldly wisdom are the fruits of ex- apience and naturally the older pa- had the edge on the younger one when it came to talking to Bill dike a father. ! " "Whit they ask or me," said onc of tis mont loved lind venerable at all the chap sympathy wit their home rr rl parting letter 40 th her or the sweetheart they hi : Just & note to thinking of them out. No death-bed They had NO. X, long as it means doing what is hon- est and right. The Vesture of word and doctrine is of small importance ~it is the spirit that counts This tolerance for all believers, which is Brotherly love based on close inspection under trying circum stances, should take much of the bitterness out of our party politics. it should sweeten our patriotism which is another form of love namely that of country. The outstanding fact of Bill's reli- gion is that he has conquered fear. He has conquered fear for a very goad reason. Perfect love easeth out fear and Bill's love, which lea him to risk his life for the freedom and happiness of humanity, is as well-nigh perfect as earthly love can be. Having conquered fear, Bill is not to be frightened by those old ho- gies Death and Hell, He has flout- ed Death a dozen, yes a hundred times. Every time he went gyer the top he tweaked. Death's nose. = Every day he spent in the trenches he chal- We --, I Pathephone No, Price $79.50 HE BRINGS | DAILY THE nged Death to come and have it out ith him * The possibility--the high probabil- y indeed--of Death was his hourly rtion. In the midst of Death he { was in Ife. And so he ceased to fear it After all it was the pain of «dying, not death, that he had dread- i ind even that was staled by cus- With thousands all around sustaining their last agonies j with fortitude who was he not to {play the man? As for Hell he had been with it for four years, had gone { up to its mouth, had been in its very jaws, and had come out again and again. And no Hell the theologians can invent ean be worse than the Hell the Hun created. All of which goes to show that if Bill needs leading upward it is not Death and Hell that will scare him into the road of righteousness. It the preacher wants to reach Bill he will talk to him not of Death, Hell and Hereafter, but of Life, Heaven and Here, Having seen so much Hel lon earth for the last four years, Bill will naturally want to see a lit- tle Heaven in the same place. In fact, he can stand all the Heaven a good government can crowd into the remainder of his natural life in Can- ada And he will want a Govern- ment that slams that way---an hon est, fearless, independent government that says what it means and does what it promises. Used as he is to the frank conversation of the guns-- which did not dissemble their senti- fed {him ments--Bill will expect no less can- - lie man of the day {Straddlers anc e steppers will get short shrift fr Bill, 'who has been trained for 'four years in open argu- ment Hansard will be a dively. book to read when Bill's religion begins to have its effect on party politics. The naked truth, only slightly tattooed for public irance, will be the or- der of tli ay; and shuftling, quib- bling and wind jamming will he the exception what you have to say and quit--as the guns did-- that will be Bill's rule of debate. The member of Parliament who uses the last half of a sentence to balance the first--the idea being to preserve a stable equilibrium which will of- fend nobody---becomes a dwindling figure as soon as the returned soldier vote gets its work in. The church too needs to see that its sheep's cloth- ing is not used by rich wolves In the pews. Church membership will not be the fashionable cloak for greed and hypocrisy that it was before Bill came back. The war did one great service for Canada-----it classified --and that classification. good or bad, brave or coward, selfish or gen- erous, we wil not forget for many years to come We have most of the profiteers spotted. Bill will not be long home before he will get wise to them too. As a working man who has work- ed, at 'a pinch, twenty-four hours a day and seven days at a time--and no chance to watch the clock - or {dor from the Say strike for higher pay---Bill will have Ne ~ Period Design Pathephone "LOVIS XVI" Price $135.00 in Mahogany a BRITISH WHIG, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1918. the right sort of sympathy with la- 1 think he will favor co-opera- in danger, hard- having been ber . tion---co-operation ship, work and pleasur¢ > his long suit for four years. Co- operation means unselfishness; 'it means sharing Under the stern tutelage of war, Bill has learned 't&] share every thing with his comrades except perhaps his love affairs. I do not believe that he will ela- mor for the socialization of industry in Canada. That is not his idea His notion of co-operation is a lively sympathy between employer and em- ployed--a considerate task master who will assign a fair task, and pay a fair wage, which will include a margin for old age and unemploy- ment. An understanding co-opera- tion as between man and man---not a sullen truce as between satrap and serf. There will be masters and men, of course--but the men ~will claim the right to an old age, free from the shadow of the poor house, The wages will 'have to take, care of that. There is no Bolshevism among the soldiers at the front--they are too good Canadians for = that--but this does not. mean 'that Bolshevism is lacking if they receive unfair treat- ment. Bill's religion gives a great place to freedom and democracy. He has seen so much of the bad, mad work of kings that he will fling all of them --except such as are hereditary pre- sidents, into the bottomless pit. The i UPSET? f--_.. PAGE THIRTEEN Stomach Feels Fine! No Indigestion, Gases or Acidity Stomach upset? Belching acids, gases and sour food? Instant relief awaits you. The moment Pape's Diapepsin reaches the stomach all the indiges- tion, dyspepsia, gases, heartburn and sourness vanish. No 'waiting! Magic! Don't suffer! 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