e large hall of one of those Y.M.C.A. huts well filled night after
night for evening prayers, and those were not only men who remained
in the hall drinking tea or playing games, but many others who came
in specially for prayers. A choir gathered round the piano, eager to
sing the evening hymn. The hush during the saying of a few simple
prayers was unmistakably devotional. It was impossible to doubt that
when the benediction fell upon those bowed heads there did abide
something of the peace which passeth all understanding and that
hearts were lifted up unto the Lord.

There was, unfortunately, a certain amount of jealousy at one time
between the Y.M.C.A. workers and the recognised army chaplains. I
think that this is passing away. But when I first went to France the
relations between the two organisations in no way suggested the
ointment which ran down Aaron's beard to the skirts of his garment,
the Psalmist's symbol of the unity in which brethren dwelt together.

The Y.M.C.A. workers were perhaps a little prickly. The men among
them, often Free Church ministers, seemed on the lookout for the sort
of snubs which Nonconformists often receive from the Anglican clergy
at home. The chaplains, especially the Church of England chaplains,
appeared to think that they ought to conduct all religious services
in the Y.M.C.A. huts. This was unreasonable. If the Church of England
had been awake to her opportunity in the early days of the war she
could have built church huts all over northern France and run them on
her own lines. She missed her chance, not having among her leaders
any man of the energy and foresight of Sir A. Yapp.

The Church Army has done much during the last years; but it has been
the making up of leeway. The Church once might have occupied the
position held by the Y.M.C.A. She failed to rise to the occasion. Her
officers, the military chaplains, had no fair cause of complaint when
they found that they could not straightway enter into the fruits of
other men's labour.

But the little jealousy which existed between the chaplains and the
Y.M.C.A. was passing away while I was in France, has now, perhaps,
entirely disappeared. The war has done little good, that I ever could
discover, to any one, but it has delivered the souls of the Church of
England clergy who went out to France from the worst form of
ecclesiastical snobbery. There are few of those who tried to work in
the army who preserve the spirit of social su