-MATE OF MANY YEARS.

PREFACE

This little record bears the impress of the character of its
writer--simple, manly, open-hearted towards man, and devout towards God.

I have read a great part of it with keen interest. Written without
strain, from fresh personal experience, and with great sympathy for the
officers and men of our Army, it gives a very lively picture of a
chaplain's work at the Front, and the scenes and conditions under which
it is done.

Mr. Kennedy's commanding stature, and fine physical manhood, gave him
advantages which his fine character and genial nature used, by God's
grace, to the best effect.

Having known him, and admired him from the time when I admitted him to
Priest's Orders in South London, down to the day when at my request he
addressed our Diocesan Conference upon the challenge given to the Church
by the war, and the claims and needs of the men of our Army returning
from the Front,--a subject on which he glowed with eagerness,--it is a
happiness to me to bespeak for his words an attention which will
certainly be its own reward.

I trust the book may do a little to lessen the loss which (to human
vision) the best interests of our country and her people have suffered
by his early and unexpected death.

EDW. WINTON.

FARNHAM CASTLE,
_November, 1915._

EDITOR'S NOTE

Chaplain Major E.J. Kennedy, the writer of this little book, returned to
his parish of St. John the Evangelist, Boscombe, in September 1915,
having completed his year's service with the Expeditionary Force. Fired
with a deep sense of the need of rousing the Home Church and Land to a
clearer realization of the spiritual needs of 'Our Men' and armed with
the approval of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the approval and
consent of his Diocesan, he determined to spend a certain amount of his
time in the strenuous work of lecturing up and down the country, in
addition to his many parochial duties. Immediately on his return he
plunged into this work, without taking any rest after his arduous
labours at the Front. On Tuesday, October 19, he was lecturing in
Liverpool and Birkenhead. On Wednesday he was taken ill, and on Thursday
he returned home. On the following Monday he succumbed to the disease
which doubtless he contracted at the Front.

In the passing of Major Kennedy the Church and Nation have lost a man
who could ill be spared. So simple in his faith, so fearless and
powe