realize when they
joined the Army that they were going to fight for God? Did the
country, the Government ever tell them so? Oh, don't mistake me. I am
a private soldier, and I've lived with the Tommies for a long time, and
I know what kind of chaps they are. A finer lot of fellows never
lived. Braver than lions, and as tender as women many of them; but
does God count with the great bulk of them? Is Tommy filled with a
passion for God? Is he made to feel the necessity of God? Does Tommy
depend primarily on God for victory?'

'Well, do we depend on God for victory?' I asked.

'If God is not with us we are lost!' he said solemnly. 'And that's our
trouble. I've read a good many of our English papers, our leading
daily papers, and one might think from reading them that either there
was no God, or that He didn't count. "How are we to win this war, and
crush Germanism?" is the cry, and the answer of the British Government
and of the British press is, "Big guns, mountains of munitions,
conscription, national service, big battalions, and still more big
battalions!"'

'Well, isn't that the only way to win? What can we do without these
things?' I asked.

'Big guns by all means. Mountains of munitions certainly, and all the
other things; but they are not enough. If we forget God, we are lost.
And because we do not seek the help of God, we lose a great part of our
driving power.'

He was in deadly earnest. To him Christianity, religion was not some
formal thing, it was a great vital reality. He could not understand
faith in God, without seeking Him and depending on Him.

'We have chaplains,' I urged. 'We are supposed to be a Christian
people.'

'Yes, but do we depend on God? Do we seek Him humbly? When Tommy goes
into battle, does he go into it like Cromwell's soldiers determined to
fight in God's strength? Oh, yes, Tommy is a grand fellow, take him as
a whole, and there are tens of thousands of fine Christians in the
Army. But in the main Tommy is a fatalist; he does not pray, he does
not depend on God. I tell you, if this battle of the Somme were fought
in the strength of God, the Germans would have fled like sheep.'

'That's all nonsense,' I laughed. 'We can destroy brute force only by
brute force.'

'That's the German creed,' he cried, 'and that creed will be their
damnation.'

'No,' I said, more for the sake of argument than because I believed it,
'we shall beat them because we are better me