Welsh Journals

conflict of the hour. We must be free or die who speak the tongue that Shakespeare spake. A real agent in swelling the enemy arrogance has been the familiar German boast that Shakespeare is more their possession than ours. Mr. Bullen's life work has been one answer. We hope the response to our appeal will be another. Let us not doubt that what- THE BATTALION OF PREACHERS YES," continued the old deacon, one of the most significant things so far as Wales is concerned in this war is this formation of a R.A.M.C. battalion of Welsh ministers." I muttered something to the effect that it must be a strange conglomeration, that battalion, and some flippant hazards that were it not for military discipline, the battalion would fall to pieces within a week, and the several ministers be wending their way back to their several flocks to exhort them to the Christian virtues of meekness, mildness and toleration. There is something in what you say," he an- swered in his gentle manner. Military discipline will undoubtedly do each of them good individually to the lot of them, as a mass, it will do more good. It will demonstrate to them what they have been trying to demonstrate to others,-the value of obedience, of faith, of patience, of bowing humbly to a higher authority. That will not be lost upon them when they return, with Peace, to their vocation. But that particular aspect was not the one I had in mind at the moment." I ventured to anticipate the aspect he had in mind by suggesting that they would acquire more worldly wisdom, and an appreciation of the fact that there was more good in the world than the churches and chapels hold. He took me up gravely. Yes, they will un- doubtedly acquire a lot of what you term worldly wisdom, some of which will do them good and some of which will do them harm. But they will also learn, I think, a higher kind of spiritual wisdom than would ever in the ordinary course come to them. As the brotherhood of man becomes more and more apparent to them, so will the sisterhood of the Churches. You need not interrupt by saying that the brotherhood of man and the sisterhood of the churches has been preached by them. What I want to insist on is that there is a difference between preaching a theory and preaching a fact that has seared itself on one's consciousness. None of these ever is worthy of the historic soul of a nation does indeed sustain its arms, and that the scholar may help the soldier unawares." To that every pious bookman will say heartily Amen Ernest Rhys. men would acknowledge to you before the war that they did not regard the churches as sisters-and yet, can you or anyone else say that the ministers of the various denominations in rural Wales have regarded themselves as married to members of the same family ? They have met one another, of course, and often on friendly terms but there has always been an alien feeling, tenuous no doubt, but still dis- tinctly alien and subtly antagonistic when they did meet. Mind you, I am not saying it is wholly the fault of the ministers to a great extent, it is a heritage of the past, a heritage which is sedulously cherished by certain sections of worshippers, by separate colleges, separate hymn-books, separate commentaries, separate religious weeklies, and all the divisive machinery of sectarianism. "You think I'm inclined to be bitter? Well, it is not exactly that. It's simply a release of feelings now that I know that Wales is saved from such a future. You can afford to say more bitter things than that about your doom, when you have escaped it. You are more or less tongue-tied by the mere fear of it, by the mere uselessness of words, before- hand. And so, if you hear me say anything which you may consider bitter, put it down rather to my joy in the future, rather than to the gall of an old man. But to come back. These men who have now and again met one another will now be forced to fraternise, and that in a very real sense, with one another. You know quite well what it means to work day in day out with men who do not see eye to eye with you, whose political leanings, whose social outlook, whose religious tenets are different from your own. Amongst your first acquisitions are toleration and a broader outlook on life." I managed to squeeze in an interpolation claiming previous ownership in the substance of the remark. "Agreed," he went on. "But I am going further than you in its application. Every soldier, no matter what his nationality, be he ally or enemy, is going to learn a lot from this war. No country is going to be the same after this upheaval and that