DISCUSSION.

The Right Rev. JOHN WORDSWORTH, D.D., Lord Bishop of Salisbury.

The MS. of this Speech was not received in time for insertion here, and appears in Appendix A.

The Rev. FREDERICK REICHARDT.

I THOUGHT You would like to know what I can tell you from my own experience of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in this particular work. The society sent me out to Madras about six years ago. They wanted a native ministry to be trained for the south of India, and I went there and found a college already flourishing. It had been raised to a very high standard by my predecessor, Dr. Kennett, and I found there a number of young men studying for the ministry, whom, I venture to say, even before so large and critical a company as the present, were in every way, morally as well as intellectually, worthy of sitting as brethren, and of going forth as missionaries, of our Church. Whilst holding the office of president of the college, there were twelve men sent from it to the Cambridge examinations for Holy Orders. Out of the twelve, seven were returned in the first place, four were returned in the second place, and only one did not succeed in passing. I say that sets at once at rest the fact that Indians are capable, so far as intellectual power goes, of managing their own spiritual affairs. I say this because we want you to help us to give the people a greater interest in their own Church than they possess at present. It is not fair for us to go and train those pastors for the native congregations, and place them altogether in a subordinate position. If they are worthy of being ordained to the priesthood of our Church, let them be the leaders of their congregations. This is a very crucial point in the missions in India. I know native priests, and have sat side by side with them, and talked over their difficulties, and I know this is a sore point in their hearts-that you do not trust them sufficiently in the matter of being leaders of their own people. We have been told there is no missionary bishop in India. Now, I should not advocate native missionary bishops, for I do not know a man whom I would like to see a native bishop, because the Church in India is simply at a starting-point. It is a parochial Church. The natives

are starting to look after their own people, and it is wrong for the Church in India to fritter away its energy in mere organization. When India gets hold of Christianity, she will appreciate it far more than any other people. When India is once moved, it will rapidly settle down and enjoy the Gospel for itself.

The Right Rev. E. J. INGHAM, Bishop of Sierra Leone.

I HAVE the great advantage of saying the last word to a very much more select audience than was present at an earlier part of the evening. I take my name from a colony which will always be associated in history with the beginning of an attempt to right a great wrong, and also with the revival of missionary zeal in our Church of England. It was the scene also of the labours of the first missionaries that the Church Missionary Society ever sent into heathendom. I am, I regret to say, the sixth bishop in only forty years. Sierra Leone is consequently spoken of as being the "forlorn hope" of the Church. Experience has proved to me that it is not a forlorn hope, that it is a great hope of the Church, that it is a great centre for the work of the Church, that it is a great centre for work among heathens, Mohammedans, and the scene of a self-supporting native church. You hear of open doors. Let us never forget that behind all the developments now being witnessed in Africa, were either Church of England missionaries themselves on the East Coast fifty years ago, or

founders of such a society as the Church Missionary Society about one hundred years ago. These men were honoured to give the first impetus. And I cannot think that a door has been opened in Uganda simply to be closed again. I cannot believe that the four Crown colonies that I superintend on the West Coast of Africa will be allowed to be doors merely to let into the pitiable interior Hamburg rum, gin, and gunpowder. As to the Church there, Christianity has at least sufficiently taken root on the West Coast that our fellow native Churchmen there do value their ministries, and support them out of their own pockets extremely well. Yes, and we maintain discipline in these churches. You have heard a great deal about our alleged immorality. Yes, we have a great deal of immorality, but if you people in England lived in closest contact with aboriginal conditions as the people out there do, you would find the struggle to rise far greater than you think. But we do maintain discipline. For instance, we safe-guard Communion in a capital way. We issue cards a week before the monthly Communion, and no one is allowed to approach the holy table in the native churches unless they present the card to the wardens. Thus we fulfil the Rubric better than you do at home! The native pastorate is being rapidly developed. These men occupy parishes that white men have vacated for them, and they do the work very fairly well. The great point up to which we are working is for native clergymen to be ready and fitted to take the Gospel and carry it to the dark interior. But whilst waiting for those native agents, we are establishing some of those brotherhoods without vows, and sisterhoods without vows, of which the Dean of Wells spoke, in the form of the excellent educational work of Church Missionary Society ladies amongst our women and girls, in the form of hospital nursing and training of African women thereto, and in the form of small bands of Christian artisans for technical education, by which we are aiming to meet the needs of the moment.

The Right Rev. the CHAIRMAN.

We have heard to-night how God has blessed our work, let us sing to Him our hymn of thanksgiving.

NEW HALL.

THURSDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 6TH, 1892.

LORD WILLIAM SEYMOUR in the Chair.

THE DUTY OF THE CHURCH TOWARDS
SOLDIERS.

PAPERS.

Field-Marshal Sir LINTORN SIMMONS, G.C.B., G.C.M.G. ALTHOUGH quite unequal to the task of doing justice to so important a subject, I have undertaken to read this paper at the earnest request of my friend the Chaplain-General, and in obedience to his orders as the spiritual chief of the Church of England in the Army. In considering the question of "The Duty of the Church towards the Army," it is necessary, in order to establish its importance, that the magnitude of the Army and the peculiarities of its constitution should be clearly understood.

I have been very much shocked by reading an extract from a speech made not very long ago by the secretary of a society, the object of which is to promote the love and knowledge of Jesus Christ among soldiers, in which he says "that the majority of men in the Army are godless and graceless, living only for time, and ignoring the claims of the Gospel." This reminds me of an episode which happened many years ago. Some dear old ladies, who had passed the greater part of their lives in a village of one of our agricultural counties, were quite shocked that I should take my family to Aldershot, where I was then quartered, because of the notoriously vicious nature of camp life, and the scenes to which they would be exposed. I induced them, however, to come and witness for themselves the life we were leading amidst these dreadful surroundings. The result was, that they returned to their home so deeply impressed that they compared the order, regularity, and quiet of the camp favourably with the state of their own village.

I have brought these opinions prominently to your notice because I believe they are not uncommon, and I wish you to understand at the outset that I do not think it necessary to paint the Army black, in order to induce you to take an interest in it; and, moreover, although it is with sorrow that it must be acknowledged that soldiers, like all other men, are prone to evil, and very many, far too many, are guilty of heinous sins, they are not, so far as my experience goes, worse than their fellow-men, and can certainly not be denounced, as a body, as godless.

With a view to giving some idea of the vast importance of the subject, I would wish you to realize the fact that the number of enlisted men serving in the Army, according to the last published returns, was 203,976, and of officers 7,614, giving a total of 211,590 men, who are accompanied by probably not less than 30,000 women and children. Of this number, 137,764 enlisted men, or 678 per 1,000, with about 20,000 women and children, are members of the Church of England; of the remainder, 63,539, or 313 per 1,000, are either Roman Catholics

or Protestants of other denominations than the Church of England, while a small contingent of 2,673, or 13 per 1,000, are either Mohammedans, Hindoos, or not accounted for. It is probable also that not less than 6,000 officers are members of the Church of England. Considering that all this large body of Christians, whatever may be their persuasion, are compelled to attend Divine service every Sunday, unless prevented by their military duties, by sickness, or by being on leave visiting their friends, I think it must be acknowledged that the term godless cannot be applied to the regular Army; and although there can be no doubt that far too many are great sinners, it would have been more consistent with the teaching of the Master not to pass judgment on the majority as graceless.

To maintain this large Army under the present system of short service, which has been in operation since 1870, and is, therefore, now fully developed, the number of men enlisted in 1891, the last year for which complete returns have been published, was 36,003, while the number who returned to civil life was 32,853. If it be assumed, which may fairly be done, that the proportion of the different denominations among these men was the same as among the Army at large, we find that 24,336 members of the Church of England joined the Army, while 22,208 returned to civil occupations.

The general result, then, is that the Army contains upwards of 137,000 enlisted men and 6,000 officers, who are professed members of the Church of England, with probably not less than 20,000 women and children; that it receives from the masses about 24,000, and sends back to civil life about 22,000 professing Churchmen every year, as to whom the Church may well ask herself whether their life in the Army has tended to their moral and religious advancement, or the reverse, and what she has done, or is doing, for their spiritual edification and care.

This question is one of increasing importance, because, chiefly owing to the diminution in the numbers of Irish who enter the ranks, Churchmen in the Army have increased nearly 4 per cent. during the last ten years, and appear to be steadily increasing.

In dealing with the question of the duty of the Church towards the Army, it is well to consider the class of men who enlist :

(1) There are a limited number of young men of what may be described as the middle class, who, having failed in their examinations to enter the Army as officers, or not having had a favourable opening in some other walk of life, enter the Army as private soldiers, in the hope, that by steady conduct and attention to duty, they may speedily attain non-commissioned rank, and eventually become commissioned officers. These are few in number, but they have such trials to go through in their training, and in the rough society and surroundings to which they are exposed, that many after a few weeks induce their friends to purchase their discharges; those, however, who struggle on and remain, form a valuable element, and must influence their comrades by softening their manners, if in no other way. As an example of the influence of comrades, I remember well, when swearing was more common than it is now-a-days, and was even thought manly by many, the effect of the quiet reproach of an officer of a few years standing, who had learnt better things, and whenever he heard an oath, used quietly to seek an

opportunity and observe, "Could you not have expressed yourself equally to the point, but with a little less emphasis?" The consistent Christian character of this young officer was so thoroughly respected that bad language entirely ceased in his presence, and except on very rare occasions was never heard among the officers at any other time.

(2) There are also young men of the artisan class, and of the better educated among the agricultural classes, who enlist for a limited period with the intention of making a career in the Army, if upon experience they find it suits them, with the prospect of returning to civil life at the age of forty or thereabouts with a pension, which will not only supplement their earnings so long as they are able to work, but will support them in comparative independence in old age. These are some of the most valuable recruits that enter the Army, many of them having been well brought up, and having probably received religious instruction in Sunday Schools.

(3) A considerable number of recruits also come from the agricultural classes, possessed of little education, but honest, and for the most part more or less instructed in the principles of their religion. These make good and reliable soldiers, but are frequently not sufficiently educated for promotion to non-commissioned rank.

(4) There are also a certain number of ne'er-do-wells, who are a most mischievous lot, to whom discipline is irksome, who are constantly in trouble or under punishment, and eventually desert or are discharged for misconduct. These are the enemies of all religion and morality, and by their bold and ribald jeers, put to a severe test the courage of the right-minded, well-behaved lad, who, in many instances, would be thankful for a quiet secluded corner, secure from their presence, if such could be found, where he might recall his home, commune with himself, and bend his knees in prayer to God.

(5) And lastly, a mass of recruits come from the large towns, many of them having migrated from rural districts in the hope of bettering themselves; the superabundance of labour renders it difficult for them to obtain a living; they enlist, rather than sink into criminal acts, for the supply of the means of existence. Many of these are very fairly instructed; the hardships they have undergone have given them knowledge of the world under unfavourable conditions, and it is much to their credit that, although they may not have refined principles of morality, they still possess such a sense of moral right, that they have not brought themselves under the clutches of the law. Many, no doubt, have left their homes because of offences, which have made them feel shame in the presence of parents and relatives, whose feelings they may have outraged, but with regard to whom, the very fact of their shame is a proof that they have a perception of right and wrong, in very many cases based upon the knowledge they have been taught at their mother's knee, or in the Sunday school.

It is of this heterogeneous material that the army is composed. Every recruit being separated from his old associations, loses the restraint due to the presence of parents, or to the society of relations or friends, and enters upon an entirely new life, which he lives in common with other recruits, some twenty of whom occupy the same room, in which they take their meals, sleep and dress, and where alone they can draw near to God morning and evening in prayer. It is this common life which