Early in his military career the young ministers of the Gospel were
provided with small diaries, in which they might record the dying
messages of the wounded. Then came disillusion, and they found the dying
had no messages to send; they are at peace, the wonderful peace that
precedes the final dissolution, and all they ask is to be left alone.

So is it to be wondered at, that men with imagination, men like Furze,
the Bishop of Pretoria, saw in a vision clear that the padre's job lay
with the living and not with the dying, that he could point the way by
the example of a splendid life with the soldier, far better than by a
hundred discourses, as an officer, from the far detachment of the
pulpit. Thus was the idea conceived and so was the experiment carried
out. And all of us who were in German East Africa can vouch for the
splendid results of these excellent examples. For the private soldier
saw that his fellow-soldier, handicapped as he was by being a parson,
could know his job and do his job as a soldier better than Tommy could
himself. To his surprise, he found that here was a man who could make
himself intelligible without prefixing a flaming adjective when he asked
his pal to pass the jam. Here was a N.C.O., a real good fellow too, who
could give an order and point a moral without the use of a blistering
oath; a man who was a man, cool under fire, ready for any dangerous
venture, cheerful always, never grousing, always generous and open as a
soldier should be, never preaching, never openly praying, never asking
men to do what he would not do himself. Can you wonder that Tommy
understood, and, understanding, copied this example?

When he saw a man inspired by some inward Spirit that made him careless
of danger, contemptuous of death, fulfilling all the Soldier's
requirements in the way of manhood, he knew quite well that some Divine
inward fire upheld this once despised follower of Christ. Then lo! the