They are slightly uncouth in several matters, these _Feldpastoren_, and
would not quite suit sundry metropolitan charges one wots of. They do not
wear gloves, nor are they addicted to scent on their pocket-handkerchiefs.
Their boots are too often like boats, and when they are mounted there is
frequently visible an interval of more or less dusky stocking between the
boot-top and the trouser-leg. They slobber stertorously in the consumption
of soup, and cut their meat with a square-elbowed energy of determination
that might make one think that they had vanquished the Evil One and had
him down there under their knife and fork. But they are simple-hearted and
valiant servants of their Master. Who was it, in the bullet-storm that
swept the slope of Woerth, from facing which the stout hearts of the
fighting men blenched and quailed, that there walked quietly into it, to
speak words of peace and consolation to the dying men whom that terrible
storm had beaten down? A smooth-faced stripling with the _Feldpastor's_
badge on his arm, the gallant Christian son of an eminent Prussian divine,
Dr. Krummacher of Berlin. At one of the battles (I forget which) a pastor
came to fill a grave, not to consecrate it. Shall I ever forget the
unswerving hurry to the front of Kummer's divisional chaplain when the
_Landwehrleute_, his flock, were going down in their ranks as they held
with stubbornness unto death the villages in front of Maizieres les Metz?
Let the _Feldpastoren_ slobber and welcome, say I, while they gild their
slobbering with such devotion as this! But there must be times and seasons
when Herr Pastor is not at hand; nor can the ministration of any pastor
stand in the stead of private prayer. The German soldier's simple needs in
this matter are not disregarded. Each man is served out when he gets his
kit with a tiny gray volume less than quarter the size of this page, the
title of which is _Gebetbuch fuer Soldaten_--the Soldier's Prayer-Book. It
is supplied from the Berlin depot of the Head Society for the Promotion of
Christian Knowledge in Germany, and it is a compendium of simple war