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light to Vienna, plosive bombs, be

classed among the Decadents! At least he has outlived that temporary phase. There is nothing suggestive of Decadence rough the blue mat in a flight to and from Vienna through seven hundred miles of war? For a pa air. The critics have said of him that he is supreme in his He flew over art, but along the lower levels; that his genius does not carry ed leaflets. Chim to the holy places and to the sanctuaries of life; that he is constancy! an idealist only of what is seen and heard. But they grant him and the Col Sana magical style, an irresistible eloquence, a wondrous color, and nd joy is imminen a flaming passion, and since Italy entered the war he has placed all these gifts unreservedly at the service of the land which is still a great mother of men. What our stolid British authorities would have done with a d'Annunzio, if one had happened to be born among us, we do not know. Nor will we speculate. But happy Italy! whose supreme living master of the spoken or, and left hating word is permitted to live poetry,' as d'Annunzio has been living it, and to thrill with glorious bursts of patriotic song Italian Navy laugh other nations than his own." ays ready to dare

the day will con on yet another when three motra ay into the nar

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every moments with conscions

has a picture "Moreover,

GERMAN WAR-SLANG

T IS SAID THAT GERMANS listening in on the lines of the American forces in some sectors would think that the Americans were an army of lunatics, granting that the ist who lives eavesdroppers had only a knowledge of straight English. The the sense of anguage overheard is a deliberate fabrication and makes sheer tonsense without the key. It is intended to lead "Heinie" British affair stray. This is not, of course, the language of slang, which grows brugge! The Ep spontaneously and is full of imaginative color. The German, derline the oo, has also evolved a language since the war began, and a parting shot: crutiny of the new words gives an interesting insight into the sychology of the inventors. The largest collection of these ords has been made by a Frenchman, Mr. René Delcourt, Italy of d'Am field at the beterpreter of the first class and regional interpreter of the when he sough-leventh region. His accumulations, made from prisoners and not as a jun om war-time newspapers and books, is published in Paris under ment. If title which may be translated as "Expressions of German and passenger, ind ustrian Slang." Some weeks ago we gave in this department a superb recor me specimens of "gun slang"; but from the new work Mr. poet, who, whe had passed olomon Eagle has gleaned for The New Statesman (London) D'Annunzio any curious terms in this and in other fields. The book, we e told, divides its subject matter into (1) French Slang, (2) rewar Barrack Slang, (3) Student Slang, (4) Popular Ex

of age, and other day: E

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War Depots. Mr. Eagle says:

"We begin, for instance, with surnames for various branches the service. The chasseur is 'der Quak-Quak'; telephonists e 'Bruder von der Quasselstrippe' (chatter-line); automolists are 'Stinksacke' and 'Benzinhusaren.' Engineers are speak out the lled, among other things, 'Stinktiere,' 'Stachelschweine,' and that are of rdmännchen'; the gunners are 'die Bummsköpfe.' There a special name for Landsturmers with many children: 'Armeoferanten' (army contractors), and for men in the clothing fice there is the cumbersome title of 'Nähmaschinen gewehbteilung.' Among equipment slang is 'der Maulkorb' (jaw

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surely find that sket) for the gas-mask, and 'die Gewittertulpe' (storm-tulip) n still hung in the icers include 'der Kommissjesus' for chaplain and 'Lieber e war as well worth the steel helmet; and the numerous nicknames for superior e burning words 1 tt' for lieutenant. The Iron Cross is 'das Vereinabzeichen.' rofound influencerror). Entente airmen are 'die Habichte' (the hawks), and

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Zeppelin is known as England's Schrecken' (England's

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aission to be an exa keep bright the

r own modern whiz-bang' and older 'pompom' are put in
shade by Ratsche-bum,' 'Huhle-huhle,' and others. Our

e of his country rchie' is known as a 'Wau-Wau'; and 'die Bulldogge,' sur-
eney by hope long zingly, is nothing English, but an Italian gun in southern
o the Italian na rol. The many names for a machine gun include 'alte
in the 'Inder-affeemühle' (coffee-mill), a list which illustrates both German
n a perpetual bergosche' (gossiping hag), Totenorgel' (death-organ),
in certain quarta ähmaschine' (mowing-machine), 'Fleischhackmaschine,' and
ists used to shake nanticism and German realism. A dugout is 'Heldenkeller'

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THE KIND OF RELIGION
RELIGION THE SOLDIERS WANT

UR FIGHTING MEN are keen to talk about religion, says a chaplain who has seen service with them; but they want the real kind of talk. "You can not fool the boys with pulpit camouflage," he avers, and backs this up by the statement that boys will leave a "hut" in flocks if they are

unmanly actions which bring defeat, and praise the practical and virile virtues. As one chaplain_writes: 'I believe nearly all live partly by faith in a good God. I have never found men afraid to die, even tho they were afraid before battle. As to the standards by which they live, I should say they are the sanctions of group morality. They have very lax ideas about drunkenness and sexual irregularity, but they have very strict ideas about the sacredness of social obligations within the groups to which they belong. I would mention sheer fear of public opinion as one of the great weaknesses of the men. They would rather be in the fashion than be right. And most of them have been hardened-tho not necessarily in a bad sense.""

A letter from a son to his mother published in the New York Sun may give some insight into the religious status of this majority. The writer is obviously of the Catholic faith:

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DEAR MOTHER:

FRANCE.

Just back from the front line after ten days of it, and must say that I believe that only the prayers that have been said for my benefit are responsible for my coming out safe and sound. I was just missed by a hair by no less than a score of bullets, and a grenade broke a foot away from me and wounded a couple of men farther away than myself, but we succeeded in breaking up a raid without losing any of our men. I learned that ducking was useless, and now can keep my head up and let them whiz by as fast as they like, all the while saying that the enemy could not hit the side of a house from fifty yards away. . . . 'From the time night falls until dawn there's no telling what pain or blaze of death is waiting for those who tensely watch and listen; and if ever prayers were said with fervor and sincerity, those that I said just before going on watch at night and those at daybreak in thanksgiving for having been spared my life surely were. God was with me all right, and I seemed to know it, for I was not overawed or very nervous at any time and was confident I had been endowed with the courage and cool-headedness necessary to get me through safely.

not given the real thing. From such and other signs, writers on the religious status of the soldier come to conclusions of a various nature. Religious papers are hesitant about granting too much to appearances. Mr. G. Sherwood Eddy, writing in The Christian Work (New York), thinks that "one-tenth of the total number in the Army would probably be out-and-out Christians, strengthened by the severe discipline of war and living under distinctly Christian standards." He also finds that the "rotters," the men who "set the evil standards of the camp and whose conduct is almost altogether selfish and materialistic," number also about one-tenth. Between these two extremes are the great majority whom he finds it difficult to classify. He adds that if these men are not saved, they are at least salvable, and he thus appraises their "moral standards."

"They are not definitely Christian. Rather, they have a military, material standard of the type of a somewhat primitive social group. Their expressions unconsciously reveal their judgments. Their constant demand of one another is 'to play the game,' that is, to play fair and to do one's part in order to win the game for the good of all. Anything which harms, hinders, or endangers another, which brings suffering to one's fellows or defeat to one's side, is not playing the game. They condemn

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"I will drop a line to Fr. G. and tell him how much his prayers are appreciated.

"Your signature was as steady as ever. Well, that's the way to keep it, for what's the use of grieving for one far away but who is beside you in spirit all the time, acting upon what seems to be your good judgment.

"Tell the boys I'm the same guy as ever, but a lot tougher than my letters show, and I could put a German to sleep for keeps for just showing himself, and any further promotion I get will be for what I did under fire.

"With best wishes for good health and luck to all, I am your loving

"SON."

The revelations that clergymen and camp-workers are getting of the boys is regarded by the Minneapolis Journal as a “rediscovery of religion." And this rediscovery carries the hint to

church people that real religion, and not entertainment, is what is desired in the pulpit. The Journal also draws upon the experiences of an army chaplain:

"One of the religious services they had been accustomed to open with fifteen minutes of 'movies,' on the assumption that the boys would not attend if they were not entertained. Noticing an uneasiness during the 'movie' time, a preacher decided one day to try an experiment. He put the question to the men themselves:

"Boys, I'm here to tell you something about religion. Would you like to have me begin right away, or will you have a 'movie' film first?'

"A tall, raw-boned soldier boy stood up in the audience.

"To hell with "movies," he said. 'Let's hear about religion.' "Another less discriminating preacher was scheduled for a twenty-minute address. A splendid 'atmosphere' had been created for him. Half a dozen rousing hymns had been sung, a lad from the service had made a manly prayer for divine guidance and assistance, and the 'set-up' was perfect. Five hundred boys waited eagerly to hear something live and genuine, something that would brace and strengthen them in their homesickness and in their sacrifice.

"Then the preacher arose and spent the first ten minutes of his twenty in telling the boys funny stories! Funny stories for hearts that were yearning for reality! He was annoyed, too, because so many of the boys 'walked out on him.' They had not gone there to be entertained. They longed to hear the simple, sincere, and elemental truth of religion from a real man who had suffered, thought, and won his way to sincere conviction.

"This American chaplain finally came to the conclusion that his boys did not need to hear warnings about drink, gambling, or women. Those warnings came with better grace from other instructors. They did not go to service to be entertained or to be flattered and told how fine they were, or to listen to stories. These things they had heard till they were tired of them. Strange to say, what they did want was religion, the real things of the soul, without camouflage of any kind.

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THE GOLD VASE OF ST. CRÊME, From Soissons Cathedral, hammered down to fit a German pack.

Canadian official photograph. Copyrighted by Western Newspaper Union.

ANOTHER PILE OF CHURCH ORNAMENTS, Recaptured by Canadians before the Germans had time to dispatch them to the melting-pots. An altar-cloth was used to wrap them up.

go to church is because of the attempts to entertain them, to camouflage religion with stories, with professional singing, with 'social activities.' Personally he says that his preaching after the war will not be the same. He will tell the pure story of undefiled religion so far as in him is."

Methodists evidently share this Presbyterian sentiment, for the members of the Southern New Jersey Conference in Philadelphia resolved that they do not wish to be exempted from military service because of their calling. They pay tribute to the Government for offering them the chance to stand apart, and admit the need of "sustaining moral and spiritual forces at home." But their souls cry out "to share with all men of all professions full partnership in the task of making the world safe for democracy and little children." As Dr. Stewart puts it, "Better that there be no students for the ministry than that the sacred office be filled with moral and physical cowards." The Presbyterian Advance (Nashville), commenting on this, says:

"The fundamental need of the Church is not ministers, but men. It needs, badly needs, men who give themselves to the gospel ministry; but it does not need, and we are reasonably sure that it does not want, ministers who are not men. The Church should be exceedingly careful these days about accepting as candidates for the ministry any physically able men that come under the draft age. Let there be no encouragement of mollycoddlism."

The New York Tribune, noting the action of the Methodists. assures them that no one would say that the clergy have not been doing their share:

"The long list of Army chaplains and Y. M. C. A. workers would give the lie to such an assertion. Nor are these by any means without the danger - line, as many tales of simple heroism have shown. But the Methodist brethren are quite obviously very militant members of the church militant. That reference to 'little children' shows what they are thinking of. It is the dearest wish of their hearts to play a personal part in visiting vengeance upon the murderers and

ravishers who have sent hundreds of little children to death in sinking ships or open boats and who have made a shambles of Belgium. At ordinary times they would shrink from the shedding of blood. They would think it unbecoming to the cloth. They would not appeal to the example of Leonidas Polk, the fighting bishop of our Civil War, or to the remoter one of Henry Spencer, Bishop of Norwich, who took arms to put down Wat Tyler's rebellion. He met and defeated the rebels in the field, took them prisoners, gave them absolution, and sent them to the gallows.

"This combination of the spiritual and the secular arm was unusual even in those days, tho more than one medieval prelate served his time as a soldier. No doubt the fighting parsons of Philadelphia will be willing to pray for the Huns, but the character of their resolution seems to show that they are far more anxious to kill them."

The Monitor (Catholic, Newark) looks from quite another angle:

"We have not heard any great outcry on the part of the lay brethren against the desire of their brothers of the pulpit, nor have we read of any unusual accession of clerical-clad recruits to the Army or Navy. We imagine that the resolution was a piece of patriotic camouflage which accomplished its object by publication. It was hot air served in cold print.

"We find it difficult to imagine just how our Methodist brethren regard their vocation and mission. Has religion so declined in their churches that they no longer need any authoritative representatives? Is Methodism so dead that it will not hear the voice of the exhorter? Have the ministers lost faith in their own teachings, or have the people lost confidence in the ministers? Can the churches get along without the ministers? Or may the churches be as well closed as open?

"Suppose that all the Methodist ministers, appreciating the generous spirit of the South Jersey Conference, went to the war as common soldiers, would not the Methodist forces at home scatter, the membership decline, the spiritual life of the people suffer, the whole Methodist system crumble? Or did the resoluting ministers feel that the churches on the whole could get along just as well without them?

"Their resolution has certainly raised a deadly dilemma for them to face.

"We are of opinion that there are chaplaincies in the Army and in the Navy where a zealous Methodist minister might do good. There are many thousand earnest Methodists enrolled in the American service. Are the Methodist ministers following their soldiers and sailors like the American priests? A zealous chaplain in the trenches and where the bombs break and scatter is worth his weight in gold. His value far exceeds that of the ordinary fighting man, for he can put spirit into a whole company or an entire section of the line. We are reading every day of Catholic priests with the men right on the firing-line. They are gathering precious crosses of honor and valor every day and winning the love and reverence of the soldiers irrespective of their religious beliefs and the praise and commendations of the officers in command.

"Or are the Methodist ministers satisfied to be swallowed up as assistants in the Y. M. C. A.?

"How we would admire that patriotic conference of Methodist ministers down Jersey if they had forwarded a resolution to Washington, asking that at the earliest moment they be sent to the trenches in France as bearers of spiritual comfort to the Methodist boys fighting, dying for their country!

"But unless Methodism is bankrupt, there is still work at home even for a Methodist minister."

AUTOCRATIC TREND IN RELIGION-While the world is being made safe for democracy, the Church is taking a contrary tendency. No proposal of Church union, such as seems most imminent in England, involves the dropping of episcopacy, points out The Christian Century (Chicago). This organ, which describes itself as "an undenominational journal of religion," looks upon episcopacy as "standing in the road of the democracy which characterized Jesus Christ and his apostles." It goes further:

"In England to-day there is the greatest opportunity since the time of Cromwell of uniting the Christian forces. The non-conformist denominations, tho as prosperous as the state church in most regards, and numerically about as strong, are

yet willing to merge their individuality in the state church. . . .
In the name of efficiency, many denominations are getting
more centralization of ecclesiastical power.
In recent years
Disciples, Baptists, and Congregationalists have organized
national conventions, and to these conventions are being ac-
corded more and more leadership in the life of the denomina-
tion. How easy it is for a seeming democracy in religion to
become an oligarchy and at last a tyranny is only too well
illustrated by the history of the Church.

"Those who hold the social view of religion insist that religion shall always embody the highest ideals of the social structure. Should the Church of Jesus Christ these days fail to convince the world that it is a truly democratic institution, then we may look for new religious organizations to arise (as proposed even now by some literary men), and if these were democratic and in other ways serviceable, one could imagine an era of eclipse for Christianity.

"Our task is to define what true democracy in religion is. Certainly it could involve no coercion of opinion. There must be room for the free expression and activity of lay as well as clerical elements in the Church. There must be the respect for human life of every sort and the sympathy without which no individual and no church can claim to be democratic in spirit."

T

PREPARING THE "NEW ERA"

HAT THE PRESENT CRISIS is more than military is realized by most. The Presbyterians see it as the beginning of a "new era," and they have already set in motion the wheels of a "movement" bearing this phrase for a title. It is a "harmonizing of all the agencies" of the Church -dealing first with "the fundamental teachings and motives of Christianity." After this it is promotive-"seeking to arouse the Church to the needs of the age, and to do her duty to meet these needs, and to arouse her to furnish the means required." "The New Era," says The Presbyterian (Philadelphia), "is a challenge to the whole Church to renew her faith and knowledge of her Lord, and enter upon a new obedience to his will, new fellowship in his suffering, and a new sense of the power of his resurrection." The Presbyterian Church invites her evangelical sisters to join her, the Philadelphia organ observing:

"After the war is over a new era will be upon the world. Men everywhere are endeavoring to forecast this era, and determine its needs, and the means and measures of meeting these needs. No man or set of men are competent to make an accurate analysis of the forces and conditions which all feel confident are now approaching and about to assert themselves. Some are confident that it will be chiefly political, and its leading questions will be those of Nationalism and Internationalism. Others speak of it as fundamentally a question of righteousness. But the conception of righteousness presented is rather that of the Jew, 'the righteousness which is of the law,' not the righteousness of the Christian, which is 'the righteousness of God by faith in Jesus Christ'; it is rather an indefinite abstract-righteousness growing out of the faculty of conscience, which recognizes the existence of right and wrong, without any law or knowledge of the will of God to determine what is right and what is wrong. But the more rational and comprehensive view of the crisis and the coming era is that of a renewed conflict between Christianity and heathenism. The outburst of heathenism has manifested itself in its terrible atrocities and its determination to rob mankind of liberty and to subject them to the cruel powers of a worldimperialism. Christian states have risen in the divinely ap pointed use of the sword to check and subdue these physical and military outrages. When this is accomplished it will be the duty of the Christian Church to reconstruct in faith and morals the new age on the basis and through the power of the fundamental truths revealed by Jesus Christ. This will require the development in the Church of a renewed knowledge of the fundamentals of the faith. The generation which is now passing neglected the work of instruction in these fundamentals, and gave itself to mechanical administration and nervous action, with weak convictions. When the Church is thus renewed in her faith and knowledge of her Lord, she will be ready for response to the pressing appeal of the New Era. Then she must be shown the great needs of the age and the world, and her duty to meet them."

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