'Because we've forgotten God. Because, to a large extent, we regard Him too much as a negligible quantity; because we have become too much poisoned with the German virus.'
'I will try to make my meaning plain. In this war we have the greatest, the holiest cause man ever fought for. We are struggling for the liberty, the well-being of the world. We are fighting God's cause; but we are not fighting it in God's way. We are fighting as if there were no God.'
'We started wrongly. Were our soldiers made to realize when they joined the Army that they were going to fight for God? Did the country, the Government ever tell them so? Oh, don't mistake me. I am a private soldier, and I've lived with the Tommies for a long time, and I know what kind of chaps they are. A finer lot of fellows never lived. Braver than lions, and as tender as women many of them; but does God count with the great bulk of them? Is Tommy filled with a passion for God? Is he made to feel the necessity of God? Does Tommy depend primarily on God for victory?'
'Well, do we depend on God for victory?' I asked.
'If God is not with us we are lost!' he said solemnly. 'And that's our trouble. I've read a good many of our English papers, our leading daily papers, and one might think from reading them that either there was no God, or that He didn't count. "How are we to win this war, and crush Germanism?" is the cry, and the answer of the British Government and of the British press is, "Big guns, mountains of munitions, conscription, national service, big battalions, and still more big battalions!"'
'Well, isn't that the only way to win? What can we do without these things?' I asked.
'Big guns by all means. Mountains of munitions certainly, and all the other things; but they are not enough. If we forget God, we are lost. And because we do not seek the help of God, we lose a great part of our driving power.'
He was in deadly earnest. To him Christianity, religion was not some formal thing, it was a great vital reality. He could not understand faith in God, without seeking Him and depending on Him.
'We have chaplains,' I urged. 'We are supposed to be a Christian people.'
'Yes, but do we depend on God? Do we seek Him humbly? When Tommy goes into battle, does he go into it like Cromwell's soldiers determined to fight in God's strength? Oh, yes, Tommy is a grand fellow, take him as a whole, and there are tens of thousands of fine Christians in the Army. But in the main Tommy is a fatalist; he does not pray, he does not depend on God. I tell you, if this battle of the Somme were fought in the strength of God, the Germans would have fled like sheep.'