Chapter 2

I cannot prove that Truth had no beginning, yet my consciousness tells me at no period was it laid down as something new, that the shortest distance between two points would be a straight line. No mathematician has ever proved that there is no boundary to space, but something within me tells me that there can be no such boundary. Even Reason tells me that an impassable boundary would only serve to indicate the unlimited extension beyond.

In all ages we have the mystic. Now the mystic is common to all religions. He is the man who has felt the touch of spiritual beings, the call of Heavenly things, and we have to explain him. In seeking to do this we shall realize some of the truth of the things soldiers see which we have called "The Weird in War."

V

ANGELS

The evidence for the existence and the appearance of angels does not rest on the testimony merely of men who fought at Mons. But even that evidence which is accepted by the talented author of _The Bowmen_ requires some explaining away and he admits that there is a difficulty in ignoring it. But there is the accumulating evidence of the ages. When we have explained away the soldiers' delusions, we have to confront those of the world's wisest sons--giants in thought. We have to confront the fact that all great religions have the theory of angels.

After all, every good thought may be the whisper of an angel, every beautiful prospect may be but the glint of the wing, every ray of light and heat but the waving of the robes of those higher spiritual intelligences which rush hither and thither on God's service, whose faces see God in Heaven. Such a belief is just as sound, and far more philosophical than any of the guesses I have read so far, given us as "explanation" of such phenomena.

I am in hearty agreement with much that Mr. Arthur Machen writes in his book _The Bowmen_. It is a book everyone should read. That splendid story of failure and triumph, the Retreat from Mons, prompted him to write a story on an Angelic Host coming to the aid of the British force. He wrote it after the manner of the journalist who is an eye-witness of the event. Many people still believe what they read in the newspapers; and many people believed his story. But he is altogether wrong when he imagines that he is the author of the belief in Angelic visions. I was in France hearing stories of angelic intervention long before Mr. Machen wrote his delightful yarn. A frog might as well imagine that his croak is responsible for the whole world of music, as to postulate that his story gave rise to the theory of Angels. Men had visions of such long before the first stone of our venerable shrine at Westminster was laid, before the Romans built their first mud huts in the valley of the Tiber, before the Pyramids raised their terrific greatness to the heavens. So Mr. Machen need not concern himself on that score.

The Anglican Church has failed dismally to keep before people the teaching of the Church in regard to Angels and Angelic intervention in the affairs of men. There I am in entire agreement with Mr. Machen. Soldiers tell their stories of angels and a few bishops cackle; but not one of them dares to speak of the fuller belief of the Church in angels and the soul-inspiring mystery of the Communion of Saints, the inter-relationship between those on the earth-plane and those who have passed to the higher life. The hardworking priest in the slums fearlessly proclaims this one sacrament of life with the Divine Life, his belief in angels and their help, in saints and their prayers, and because he believes he is able to work under conditions which make life for a cultured man almost intolerable. But he works, thankful to be left alone by his bishop: for war has declared a close time for ritualistic curates. But the soldier whose patriotism he has nurtured writes home to him telling frankly his experiences, his dreams, his visions. I have seen many of these letters. The writers are not liars nor are they hysterical subjects, but fine specimens of healthy manhood. Here and there a dissenting divine has raised his voice to declare there may be something in these stories of angels, but the dissenting pulpit is under the despotism of the pew and cry of "Rome" is enough. "Honest doubt" is always sure of a sympathetic audience, "honest belief" is greeted with the cry of superstition or the cuckoo cry of "Popery."

A soldier sees something super-natural. Some one says I know a hundred or a thousand soldiers who did not see it. A man may witness a murder. His evidence is accepted in the law courts. They do not call the hundred thousand people who did not see it in proof that no murder was perpetrated. Few people know the fundamental principles of evidence. More people misuse it.

VI

FELLOWSHIP WITH THE UNSEEN

Religion is man's fellowship with the Unseen, and it would seem that bishops and various crank divines are determined that such a belief shall be discouraged. Man's nature has upon it the Hall Marks of Heaven. Woven into man's anatomical texture we find faculties that transcend this world, that are for ever intent upon the waves that beat upon us from another shore. He sees the coastline of another world to which he commits his dead. We call such people Mystics, Catholics, Seers, etc. They are the people who have had touch with the Unseen. After all, the people with actual personal experience of spiritual power, who shape their lives by their experience are the real assets of belief.

Man may or may not be sprung from the beast, he may or may not have been raised from slime. Man's spirit did not arise in slime, that at all events came from a race of flame. Dust will not account for everything.

The Church in its greatest office of all, the Communion Service, claims to worship in union with "Angels and Archangels and with _all_ the Company of Heaven." Having proclaimed this tremendous fact the Church, for the most part leaves it, and bishops view any further annunciation of the fact with suspicion and sometimes with threats.

On one solemn day in the year the Church invokes S. Michael and all Angels. S. Michael's Mass as it is still called. The old teaching of the Church bids us lift our eyes to behold those more intimate intelligences which stand nearer the Great and Central Mystery. When a soldier stumbles by chance upon one of those higher beings he is regarded as the victim of hallucination, of superstition or drink or all of them. A chaplain with dull German Protestantism obscuring his view of spiritual things treats him as some unclean thing. Dissent in England for years has been synonymous with pro-Germanism. It has been at war with the historic creed of Christendom. It was better for their aims that angels should not exist.

Before dull German Protestantism with its gross materialism raised the plentiful crop of sects in England, our country was known through Europe as "Merrie England." Our people loved the festival of S. Michael. S. Michael's Mass was a red letter day. The Communion and Inter-Communion of earth with heaven was emphasized. Families met that day to pray and feast, lovers plighted their troth, gatherings of relatives and friends was the rule, joy was the key-note. Then dissent raised its ugly head, dissent that had its birth in Germany. These kill-joys got the upper hand. The recognition of the Christ-Mass, Christmas and the Michael-Mass, Michaelmas, was put down by law. Dissent has never hesitated to use compulsion when it lay ready to hand to enforce materialism. So belief in angels well nigh ceased to exist. To-day the revival comes from actual experience rather than from church teaching. The antagonism to such belief amounts to unreasonable heights of folly. Luther has so long occupied the place of Christ that dissent has forgotten what Christ taught us in regard to angels. We ignore the fact that He claimed to have seen angels, and to have had their help and ministration. When politics mix with religion, spirituality dies, there is no vision, for there is little belief and less sincerity. No wonder the soldier's vision of angels strikes them as something altogether beyond the pale of belief.

It is time that our "spiritual fathers" and other stepfathers began to give us a lead in spiritual things. We are burdened with bishops who play to the gallery and the cheaper press, who would rather take a confirmation service in a coal-pit than in a consecrated shrine of prayer, for the simple reason that "Confirmation in a Coal-pit" gets a flaming advertisement in every paper. Their vision is set on notoriety: the spiritual vision recedes. How can they have sympathy with those who pierce the boundary line that separates this world from a higher plane?

Men who have spent their lives on office seeking can never be seers or priests. Parsons who beat the political drum may rise to power political, never to the power spiritual. The vision glorious is to those who face duty, self-sacrifice, and see in them the Divine Call, who believe in the sacrifice of the Gospel rather than its comfort. The charlatan must not dominate the Christian in our spiritual pastors, if it do, then such are not qualified to minister in spiritual things.

VII

THE WHITE COMRADE

The story that angels fought on the side of the Allies in the battle of Mons must rest upon evidence, coupled with experience. If we begin by assuming that there can be no intelligences in the universe unless they are clothed in the regulated fashion, then no amount of evidence will suffice. It is a worm's-eye view that regards man as the last word in mind.

Meanwhile France is pursuing the evidence for another story exclusively of French origin and vouched for by men to whom the belief in spiritual beings is repugnant, viz., the apparition of "Le Camarade Blanc," of whom at Nancy, in the Argonne, at Soissons and Ypres men talked with hushed voices but with the quiet assurance of men who had seen. It must be something arresting which changes an atheist into a mystic. Again and again the French wounded speak of a man in white bending over them as they lay on the field helpless, and ministering relief. The mysterious one whom our allies call the "Comrade in White" appears simultaneously on different parts of the battlefield. His mission ever is one of mercy.

_The Living Church_ reprints from _Work and Life_ an article giving a full account of "The White Comrade," furnished by a wounded soldier. All accounts agree in the main facts. He is generally observed after "severe fighting," he appears where "death is busiest," he "ignores shot and shell," he is ever "calm, collected," and brings with him an atmosphere of peace. Men of the 87th and 128th French Infantry who have been fighting in the Argonne, have seen him, and on several occasions he has been seen in the trenches.

The soldier's account which appeared in _The Living Church_ is worth reading. It is not conclusive evidence, but the number of such experiences has value on the great subject of Spiritual Intervention. Religion pledges itself to such a belief. This is the soldier's story, one of many similar stories:

"It was the next day. At noon we got word to take the trenches in front of us. They were two hundred yards away, and we weren't well started till we knew that the big guns had failed in their work of preparation. We had advanced 150 yards when we found it was no good. Our captain called to us to take cover, and just then I was shot through both legs.

"I fell into a hole of some sort. I suppose I fainted, for when I opened my eyes I was all alone. The pain was horrible, but I didn't dare to move lest the Germans should see me, for they were only fifty yards away, and I did not expect mercy. I was glad when the twilight came. There were men in my own company who would run any risk in the darkness if they thought a comrade was still alive.

"The night fell, and soon I heard a step, not stealthy, as I expected, but quiet and firm, as if neither darkness nor death could check those untroubled feet. So little did I guess what was coming that, even when I saw the gleam of white in the darkness I thought it was a peasant in a white smock, or perhaps a woman deranged. Suddenly I guessed that it was 'The Comrade in White.'

"At that very moment the German rifles began to shoot. The bullets could scarcely miss such a target, for he flung out his arms as though in entreaty, and then drew them back till he stood like one of those wayside crosses that we saw so often as we marched through France. And he spoke. The words sounded familiar, but all I remember was the beginning, 'If thou hadst known,' and the ending, 'but now they are hid from thine eyes.' And then he stooped and gathered me into his arms--me, the biggest man in the regiment--and carried me as if I had been a child.

"I must have fainted again, for I awoke to consciousness in a little cave by a stream, and 'The Comrade in White' was washing my wounds and binding them up. I wanted to know what I could do for my friend to help him or to serve him. He was looking toward the stream and his hands were clasped in prayer; and then I saw that he, too, had been wounded. I could see, as it were, a shot-wound in his hand, and as he prayed a drop of blood gathered and fell to the ground. I cried out. I could not help it, for that wound of his seemed to be a more awful thing than any that bitter war had shown me. 'You are wounded, too,' I said. Perhaps he heard me, perhaps it was the look on my face, but he answered gently: 'This is an old wound, but it has troubled me of late.' And then I noticed sorrowfully that the same cruel mark was on his feet. You will wonder that I did not know sooner. I wonder myself. But it was only when I saw his feet that I knew him."

An incident which left a great impression upon me occurred at a hospital in North West France in September 1914 quite early in the war. I was visiting some wounded English and French soldiers. One poor fellow, a Parisian, called me to his side. "Come close, monsieur, for I would talk in a whisper. You are English--yes: and you English are common sense, practical--tell me--do you believe in God and angels, such things as priests teach children and women?"

"My measure of experience in life has compelled my belief in angels or spiritual beings, and common sense demands my belief in a Supreme Mind which I call God, the one Basic Fact," I replied.

"Monsieur I would talk with you. Do you believe that this God has priests to reveal such things to us?"

"The Great Supreme Mind has priests, leaders, prophets, in all departments of knowledge, music, mathematics, chemistry, navigation or engineering--why should He not have chosen instruments to reveal theological truth?"

He lay some time quiet, then he said, "It is good; now I feel I can tell you, for you will not smile. For years, ever since I could think, I have been an atheist. I went into this war an atheist. A few days ago a shell burst near me and I was wounded in twenty-nine places." (This statement was subsequently substantiated by the doctor and a nursing sister of mercy.) "Monsieur, I was in great pain: then suddenly a kind face was looking into mine, something touched my brow, the awful pain ceased. 'You called me,' a soft voice said. Then I remembered that when I was wounded I had cried, 'Oh, my God!' and I laughed, monsieur, for I was an atheist. Then I lost consciousness with that kind face still bending over me. Now I lie and think of that kind face. The doctors say maybe I shall recover, and the sisters here say to me that it is all in the Good God's hands and I am content. I say it is all in the Good God's hands. When that kind face was looking into mine I cried out 'I am an atheist,' and he just smiled and said 'But you called me.'"

I offered to get a priest for the poor fellow, but he shook his head. "No, monsieur. I have been an enemy of priests all my life--an enemy of religion--the Church. To offer the remaining days of my wreckage to God--no--I have but a few hours to live, and I would think of that kind face, and when I think of it the pain ceases. Ah, monsieur, I had wonderful arguments to show that there was no God, and that the clerics are the people's enemies--yet when I was struck down I called 'Oh, my God!' It is comical. That is why the kind face smiled."

Another wounded French soldier said to me: "When I go back to Toulon I shall have something to say to my comrades. I always thought priests were only half men, but my God! I have seen them fight. It is magnificent. A priest led us when we hesitated, I got my two wounds following him--a priest. Oh! it is truly unbelievable to think that I should follow a priest. He led us to triumph. He led me to something more. That day I knew religion was true. I saw something in his face. I saw it again when he fell wounded, and I was wounded but I could only think of him. Ah, life is droll--Now I go back to Toulon with two bad wounds and a religion. Priests--I have seen them fight, and I lie and laugh at myself and my comrades as fools for we thought of them as mere amusements for women and children. I saw priests go forward where my noble comrades held back--my noble comrades who sneer at priests. It is droll."

FIVE SKETCHES

BY R. THURSTON HOPKINS

I

OMBOS

We were talking at the club about spirit manifestations, and retailing the usual second or third-hand accounts of family spooks and deceased aunts showing themselves to their sorrowing relatives.

"It is strange the tricks which our brains will sometimes play us," said Barton. "I remember once seeing a ghost myself, and I can tell you that the sensation is a very curious one. It was a good many years ago, when I was out in Bombay in the National Indian Bank, and I had been sitting up until the early hours trying to trace some fraudulent entries in the bank's books by one of our clerks who had absconded with a considerable sum of money.

"Everybody in the bank building had long since gone home or to bed, where I ought to have been myself, so I was vastly astonished when I looked up from the ledger to see somebody sitting at the desk where I myself had been writing a few moments before. I felt quite upset for a moment, until I recognised the intruder. He was nebulous, but I could see plainly enough who it was."

"A member of your family in England?" asked Duckford, who was a firm believer in the good old-fashioned second sight of the Scotch Highlanders. Barton answered in his peculiarly quiet way.

"No, it was myself. The appearance of seeing an image of one's self is not altogether unusual, I believe. But, of course, such a thing is really all nonsense ... a matter of nerves."

"Now, I do not think it is fair of you to put all such things down to nerves," said Captain Crabbe, who had returned wounded from France after being in the field since the outbreak of the Great War. "If one cannot always explain, one need not therefore ridicule." Crabbe made this remark with a gravity that was somewhat unusual with him.

"Bless my soul, boy, you haven't been seeing the Angels of Mons or the Agincourt Bowmen over there in Flanders, have you?" asked Duckford, regarding Crabbe with a keen eye, and scenting something savouring of the mysterious, the super-natural. "Do you believe in these stories? I mean--superstitions?"

Captain Crabbe shook his head. "Not greatly," he said smiling. "But I am not one of those who thoughtlessly laugh at that which is out of the common, merely because it cannot be explained on ordinary grounds. Not since I have spent nearly twelve months over in France, at any rate. Are you interested in the weird?"

"I'd be a fool if I wasn't," said Duckford, selecting a cigar from his case. "What's your story about--I see you have one to tell. I am not inquisitive as a rule; but, somehow your manner has warned me that you have something singularly interesting to tell."

Crabbe remained silent a short time. Then, looking at Duckford very earnestly, he answered:

"Well, perhaps I may tell you my story, though I would not tell it to all these heretics around me. Indeed, only two or three other people have ever heard it. I hate--ah! more than I can convey to any living soul--even to think about it. But to you it may be of special interest."

"You know that I look upon all such things from the point of a simple, unbiassed inquirer," returned Duckford. "Come along, Crabbe."

"A good cigar in front of the card room fire, and your story, eh?" Duckford led the way up to the snug card room where a cheerful fire was blazing. "Sit down. Where is that dashed waiter? Oh, you there, Griggs. Come along with some whisky and soda."

Crabbe sat down in a deep chair by the fire, and stretched his feet to the flame. Duckford said nothing; only pulled at his cigar and patiently waited for what he knew was soon coming.

"Do you know--but, no, of course you don't," he began presently. "But can you imagine how it can be that a man could pass all his force into a bronze statue and make it live.... You've heard these literary men and artists talk about putting their souls into their work, Duckford?" Duckford pursed his lips. "Everything lives--even a bronze statue," he said seriously. "If it was not so it would atrophy, it would crumble and disappear. Look at the case of----"

"That's just what old Ombos said. And if he didn't understand all about those things, I should jolly well like to be led to the man who did. Ombos told me hundreds of times that a man walked about this earth throwing his force into everything he came in contact with--scattering some kind of power; and of course that power is picked up by stones and houses and ... statues, or anything. Ombos misused it; that was disastrous. It seems to me that it is safe to use this god-energy only in its own proper sphere. You have very likely heard of men who have tried to pass themselves into inanimate objects? Well, what would you say if I tell you that _I_ even _I_--who sit now so soberly before you, whom before the war you knew to be ordinarily, a quiet, peaceably-disposed, sport-loving English fellow--had once been under the spell of a bronze statue that somebody had passed clean into?"

"You were under the hypnotic influence of your friend Ombos, probably," I suggested.

"You may think so, _now_; but you just wait till I have told you all about Ombos, and the bronze statue. Then you'll be able to decide if it was trickery.... It would be different if you could have seen the statue."

Then Crabbe proceeded to unfold his strange tale.