Not for the first time I longed
for a brief, clear statement of our Church's faith. The cumbrous
complicated Catechisms and Confessions are magnificent monuments, but
they are worse than useless under such conditions. A _Credo_ which could
be written on a blackboard and pointed to as the Church member's
essential Confession of Faith, to be developed and expanded according to
the need and circumstances, would be a real power in a chaplain's hands.
The men's behaviour in billets--ramshackle barns for the most part--was
almost exemplary. Only once or twice small episodes occurred in
connection with hen-roosts, and on one occasion a sucking-pig was
slaughtered amid its brethren at the dead of night. It must have been a
temporary madness that possessed the author of this escapade, for he had
no possible chance of escape. It was pleaded on his behalf, on his
appearance before the Colonel, that he had recently done a gallant deed,
but as some one said, 'If every man who did a gallant deed was allowed
to kill a pig there would not be a pig left in Flanders.'
It was the cleanness of the air and of the soil that made a rest back
among the far-stretching forests of the Pas de Calais so different from
one nearer the line.
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