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Show F.EUGI0.VS PART IN BIG WAR Senior Chaplain Found That 90 per Cent of Fighters Were Men of Some Faith. To those disquieting souls who Dohliclv lament that the average Am- erlcan lost whnt little religion lie possessed during the trying days of 19 17-18. Rev. Henry Russel Talbot, Tal-bot, B. D.. canon of the National C a 1 1 ! d r a 1 of WashL gton. D. C makes answer. As senior chaplain of the embattled First D'fisiou, A. L. i ., id the Argonne Hgl ting, Dr. Talbot viewed a cross section of the country's manhood and found a religion re-ligion that will puzzle and amaze the orthodox churcb-goer. In his work, Dr. Talbot collected and examined the personal effects of men killed In battle. In ninety percent of them he found either a Bible, a scapular, scapu-lar, a prayer book, a cross, u crucifix cruci-fix or some other token which, he pays in a letter to national headquarters headquar-ters of the American Leg. on, proved 'hat religion was a real element In ti:e men's lives. And in those days, the former chaplain conrinues. the First was not carrying a single article It did not consider essential. Admitting that the average American Is "uncommonly timid In the exercise of his religion." Dr. Talbot declares that "nevertheless It Is there and needs only to be cultivated and Intelligently In-telligently used." He summarizes his refutation of the assertion that the American soldier was an Irreligious person by the statement : "If a simplicity sim-plicity which Is elemental ; a trust w hich Is childlike although It expresses Itself in what Is called 'chance' or luck'; a sense of reverence which Is so profound that It is never fooled by cant ; an honesty which, w hile It Is apt to t,e communistic Is so essential that slrBms don't last If these are notei A religion, there was In the spiritual life of the Expeditionary Torce something that was fine." |
