Earning a Chaplain-Generalship.

125

render him such service as Simpson had received from the priests when he was in sanctuary in Ghent.

Bishop Compton, of London, one of the five famous sons of Lord Northampton, and who was the second bishop of noble birth since the Reformation (Crewe, of Durham, being the first), made a fatal error once in bestowing preferment. There appeared in his day an alleged native of Formosa, the Frenchman Psalmanazar, who had been converted to Christianity chiefly, as it was stated, through the untiring efforts of a Rev. Dr. Innes. For this supposed good work Compton conferred on Innes the chaplain-generalship of our troops in Portugal during the war of succession. The whole story of Psalmanazar was, however, a gross imposition. He was one of the most stupendous liars the world ever saw, and Innes was his abettor and accomplice. Never was rascalry so profitable as in the case of Innes, for it produced at once a lucrative and honourable appointment in the army, to which he had no title whatever.

But the nomination did not excite so much remark as a subsequent act of a well-known soldier and statesman, which was far less open to objection. Whatever Lord George Germain may have been as either soldier or statesman, he was not without the very useful possession of common sense, and liberality in the application of it. In 1757 he was in command of the camp at Chatham and Brompton. Whitfield,

.

being desirous to preach to the men, went down to Chatham, and through Lord George's aide de camp, Captain Smith, asked for permission to do so. "Make my compliments to Mr. Whitfield, Smith," said my lord," and tell him from me he may preach anything to my soldiers that is not contrary to the articles of war." In those days this was unwonted liberality and the very rarest wisdom.

From the days of the Theban Legion downwards, including those when, in India and in Malta, Protestant chaplains complained that Protestant soldiers were compelled to present arms to Juggernaut or to the "host," there has been some difficulty in reconciling military with religious duty.

Bishop Hurd's admiration was once warmly excited by an incident which united piety and hard fighting. A soldier of a certain company fell mortally wounded; no chaplain was near, and he asked his comrades to pray for him. The whole company went on their knees, and prayed fervently for the dying soldier. "That," said Hurd, "was true religion!" The episcopal comment, however, is very questionable, notwithstanding its charity and liberality. If the battle was raging, and the men were, as it seems, within its sphere of action, they failed in their military duty when they abandoned fighting for praying. The very earliest of our religious writers maintain that, whatever work a man has in hand, he should do it with all his heart; his thoughts should be on that

only.

Military Chaplains Intruders.

127

"God," says old Richard de Hampole, " does not require you to be thinking of Him when you have bounden work to do. He will be quite satisfied if your heart and thoughts turn towards Him when that bounden work is done." There is common sense in this, as there is in many of the writings of the earliest English teachers, when they had to treat of man's duties on earth in connexion with his duties towards God. When Mr. Whiting, a chaplain in the East India. service, was occupied with some of the wounded at Chilianwallah, he observed a number of our cavalry going decidedly the wrong way. The "Padre" had the old spirit in him, of which Judge Turner disapproved, and, with some wholesome energy of phrase, he induced them to re-form, and go the way whither duty and honour called them; and this spirited conduct was as a tonic to the wounded. They listened all the more earnestly to a chaplain whose duty it was to have some of the soldier in him as well as of the priest.

Various accidents have befallen army chaplains, from those who have stoutly fought, down to the discreet "padre" who, looking at a battle through a small hole, by which it was a million to one that a ball would never enter, was shot dead by a bullet, which did pass through, and into his brain. The most remarkable accident of war happened in 1849, to Garibaldi's chaplain, Ugo Bassi. The priest was taken prisoner, and was ordered to be shot. Monsignore Bedini did not prevent the judicial murder, but even

he was perhaps not responsible for what preceded it. The skin of the palms of the hands of the chaplain was stript off by priests. The alleged reason was that Bassi had been anointed on the hands when he was ordained priest; and that it would be sacrilege to execute him, after having received such unction, before peeling off the skin which had been thus sanctified! In such way was Garibaldi's chaplain prepared for the swift death that followed the slow torture.

Ancient as is the institution of Military Chaplains, they are still in a rather anomalous position, as in one respect they are in no position at all. This may be illustrated by what recently took place with respect to a military chaplain officiating in the chapel of Richmond barrack, Dublin. The barrack is in the parish of St. Jude, the incumbent of which, Mr. Mill, instituted proceedings against the military chaplain for illegally officiating in his, Mr. Mill's, parish. The chaplain pleaded that he officiated by authority of a licence granted by the chaplain-general; and that, moreover, the barrack chapel was a royal chapel. The last point was not insisted on; but, with regard to the other, the judge in the Provincial Court of Dublin ruled that no commission or appointment could set aside the provisions of the law established for ages, and which law prohibited one clergyman from intruding officially in the parish of another. The bishop's licence alone could invest him with the legal authority.

NAVAL CHAPLAINS.

HE late Mr. Cobbett used to laugh at "psalm

TH

singing sailors," and at Admiral Gambier, who would not even holy-stone his decks on a Sunday morning. But a ship's first law is order (like heaven's), and with order a religious feeling seems close a-kin. There is something sublime and affecting in the accounts of the old crusading expeditions, when successive ships left harbour all a-board singing to the praise and glory of God, the chaplains leading in the pious chorus. Sounds of hymns came faintly over the waters, even after the ships were out of sight, and they seemed like angel voices, making the calm air glad and holy.

Formally and officially the old religious spirit was sustained in our ship-masters' warrants, down to a late period. These and similar documents always began, "In the name of God," and had allusion to the perils of the deep, from which He alone could save. Now, vessels let loose from their moorings, firing a gun in honour of some nonentity, and God is put away from the ceremony. Mariners' warrants

VOL. II.

K