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"A TERRIFIC TASK."

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"A TERRIFIC TASK." TiaitFE thousand Leicester men—most of them demobilised sailors and soldiers —flocked to the Do Montfort Hall. Leicester, on Monday evening for the uien's meeting in connection with the Church Congress. When I arrived at the great hall shortly before eight o'clock, a steady stream of men poured in. Al- ready the gallery was crowded, and there were very few vacant chairs on the floor of the hall. Precisely at eight the Pre- sident of the Congress came on to* the platform, accompanied by the Archbishop of Canterbury, who seemed surprised to see such a large audience; the Bishop of London, smiling as usual; Bishop Gore, wearing an old-fashioned clerical cloak and a thick "muffler"; Bishop Taylor Smith; Chaplain General to the Forces, in khaki; the Rev. W. Thomson Elliott, Rural Dea, to whom the Congress has meant hard work; the Rev. F. B. Mac- nutt, secretary of the Subjects Council; General Lord Home, the famous com- mander, who is not afraid to witness for the Faith and the Rev. G. A. Studdert- Kennedy, known throughout the British Army as Woodbine Willy." After a hymn had been sung and prayers said, the Rural Dean, the Bishop of Peterborough, "got to business" in characteristic style. After welcoming the Archbishop of Canterbury as an unex- pected visitor, the Bishop expressed his pleasure at being able to welcome so large a number of demobilised men. I am sure," he said, they will agree with me that there is nothing too great that their country can do for them for the services they have rendered." He wel- comed them because they were precisely the men we wanted to build the new Britain. We have a great hope that all these gallant men will continue to put themselves at their country's dis- posal to help us to produce a land which, as the Prime Minister expressed it, shall be fit for heroes to live in.' But we shall never get a land fit for heroes unless we are heroes ourselves." Pass- ing on, the Bishop pointed out that we have a terrific task not only to bring about peace between nations, but to keep peace between the classes at home. Wo must create a new industrial fellow- ship. It is an absolute paramount neces- sity if Britain is to regain her place and maintain her commercial position. We must find a way of dissipating that hor- rible cloud of suspicion" that hangs like, a cloud of poison gas in our dealings be- tween workers and employers. Not by Whistling. "This new world," declared Dr. Woods, is not going to come by whist- ling for it. t is only going to come by work and prayer." This new world can only be created by the Creator Himself —the Lord God. It is the -call of God that we shall be fell -w-workers with Him. This," proceeded the Bishop, "is a great and sacred day for Leicester. It was on October 13, 1915, that the 4th and 5th Battalions of the Leicester Regi- ment smashed the Hohenzollem Redoubt. So terrific was the fight that onl.y^ one officer out of the whole lot was not killed or wounded, and many hundreds of Leicester men laid down their lives. The Bishop asked us to stand in honour of the gallant men who fell. The silence was intense, and the dramatic incident will long be remembered by those present. The Bishop of London came next. He was in fine form, and received a splendid welcome. I thought," he said in his own inimitable way, "you might have done without the old war-horse of pre- war days, and I think you might have given me my bag of oats and let me rest." Big Strapping Bishop. One reason why I accepted the invi- tatio-n was your big, strapping Bishop. We are great friends, and I like a big- fellow like that to lead me.- Emphasising the contention that victory had been given us by God, the Bishop related a story of a well-known commander, who declaring after the forcing of the Hinden- burg Line, "It is all of God, padre." The Bishop said he told this story to General Smuts, who said emphatically, Of course it was God," and President Wilson declared, Bishop, if I didn't believe in God I should go mad." When thanking the Prime Minister for arranging for the anniversary day of Prayer to plead for victory, Mr. Lloyd George replied, We could do nothing else." Dealing with the present outlook, the Bishop said he was much more frightened to-day about Britain than he was dur- ing the war. The beautiful unity of the war seemed to be passing. If they were going to build a new and better England, they must have the old. war spirit of unity and determination- "If we are going to have those continual fights between capital and labour, trade is going to leave the country." We must not go back to the life before the war. We must be determined to have equality of opportunity for every child born in the land. We are determined to have de- cent homes for everybody. If he were asked how the problems of the future were to be solvedt he would answer in two words, Try Christianity." As Chesterton had said, "Christianity has not been tried and found wanting. it had been tried and found difficult and given up." A Hard Hitting Address. General Lord Home, in a hard-hitting address, s,aid before and during the war it was continually said that the people, purged by the sufferings of the war, must build up a. better Empire. Yet he looked round to see abroad the world in a turmoil; at home they were all upside down. It was rather sad to him to think that eleven months after they rejoiced over peace things we're going on—well, as they were going on. He did not think it was impossible to mend this con- dition, because directly this country got into bad trouble the native charaeter- hties of the Englishman came to the front and faced the job, determined to put it right. The nation was sound at heart, but he did not think it realised that the emergency had really arisen. The Bishop of London said Try Chris- tianity. He said Do your duty, and if you want to know bow to do your duty try Christianity." The Rev. G. A. Studdert Kennedy gripped the meeting with his wonderful humour and colloquial language. He knows how to reach the heart i He asked why they who had smashed the German Army in five years could not build a million houses in six months. In the war they gave up their freedom for a time in order to have it per- manently. The two great things that bound them toother were the will to win and iron discipline. They were left with one thing only, the will to win, because everybody was clamouring for personal liberty. If. they did what they had set out to do under these conditions, they would have performed a miracle, in the blaze of which the one they had per- formed would sink into insignificance. They must educate man until he ceased I to be a conscript earning wages and be- came a willing partner in the concern. Dealing with the question of Christianity, he said it was no good fighting the Devil g L on their own any more than trying to fight the Kaiser. They had got to get into battalions to fight him. That was why it was important to join a Church. Christian i-d-eals m Christian ethics could not save men from sin they must have a passion for the Christ, then they would find that He gave them the power to resist temptation. At the request of the President, 'the Archbishop of Canterbury spoke briefly and referred to the wonderful trust God had given us in these tTelli-lendolis days in the story of the world. Nothing 'ike these days held ever been known in. the history' of the world, and it behoved each one of them. to ask,, What sort of a man am I as one of those lo whom this trust is given." After the singing of another hymn we left the hall feeling that the Church Con- gress had now actually begun.

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