men. Theirs is an age of special danger. Incipient manhood has ever proved itself to be a critical time. These young soldiers are drawn mainly from a class which Church and Chapel find it very difficult to reach. There are many exceptions, but, as a rule, religion has had a very small influence on their lives. Every parish priest is confronted with this grave fact, the little power the Church seems to have over that class of men from which soldiers come. One earnest worker has written: “I cannot honestly say I believe that more than one per cent. of the working men in East London go regularly to church or chapel.” Yet from such centres many of our soldiers are enlisted. We can in some degree measure the result, for wherever there is a chaplain at a station to which recruits are sent he sees each one of them as he joins privately, and elicits what he can as to the man's past career. I confess the reports these chaplains make to me are disquieting and alarming; very many join unconfirmed, communicants scarcely exist, ignorance of the very simplest truths as to God, and man's sin and salvation is very common. These young soldiers, thus utterly unprepared, are gathered into large crowds in garrison towns. Solicitations to vice abound on every side. No man can escape from them. Freed from the observation of his home and friends, the man has but little sense of his responsibility, and there is freedom and license
