Religious Life Among the Troops
ALTHOUGH the church as an organization and as the most direct exponent of the Prince of Peace, had no part in the welfare work during the war, yet it was the contributing and inspirational force behind the organizations and individuals who played such an important part in the developing and the maintaining of the morale of the soldiers of the American Expeditionary Forces. The chaplains were direct, but not official representatives of the church, while the Y. M. C. A., the Y. W. C. A., the Knights of Columbus, the Salvation Army, and the Jewish Welfare Board were direct outgrowths of the church or religious spirit in America; and while the great war was apparently a complete and tangible evidence of the failure of Christianity among Christian nations, still there was abundant manifestation everywhere that within the hearts of men there was a deep and abiding faith in the great Ruler of the Universe, and a certain conviction that the great world cataclysm was a result of the dogged and persistent determination of the peoples engaged therein to ignore the principles in practice that they had so loudly preached to the world.
Although to some it was tremendously puzzling that a great human machine that had been built up for the purpose of killing men, should at the same time set agencies into operation to teach and preach the doctrines of Christ, yet they were willing to overlook the seeming paradox and gather in large numbers to hear the gospel, to study the Word itself, to pray, and not least of all, to sing as only dark-skinned Americans can sing, either the wonderful spirituals that were born of the travail of an oppressed and bleeding people, or the more stately hymns and songs that were published in a million gospel song books that were distributed throughout the American Expeditionary Forces.