"I have a bit of work to do," he said, "in which I need your help. I
wish you to join me in a visitation of some of the military camps in
this district. We start this evening."
There was nothing for it but to obey his superintendent's orders. The
two weeks' experience with his chief gave Barry a new view and a new
estimate of the chaplain's work. As he came into closer touch with camp
life and its conditions, he began to see how great was the soldier's
need of such moral and spiritual support as a chaplain might be able
to render. He was exposed to subtle and powerful temptations. He was
deprived of the wonted restraints imposed by convention, by environment,
by family ties. The reactions from the exhaustion of physical training,
from the monotonous routine of military discipline, from loneliness and
homesickness were such as to call for that warm, sympathetic, brotherly
aid, and for the uplifting spiritual inspiration that it is a chaplain's
privilege to offer. But in proportion as the service took on a nobler
and loftier aspect, was Barry conscious to a corresponding degree of his
own unfitness for the work.
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