Capt. (Rev.) M.J. LATIMER WRITES
A Canadian Chaplain, formerly of Manilla, now in England, in a letter to old friends in his circuit says in part:
If ever in all the world my soul was with the men from and in France, it is just now. I have been in London for three months, detailed especially to work in the interests of the men on leave and I see and talk with them ever day from all over the Canadian world. Saturday I lunched with a fine boy of the old 116 Battalion, and the same day I was of service to a boy of the 109th, both boys back from France. Many things happen to them indeed and I spent about $50 per month of my own salary giving them meals and providing beds and such like. I shall come back to Canada just as poor as I went away in spite of the fact that my salary is more than $2,000 per year, for the men need many things, and we did not enter this war to make or save money, If anyone thinks that a Chaplain's job here is a safety-first easy one, I wish that he would go with me or go alone as I have to go into the worst parts of the city at midnight finding drunken soldiers and leading them to a place of safety amidst the curses of the folk who would ruin them body and soul. But I must leave it all and in a few weeks I hope to be standing in the trenches side by side with some of the boys with whom I enlisted, and it will be a relief, indeed, to get, away from the slums of London. Saturday I was almost decided to accept the work of chaplain in a hospital ship making three trips to Canada, but it would have interfered with my turn to get to France, and I could not have any suggestion that I was looking for an easy job. I pray to God not so much that the war may be over, for if I were with you that, in my opinion, the end seems further away than a year ago, but for strength to ‘carryon'. If the war is over in 18 months, it will only be fulfilling my most sanguine expectations. But I hope to take you all by the hand after I have marched through the blood of the best boys the world has ever known and give you their deepest for what you in Canada have done.
