“Anglican chaplains were remarkably out of touch with their troops. The Second Battalion chaplain, just before the Loos fighting, had preached a violent sermon on the Battle against Sin, at which one old soldier behind me had grumbled: "Christ, as if one bloody push wasn't enough to worry about at a time!"”

Source: Goodbye to All That (1929), Ch. 17.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Anglican chaplains were remarkably out of touch with their troops. The Second Battalion chaplain, just before the Loos …" by Robert Graves?

Robert Graves117

English poet and novelist 1895–1985

Related quotes

“The sermon was based on what he claimed was a well-known fact, that there were no Atheists in foxholes. I asked Jack what he thought of the sermon afterwards, and he said, "There's a Chaplain who never visited the front."”

Kurt Vonnegut book Hocus Pocus

Hocus Pocus (1990)

“Abdul Qadir Badaoni who was then one of Akbar's court chaplains or imams, states that he sought an interview with the emperor when the royal troops were marching against Rana Pratap in 1576, begging leave of absence for "the privilege of joining the campaign to soak his Islamic beard in Hindu infidel blood."”

`Abd al-Qadir Bada'uni book Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh

Badaoni, Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh, vol. II, p. 383; Smith, Akbar the Great Mogul, p. 108. quoted from Lal, K. S. (1999). Theory and practice of Muslim state in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 3
Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh

“Were I a king (God bless me) I should hate
My chaplains meddling with affairs of state”

John Byrom (1692–1763) Poet, inventor of a shorthand system

"On Clergymen Preaching Politics" 
Miscellaneous Poems (1773)
Context: Were I a king (God bless me) I should hate
My chaplains meddling with affairs of state;
Nor would my subjects, I should think, be fond,
Whenever theirs the Bible went beyond.

“…all battles had to be fought one step at a time. No point in worrying about the future if there was to be no future, so he and and Harper worked patiently away.”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Escape (2003)

“It is easier to declaim like an orator against a thousand sins in others than to mortify one sin in ourselves; to be more industrious in our pulpits than in our closets; to preach twenty sermons to our people than one to our own hearts.”

John Flavel (1627–1691) English Presbyterian clergyman

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 476.

“They were outnumbered, they were surrounded, yet no one had panicked, not one battalion had been caught deployed in column, and not one square had been rattled by the horse-men's proximity. The Light had saved the Seventh Division, and now it was saving itself with a dazzling display of professional soldiering. Pure drill was defeating French verve, and Massena's attack, which had swept around the British right flank with overwhelming force, had been rendered utterly impotent.”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Narrator, describing the actions of the British Light Division during the Battle of Fuentes de Oñoro, p. 319
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Battle (1995)