The Business of a Chaplain

● The book Bernard Shaw and Mrs. Patrick Campbell, Their Correspondence tells about a letter written by English actress Stella Campbell to the British playwright. She tells Shaw about her son’s death on the battlefield of World War I. She mentions that she received a letter from the chaplain that was “full of tragic gentleness and praise of my brave son.” Shaw writes her in reply: “It is no use: I can’t be sympathetic: these things simply make me furious. I want to swear. I do swear. Killed just because people are blasted fools. A chaplain, too, to say nice things about it. It is not his business to say nice things about it, but to shout that ‘the voice of thy son’s blood crieth unto God from the ground.’ To hell with your chaplain and his tragic gentleness! The next shell will perhaps blow him to bits; and some other chaplain will write such a nice letter to his mother.”