Word: chaplain
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Last week the Navy announced the appointment of the first chaplain to be assigned to active duty aboard submarines on patrol: the Rev. John Laboon Jr., lieutenant. His watery parish will consist mostly of nuclear-powered subs carrying ballistic missiles. "I hope to have a large parish before long," says Father Laboon. "At sea I'll care for the men; on the base I'll look out for their families...
...Across Britain, parish-church notice boards are quietly ablaze with initial letters of decorations awarded new curates and vicars in their old careers. At last month's meeting of the Anglican selection board for ministerial training, the only two candidates over 40 were army majors; at the R.A.F. Chaplain's School, a quarter of the 125 candidates for ordination are senior officers...
...three. The witch, Jennet, also has time to bewitch Thomas Mendip, the world-weary stranger, (by this time a self-styled Satan) and these two loves develop in counterpoint while the mayor blusters and blows his nose, the Justice strives to look official, the mother chatters and the Chaplain wanders about with a violin (his "better half") and casts forth wisdom to unlistening ears. Since all this is done with remarkable finesse the result is laughter...
...themes may be serious but the tone is light, and the creatures who take themselves most seriously eventually find flaws in their systems. The Chaplain, for all his awkwardness, comes closest to being a true philosopher but even he fails. We have a set of characters, almost all intrinsically humorous, brought together, contradicting each other and themselves, alive in a world where everything seems accepted and nothing abnormal, and only love somes...
...remaining characters are purely comic. The mayor's struggles to remain in command in this splintering world are given boisterous expression by Travis B. Linn; and Jacques C. Feuillan almost completely captures the poignancy inherent in the kindly Chaplain's humor, the humor of a man who thinks rather little but feels "a good deal," to whom legal matters are Greek "except, of course, that I understand Greek." And pillow-stuffed Julius Novick as Justice Tappercoom is witty and partly wise, eager for order but nonetheless good-humored...