Your Boys Part 4

I said, "Have you ever prayed?"

He replied, "No, sir. I've wept over this little crucifix-is that prayer?"

"That's prayer of the best sort," I said. "Every tear contained volumes you could not utter, and G.o.d read every word. He knows all about it."

I pulled out a little khaki Testament. "Would you like it?" I said. "Would you read it?"

He answered, "Yes," and signed the decision in the cover.

When I shook hands with him there was a light in his eyes. Have you ever seen the light break over the cliff-tops of some high mountain peak? Have you ever watched the sun kiss a landscape into beauty? Have you ever seen the earth dance with gladness as the sun bathed it with radiance and warmth? Oh, it's a great sight; but there's no sight like seeing the light from Calvary kiss a human face as it fills the heart with the a.s.surance of Divine forgiveness.

One hundred and fifty-two thousand cups of tea and coffee are given away monthly at one railway-station. I once happened to be at a railway-station on the main lines of communication. There are women working there, women of position and means, working at their own expense. I have seen rough fellows go up to a British woman behind a counter-the first time they have seen a British woman for months-and I have heard them say, "Madam, will you shake hands with me?" I saw an Australian do that. He got her hand-and his was like a leg of mutton-and he thought of his mother and his home-folk. He forgot his tea. It was a benediction to have that woman there.

Well, on this occasion two of these ladies said to me, "Gipsy, we're having a relief train pa.s.s through to-morrow, and one comes through up and one comes through down."

"I'll be there," I said.

The train that was coming from the front we could hear before we could see it. And it wasn't the engine that we heard, because that came so slowly, but I could hear the boys singing as they came round the curve,

"Blighty, Blighty is the place for me."

We served them with tea and coffee, French bread a yard long, and candles and matches and "Woodbines," and then we got that crowd off-still singing "Blighty."

They had been gone about five minutes when the other train _from_ Blighty came in. We couldn't hear them singing. They were quiet and subdued. We served them with coffee and tea, candles, bootlaces, and smokes, and then, as they had some time, they started having a wash-the first since they left Blighty. The footboard of the train was the washstand, the shaving-table, and the dressing-table. But they didn't sing.

I saw in a corner of that little canteen a pile of postcards, and I said, "Who says a postcard for wife or mother?"

Somebody asked, "Who's going to see them posted?"

I said, "I am. You leave them to me."

They said, "All right," and I began to give out the postcards.

I started at one end of the train and went on to the other end. In the middle I found two carriages full of officers.

"Gentlemen," I said, "will you please censor these postcards as I collect them, and that will relieve the pressure on the local staff, for I don't want to put any extra work on them?"

"Oh, certainly," they answered, and I sent a dozen or twenty up at a time to them, and in fifteen minutes that train was steaming out of the station and the boys were singing, "Should auld acquaintance."

When they had gone I collected the postcards that had been written and censored-and there were 575. To keep the boys in touch with home is religion; to keep in their lives the finest, the most beautiful home-sentiment that G.o.d ever gives to the world is a bit of religion-pure and undefiled.

How gloriously brave are the French women and Belgian women! I was talking to one in London-a young girl not more than eighteen or nineteen. She was serving me in a restaurant, and I saw she was wiping her eyes, so I called her to me and said, "What's the matter, my child?"

She answered, "Sir, I came over on the boat from Belgium early in the war, and my mother and sisters got scattered, and I have never seen or heard of them since."

And the Madame of the restaurant came to me a little while afterwards, and said, "We dare not tell her, but they were all killed."

Many people at home don't realise what is going on. Some are in mourning, some have lost boys, some have lost husbands, brothers, but we have not suffered as others have suffered. I was riding in a French train a few weeks ago. Beside me sat a lady draped in mourning. I could not see her face, it was so thickly veiled with c.r.a.pe. Beside her was a nurse, and the lady wept, oh, so bitterly! I cannot bear to see anybody weeping. If I see a little child crying in the street I want to comfort it. If I see a woman crying in the street I want to comfort her. G.o.d has given me a quick ear where grief is concerned-and I am thankful. I wouldn't have it otherwise-though I have to pay for it.

That woman's tears went through me. Every little while she was counting in French, "_Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq,_"-then she would weep again and then she would count.

I said to the nurse, "Nurse, what's the trouble?" and she said, "Sir, her mind has given way. Before the war she had five handsome sons, and one by one they have been killed, and now she spends her time counting over her boys and weeping."

And all that is for you and for me! What sort of people ought we to be, do you suppose? Are we really worth-_that_?

I was talking to some Canadians one night-and the Canadians are fine boys.

I was putting my foot on the platform, just about to begin, when a bright young Canadian touched me and said, "Say, boss, can _you_ shoot quick?"

and I replied,

"Yes, and straight."

"Well," he said, "you'll do."

I had a great time with those fellows. Hundreds of those Canadian boys stood up to say, "G.o.d helping me, I am going to lead a better life!"-hundreds of them. And then I put another test to them. "I want you all to promise," I said, "that you'll kneel down and say your prayers to-night in the billet, and those of you who will promise to do that come up and shake hands with me as you go out." I was kept one half-hour shaking hands.

Now, there were nine fellows sleeping in one billet and not one knew the other eight had been to the meeting. They all got mixed up, but all the nine came up to shake hands, and the one that got back to billets first told the story afterwards. This one had made up his mind he would kneel down and say his prayers, but when he returned he found there was no one there. Somehow he felt different then-he felt he couldn't do it. He was more afraid of n.o.body than he would have been of somebody. Then just suppose the others came back and found him kneeling there!

"I funked it," he said. "I got under the blanket, and tried to say my prayers under the blanket, but it wouldn't work. Then I heard one man come into the room, then two, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight. And the eighth man was the champion swearer of the company."

"Boys," said this man, "did you hear him?"

"Yes," they said, "we heard him."

And the little chap under the blanket said "Yes" too.

"Well, I shook hands with that man, and I promised him for my mother's sake that I'd kneel down and say my prayers to-night."

And the little chap under the blanket jumped up, blanket and all, and said, "So did I. I'm with you."

And the others said, "So did we."

"Well," the last comer said, "the best thing we can do is to kneel down now and say a little prayer."

So they all knelt down, and they each said a little prayer-I wish I had a record of those prayers-and they finished up with "Our Father."

Then the champion swearer said, "Boys, I've cut it all out: no more drink-not another drop."

And they said, "All right, we are with you. We'll cut it out."

Then he said, "I've cut something else out. No more swearing."

Eighty-five times out of every hundred that the boys in France use a swear-word they mean no more than I do when I say, "Great Scott."