From Aldershot to Pretoria | Page 6

I reckon, so it's no use worrying about this.' And, forgetting the
presence of ladies, he started whistling a merry tune.
It was just 'a bit rough' in those days. But how could it be helped?
Aldershot Camp had nearly doubled its normal population, and some
thirty thousand troops were crowded in. And this population was
continually changing. As soon as one batch of troops was despatched,
another took its place, with consequences that, perhaps, were not
always all that could be desired, but which were nevertheless
unavoidable.
And so day by day we watched the camp gradually becoming khaki
colour. At first it was khaki to-day and scarlet to-morrow, as one batch
of khaki warriors left for the front and others, still clad in their ordinary
uniform, took its place. But before very long Pimlico proved equal to
the occasion, and khaki prevailed, and in South and North Camp one
saw nothing but the sand-coloured soldiers. Then a strange, unwonted
silence fell upon us; for they had gone, and we woke up to an empty
camp and desolate streets, and realized that the greatest feat of the kind
in the history of the world had been accomplished, and 150,000 troops

had been despatched seven thousand miles across the sea.
=Christian Work at Aldershot.=
But we are anticipating. Let us first introduce you to a bit of Christian
Aldershot during these mobilisation times. The mobilisation did not
find us dozing; and the Churches and Soldiers' Homes, with their
multiplicity of organizations, did their best to give to Mr. Thomas
Atkins a home from home, and never with greater success.
There is no doubt that the morale of the British soldier is steadily
advancing. 'They forget,' said a lad from Ladysmith the other day, 'that
we are not what we used to be. It used to be that the army was
composed of the scum of the nation; some folks forget that it isn't so
now.' They do, or, rather, perhaps they did until the war commenced
and made the soldier popular. But the fact is that, especially during the
last twenty years, there has been a steady improvement, and we venture
to assert that to-day, so far as his moral conduct is concerned, the
average soldier is quite equal, if not superior, to the average civilian.
This is due in large measure to the officers, who take a greater interest
in the everyday life of their men than ever before; but it is due in even
larger measure to the great interest the Churches have taken in the men,
and especially in the multiplication of Soldiers' Homes.
At Aldershot there are, in addition to the military and civilian churches,
which are all of them centres of vigorous Christian work, six Soldiers'
Homes, viz., three Wesleyan, two Church of England, and one
Salvation Army, in addition to the Primitive Methodist Soldiers' Home,
now used chiefly as a temperance hotel. At these Soldiers' Homes there
are refreshment bars, reading rooms, games rooms, smoking rooms,
bath rooms, and all other conveniences. They are for the soldier--a
home from home. Here he is safe, and he knows it. They will take care
of his money, and he can have it when he likes. They will supply him
with stationery free of charge. They will write his letters for him, if he
so desires, and receive them also. In fact, while he considers himself
monarch of all he surveys as soon as he enters, he is conscious all the
time that he must be on his good behaviour, and it is rarely, if ever, that
he forgets himself.

A counter-attraction to the public-house, an entertainment provider of a
delightful order, a club, a home, and a Bethel all rolled into one is the
Soldiers' Home,--the greatest boon that the Christian Church has ever
given to the soldier, and one which he estimates at its full value.
During the mobilisation days these Homes were crowded to the utmost
of their capacity, and chaplains and Scripture readers vied with each
other in their earnest efforts to benefit the men. In those solemn times
of waiting, with war before them, and possibly wounds or death,
hundreds of soldiers decided for Christ, or, as they loved to put it,
'enlisted into the army of the King.'
=Barrack Room Life.=
Somehow or other the average Englishman never thinks of the soldier
as a Christian, and soldier poets bring out almost every other phase of
the soldier character except this. As a matter of fact the recruit when he
comes to us is little more than a lad. He has been brought up in the
village Sunday school, and been accustomed to attend the village
church or chapel. He has all his early religious impressions full upon
him. He is excitable, emotional, easily