the boys had gone, we got into a corner and we
knelt down, and when he went he said, "I've got it, sir. I've got the little
song--_and it's singing_."
* * * * *
At one of my meetings the boys were four thousand strong and the
Commandant of the camp was to preside. As they say in the Army, he
had got the wind up. He did not know me. When he saw the crowd
there he began to wonder what was going to happen. He called one of
the officers to him, and said,
"I don't know what he's going to do. I hope he's not going to give us a
revival meeting or something of that sort. I hope he knows that
one-third of these fellows are Roman Catholics."
Well, of course I knew, and I was laying my plans accordingly. What
right have you or I when we have got a mixed crowd like that to try to
cram our preconceived programme down everybody's throat? The
officer, who was one of my friends, said to the Colonel, "I don't think
you need trouble, sir. He's all right, and knows his job."
When we were ready, I went to the Colonel, and said, "We are quite
ready to begin, sir."
The Colonel rose and announced, "Officers, non-commissioned officers,
and men, I now introduce to you Gipsy Smith, who will perform."
Now, the first thing I wanted to do was to disarm all prejudice in the
mind of both officers and men. So I said, "Are you ready, boys?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, we'll have our opening hymn, 'Keep the home fires burning.'"
And didn't those boys sing that! Some of them were smoking, and I
wasn't going to tell them not to smoke. That would have put their backs
up. They were British boys and they knew what to do when the right
moment came. And so I said, "Boys, you sang that very well, but you
were not all singing. Now, if we have another, will you all sing?" And
they answered, "Yes." I knew if they sang they couldn't smoke. So we
had "Pack up your troubles," and this time every smoke was out and
every boy was singing. "We'll have another," said I, when they had
finished; "we'll have--
'Way down in Tennessee Just try to think of me Right on my mother's
knee.'"
I knew if I got them round their mothers' knees I should be all right.
"Now, boys," I said, "what am I to talk to you about?" I let them choose
their subject very often.
"Tell us the story of the gipsy tent," they called out.
And there I was at home, and it was all right, and for an hour I told
them the story of how grace came to that gipsy tent--the old romance of
love.
"Now, boys, I'm through," I said when I had spoken for an hour--and
they gave me an encore. When I had finished my encore, the dear old
Colonel got up to thank the "performer"--and he couldn't do it; there
was a lump in his throat and big tears were rolling down his cheeks.
"Boys, I can't say what I want to, but," said he, "we have all got to be
better men."
The Gospel was preached in that hut in a different way from what we
have it preached at home, but we got it in, and the thing is to get it in.
* * * * *
I was talking behind the lines to some of your boys. Every boy in front
of me was going up to the trenches that night. There were five or six
hundred of them. They had got their equipment--they were going on
parade as soon as they left me. It wasn't easy to talk. All I said was
accompanied by the roar of the guns and the crack of rifles and the
rattle of the machine guns, and once in a while our faces were lit up by
the flashes. It was a weird sight. I looked at those boys. I couldn't
preach to them in the ordinary way. I knew and they knew that for
many it was the last service they would attend on earth. I said,
"Boys, you are going up to the trenches. Anything may happen there. I
wish I could go with you. God knows I do. I would if they would let me,
and if any of you fall I would like to hold your hand and say something
to you for mother, for wife, and for lover, and for little child. I'd like to
be a link between you and home just for that moment--God's
messenger for you. They won't let me go, but there is Somebody Who
will
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