Your Boys | Page 6

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 go with you. You know Who that is."
You should have heard the boys all over that hut whisper, "Yes, sir--Jesus."
"Well," I said, "I want every man that is anxious to take Jesus with him into the trench to stand."
Instantly and quietly every man in that hut stood up. And we prayed as men can pray only under those conditions. We sang together, "For ever with the Lord." I shall never sing that hymn again without a lump in my throat. My mind will always go back to those dear boys.
We shook hands and I watched them go, and then on my way to the little cottage where I was billeted I heard feet coming behind me, and presently felt a hand laid upon my shoulder. Two grand handsome fellows stood beside me. One of them said,
"We didn't manage to get into the