Your Boys | Page 7

hut, but we stood at the window to your right. We heard all you said. We want you to pray for us. We are going into the trenches, too. We can't go until it is settled."
We prayed together, and then I shook hands with them and bade them good-bye. They did not come back. Some of their comrades came--those two, with others, were left behind. But they had settled it--they had settled it.
* * * * *
Two or three days after that I was in a hospital when one was brought in who was at that service. I thought he was unconscious, and I said to the Sister beside me, "Sister, how battered and bruised his poor head is!"
He looked up and said, "Yes, it is battered and bruised; but it will be all right, Gipsy, when I get the crown!"
One night I had got about fifty boys round me in a dug-out, with the walls blown out and bits of the roof off. I had taken some hymn-sheets, for I love to hear them sing. I never choose a hymn for them--I always let them choose their own hymns. There is wisdom in that. If they have asked for something and don't sing it, I can come down on them. Among the great hymns they choose are these:
"Jesu, Lover of my soul,"
and I have heard them sing,
"Cover my defenceless head,"
with the shells falling close to them. I have heard them sing,
"I fear no foe ..."
with every seat and every bit of building round us rocking with the concussion of things. And then they will choose:
"The King of Love my Shepherd is," "The Lord's my Shepherd, I'll not want," "Abide with me," "There is a green hill far away," "Rock of ages, cleft for me,"
and the one they love, I think, most of all is,
"When I survey the wondrous Cross."
Those are the hymns they sing, the great hymns of the Church--the hymns that all Christian people sing, about which there is no quarrelling. It's beautiful to hear the boys.
That night I said, "I have brought some hymn-sheets. I thought we might have some singing, but I'm afraid it's too dark."
Instantly one of the boys brought out of his tunic about two inches of candle and struck a match, and in three minutes we had about twenty pieces of candle burning. It was a weird scene.
After the hymns I began to talk, and the candles burnt lower, and some of them flickered out, and I could see a boy here and there twitch a bit of candle as it was going out.
I said, "Put the candles out, boys. I can talk in the dark."
It was a wonderful service, and here and there you could hear the boys sighing and crying as they thought of home and father and mother. It isn't difficult to talk to boys like that.
* * * * *
There is no hymn of hate in your boys' hearts. I have known them take a German prisoner even after he has played the cruel thing; but there! he looked hungry and wretched, and in a few minutes they have shared their rations and cigarettes with him. I call that a bit of religion breaking out in an unlikely place. The leaven's in the lump, thank God!
* * * * *
I was speaking at a convalescent camp. Every one of the boys had been badly mauled and mangled on the Somme. This particular day I had about seven or eight hundred listeners. It was evening, and when I had talked to the boys, I said,
"I wonder if any of you would like to meet me for a little prayer?"
And from all over the camp came the answer, "Yes, sir; yes, sir; yes, sir."
There was a big room there--we called it a quiet room--and so I asked all the boys who would like to see me, just to leave their seats and go into this room. I went to them and said,
"You have elected to come here to pray, so we will just kneel down at once. I am not going to do anything more than guide you. I want you to tell God what you feel you need in your own language."
The prayers of those boys would have made a book. There were no old-fashioned phrases. You know what I mean--people begin at a certain place and there is no stopping them till they get to another certain place. One of these boys began, "Please God, You know I've been a rotter." That's the way to pray. That boy was talking to God and the Lord was very glad to listen.
* * * * *
I was talking to one boy--an American; he was a little premature, he was in the fight before his country.
"Sonny," I said, "you're an American?"
"Yes, sir.