Your Boys Part 3
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. G.o.d 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-G.o.d'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 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 sh.e.l.ls 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,"
"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 G.o.d!
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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d, You know I've been a rotter."
That's the way to pray. That boy was talking to G.o.d 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. I was born in Michigan."
"Well, what are you doing, fighting under the British flag?"
"I guess it's my fight too, sir. This," he said, "is not a fight for England, France, or Belgium, but a fight for the race, and I wouldn't have been a man if I had kept out."
I told that story to one of our Generals who died last September.
"Ah!" he said, "that boy got to the bottom of the business. It's for the race. It's for the race."
"Are you a Christian?" I asked.
"No," he answered; "but I should like to be one. I wasn't brought up. I grew up, and I grew up my own way, and my own way was the wrong way. I go to church occasionally-if a friend is getting married. I know the story of the Christian faith a little, but it has never really meant anything to me."
Then he continued slowly, "On the Somme, a few hours before I was badly wounded"-he put his hand in his pocket and drew out a little crucifix-"I picked up that little crucifix and I put it in my pack, and when I got to hospital I found that little crucifix on my table. One of the nurses or the orderlies had put it there, thinking I was a Catholic. But I know I'm not, sir. I am _nothing_. I have been looking at this little crucifix so often since I was wounded, and I look at it till my eyes fill with tears, because it reminds me of what He did for me-not this little bit of metal, but what it means."