Part 12

The Y.M.C.A. stands for everything to your boys. It is their club, their church, their recreation-room. It is their canteen—dry canteen, you may be sure—it is their reading-room, it is their smoking-room, and why should not the Church of Jesus Christ provide places of recreation for its own people? Why should it leave the public-house and the theatre to do it all? We have lost lots of people because we have been so slow—we have lost them, you and I, but we are learning sense in these days, and the Y.M.C.A. has come to the help of the Churches, to be the communication-trench between the Churches and the people.

It is doing magnificent work.

As I write these lines I think of one dear boy, a young sergeant, a Public-School boy. I had watched him grow up. I knew his home, and as he leaned against me he said, “Gipsy, I’m homesick; I want my mother,” and then, with a sob, he said, “Tell me more about Jesus.”

I was able to talk to him about his mother because I had lost mine, and just because I love Jesus I was able to talk to him about the blessed Jesus Who comes into a man’s heart when he is sad, lonely, and homesick, and helps him.

He was lying on a stretcher, and it was my privilege to hold his hand and to kiss him for his mother.

“Gipsy,” he said, “does it mean West?”

I said, “Sonny, it means West.”

As I held his hand it flickered for a moment and he said, “I am not afraid to go. I know Christ. I found Him in your meetings, and—it’s great to die, for freedom.”

And it was a great thing for me to be with your boy then.

* * * * *

I thank my God upon every remembrance of your boys.

THE END