Part 7

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. 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.”

I said, “Have you ever prayed?”

He replied, “No, sir. I’ve wept over this little crucifix—is that prayer?”

“That’s prayer of the best sort,” I said. “Every tear contained volumes you could not utter, and God read every word. He knows all about it.”

I pulled out a little khaki Testament. “Would you like it?” I said. “Would you read it?”