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diff --git a/old/16495-8.zip b/old/16495-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..3631db6 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/16495-8.zip diff --git a/old/16495-h.zip b/old/16495-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..dcfc232 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/16495-h.zip diff --git a/old/16495-tei.tei b/old/16495-tei.tei new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ceeed93 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/16495-tei.tei @@ -0,0 +1,2322 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> + +<!-- +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Your Boys by Gipsy Smith + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no +restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under +the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or +online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license + + + + +Title: Your Boys + +Author: Gipsy Smith + +Release Date: 2005-09 [EBook #16495] + +Language: American English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 +--> + +<!DOCTYPE TEI.2 SYSTEM "http://www.gutenberg.org/tei/marcello/0.4/dtd/pgtei.dtd"> + +<TEI.2 lang="en-us"> + <teiHeader> + <fileDesc> + <titleStmt> + <title>Your Boys</title> + <author><name reg="Smith, Gipsy">Gipsy Smith</name></author> + </titleStmt> + <publicationStmt> + <publisher>Project Gutenberg</publisher> + <date>2005-09</date> + <idno type="etext-no">16495</idno> + <idno type='DPid'>projectID42c5e3806d4b0</idno> + <availability> + <p>This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and + with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it + away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg + License online at www.gutenberg.org/license</p> + </availability> + </publicationStmt> + <sourceDesc> + <p>unknown</p> + </sourceDesc> + </fileDesc> + <encodingDesc> + <projectDesc> + <p>Produced by Roger Frank + and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at + <http://www.pgdp.net/c>.</p> + </projectDesc> + </encodingDesc> + <profileDesc> + <langUsage> + <language id="en-us">United States English</language> + </langUsage> + </profileDesc> + <revisionDesc> + <change> + <date value="2005-9">Sept 2005</date> + <respStmt> + <name>Roger Frank</name> + <name>Online Distributed Proofreading Team</name> + </respStmt> + <item>Project Gutenberg Edition</item> + </change> + <change> + <date value="2006-6">June 2006</date> + <respStmt> + <name>Joshua Hutchinson</name> + </respStmt> + <item>Added PGHeader/PGFooter.</item> + </change> + </revisionDesc> + </teiHeader> + +<pgExtensions> + <pgStyleSheet> + figure { text-align: center; page-float: 'htb' } + .w95 { } + @media pdf { + .w95 { width: 95% } + } + </pgStyleSheet> +</pgExtensions> + +<text> + +<front> +<div> + <divGen type="pgheader" rend="page-break-before: always" /> +</div> + + <titlePage rend="page-break-before: right"> + <docTitle> + <titlePart type="main" rend="font-size: x-large">Your Boys</titlePart> + </docTitle> + <lb /><byline> + By <docAuthor>Gipsy Smith</docAuthor><lb /><lb /> + With a Foreword<lb /> + by The Bishop of London<lb /><lb /><lb /> + </byline> + <docImprint> + New York<lb /> + George H. Doran Company<lb /> + 1918 + </docImprint> + </titlePage> + +</front> + +<body> + + <div rend="page-break-before: always"> + <p><anchor id="image-cover" /> + <figure rend="w95" url="images/cover.png"> + <head>Cover Image</head> + <figDesc><hi rend="font-style: italic">Cover Image</hi></figDesc> + </figure></p> + </div> + +<div rend="page-break-before: right"> +<pb n="v" /><anchor id="Pgv" /> + +<head>Foreword</head> + +<p> +I am writing this during an air raid at 12.30 at night, and I have just +finished a Foreword for the Bishop of Zanzibar's new and tender little +book. He has been a water-carrier for the British force in German East +Africa, and Gipsy Smith has just come from the trenches in France. +</p> + +<p> +You would not expect the two books to be similar, but they are: they are +both about <q>Jesus.</q> This devotion to <q>Jesus</q> binds all time Christians +together, and one day will bring us all more visibly together than we +are now. I love this breezy little book of Gipsy Smith's; it is not only +full of the love of <q>Jesus,</q> but love of our +<pb n="vi" /><anchor id="Pgvi" /> +<q>our boys.</q> They <hi rend="font-style: italic">are</hi> +splendid. I spent the first two months of the war as their visiting +chaplain—went out to give them their Easter Communion the first year of +the war at the Front. Gipsy Smith and I made friends together, speaking +for them at the London Opera House on the great day of Intercession and +Thanksgiving we had for them when the King himself called us all +together. +</p> + +<p> +Then I like the common sense of it! You must have robust common sense if +you are going to win <q>our boys.</q> Anything unreal, merely sentimental, +washy, they detect in a moment. You must draw them <q>with the cords of a +man and the bonds of love,</q> and those who read this book will find many +a hint as to how to do it. +</p> + +<p rend="text-align: right"><hi rend="font-variant: small-caps">A.F. London.</hi></p> + +</div> + + +<div rend="page-break-before: always"> +<head>Your Boys</head> +<pb n="9" /><anchor id="Pg9" /> +<p> +I have just come back from your boys. I have been living among them and +talking to them for six months. I have been under shell fire for a +month, night and day. I have preached the Gospel within forty yards of +the Germans. I have tried to sleep at night in a cellar, and it was so +cold that my moustache froze to my blanket and my boots froze to the +floor. The meal which comforted me most was a little sour French bread +and some Swiss milk and hot water, and a pinch of sugar when I could get +it. +</p> +<p> +There are Y.M.C.A. marquees close to the roads down which come the +walking wounded from the trenches. In three of these marquees last +summer in three days over ten thousand cases were provided with hot +drinks and refreshment—free. And that I call Christian work. You and I +have been too much concerned about the preaching and too little about +the doing of things. +</p> +<pb n="10" /><anchor id="Pg10" /> +<p> +A friend of mine was in one of those marquees at the time, and he told +me a beautiful story. Some of the men sat and stood there two and three +hours waiting their turn, and the workers were nearly run off their +feet. They were at it for three nights and three days. There was one +fellow, a handsome chap, sitting huddled up and looking so haggard and +cold, that my friend said to him, +</p> + +<p> +<q>I am sorry you have had to wait so long, old chap. We're doing our +best. We'll get to you as soon as we can.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>Never mind me,</q> said the man; <q>carry on!</q> +</p> + +<p> +As the sun came out he unbuttoned his coat, and when the coat was thrown +back my friend saw that he was wearing a colonel's uniform. +</p> + +<p> +<q>I am sorry, sir,</q> said my friend. <q>I did not know. I oughtn't to have +spoken to you in that familiar way.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>You have earned the right to say anything you like to me,</q> said the +Colonel. <q>Go right on.</q> +</p> + +<p> +And then my friend said, <q>Well, come with me, sir, to the back, and I +will get you a cup of coffee.</q> +</p> +<pb n="11" /><anchor id="Pg11" /> +<p> +<q>No, not a minute before the boys. I'll take my turn with them.</q> +</p> + +<p> +That's the spirit. Your boys, I say, are great stuff. They have their +follies. They can go to the devil if they want to, but tens of thousands +of them don't want to, and hundreds of thousands are living straight in +spite of their surroundings. They are the bravest, dearest boys that God +ever gave to the world, and you and I ought to be proud of them. If the +people at home were a tenth as grateful as they ought to be they would +crowd into our churches, if it were for nothing else but to pray for and +give thanks for the boys. +</p> + +<p> +They are just great, your boys. They saved your homes. I was recently in +a city in France which had before the war a population of 55,000 people. +When I was there, there were not 500 people in that city—54,500 were +homeless refugees, if they weren't killed. I walked about that city for +a month, searching for a house that wasn't damaged, a window that wasn't +broken, and I never found one. The whole of that city will have to be +rebuilt. A glorious cathedral, a magnificent pile of municipal +buildings, all in ruins; the Grande +<pb n="12" /><anchor id="Pg12" />Place, a meeting-place for the +crowned heads of Europe, gone! <q>Thou hast made of a city a heap</q>—a heap +of rubbish. <hi rend="font-style: italic">Your</hi> city would have been like that but for the boys in +khaki. +</p> + +<p> +I was saying my prayers in a corner of an old broken chateau, the +Y.M.C.A. headquarters for that centre, with my trench-coat buttoned +tight and my big muffler round my ears. Presently I heard some one +say—one of the workers—<q>A gentleman wants to see you, sir,</q> and when I +got downstairs there was a General, a V.C., a D.S.O., and a Star of +India man—a glorious man, a beautiful character. He was there with his +Staff-captain, and he said, +</p> + +<p> +<q>I've come to invite you to dinner to-morrow night, Mr. Smith. I want +you to come to the officers' mess.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>What time, sir?</q> I asked. <q>I cannot miss my meeting at half-past six +with the boys.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>Well, the mess will be at half-past seven. We will arrange that.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>Before you go, sir, I should like to ask why you are interested in me.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>Well, I'll tell you, if you wish,</q> he said. <q>Men are writing home to +their wives, mothers, sweethearts, and they are talking about a +<pb n="13" /><anchor id="Pg13" /> +new power in their lives. 'We have got something that is helping us to go +straight and play the game,' they write. And so,</q> said the General, <q>we +should like to have a chat with you.</q> +</p> + +<p> +I went the next night, and for an hour and a half I preached the Gospel +to those officers. It was a great chance; and it was the result of the +note-paper which I have sometimes given out for an hour and a half at a +time to your boys. +</p> + +<p> +There are lots of people think you are not doing any spiritual work +unless you are singing, <q>Come to Jesus.</q> Put more Jesus in every bit of +the day's business. Jesus ought to be as real in the city as in the +temple. If I read my New Testament aright, and if I know God, and if I +know humanity, and if I know Nature, then that is God's programme. God's +programme is that the whole of life should be permeated with Christ. +</p> + +<p> +God bless the women who have gone out to help your boys. Women of title, +of wealth and position, serving God and humanity behind tea-tables. +</p> + +<p> +In one of our huts I saw a lady standing beside two urns—coffee and +tea. She was +<pb n="14" /><anchor id="Pg14" />pouring out, and there were 150 or 200 men standing round +that hut waiting to get served. The fellows at the end were not pushing +and crowding to get first, but waiting their turn. They are more +good-natured than a religious crowd waiting to get in to hear a popular +preacher. I have seen these people jostle at the doors. +</p> + +<p> +But your boys don't do that. They just sing, <q>Pack up your troubles,</q> +and wait their turn. +</p> + +<p> +Well, these boys, wet and cold, were waiting for a cup of coffee, and +one of those red-hot gospellers came along, and he said, <q>Sister, stop a +minute and put a word in for Jesus. This is a great opportunity.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>But,</q> she replied, <q>they are wet and tired; let me give them something +hot as soon as I can.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>Oh! but let's put a word in for Jesus,</q> urged this chap. +</p> + +<p> +Then a bright-faced soldier lad called out, <q>Guv'nor, she puts Jesus in +the coffee.</q> That is what I mean when I say you have got to put Jesus +into every bit of the day's work. +</p><milestone unit="tb" rend="stars: 5" /> +<pb n="15" /><anchor id="Pg15" /> +<p> +I have never once been asked by your boys to what Church I belonged. +They don't stop to ask that if they believe in you. They want the living +Christ and the living Message. It isn't creed; it's need. And don't you +get the notion that the boys can't be reached, and don't you think that +the boys are hostile to Christianity. They are not. I won't hear it +without protest. The best things that the old Book talks about are the +things the boys love in one another. They don't always think of the +Book, but they love the fruits of the Spirit in one another. They love +truth, honour, courage, humility, friendship, loyalty. And where do you +get those things? Why, they have their roots in the Cross—they grow on +that Tree. +</p><milestone unit="tb" rend="stars: 5" /><p> +I had a dear friend who won the M.C.—a young Cambridge graduate. He was +all-round brilliant. He could write an essay, preach a sermon, sit down +to the piano and compose an operetta. The boys delighted in him. He +would always be at the front. He would always be where there was danger. +I was talking about him one day in one of the convalescent +<pb n="16" /><anchor id="Pg16" /> +camps, and +two of the boys said to me afterwards, +</p> + +<p> +<q>You have been talking about our padre. We loved him. We were with him +when he was killed, for the shell that killed him wounded us. Every man +in the battalion would have laid down his life for him.</q> +</p> + +<p> +This old world's dying for the want of love. There are more people die +for the want of a bit of it than with overmuch of it. Don't stifle +it—let it out. +</p><milestone unit="tb" rend="stars: 5" /><p> +<q>I am afraid,</q> said a padre to me once, <q>the boys are sceptical.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>Come with me to-morrow,</q> I answered. <q>I'll prove to you they are <hi rend="font-style: italic">not</hi> +sceptical.</q> +</p> +<p> +We were half an hour ahead of time and the hut was crowded with eight +hundred men. They were singing when I got in—something about <q>an old +rooster—as you used to.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Do you suppose I had no better sense than to go in and say, <q>Stop this +ungodly music?</q> You can catch more flies with treacle than with vinegar. +</p> + +<p> +I looked at the boys and said, <q>That's great, sing it again.</q> +</p> +<pb n="17" /><anchor id="Pg17" /> +<p> +And I turned to the padre and asked, <q>Isn't that splendid? Isn't that +fine?</q> +</p> + +<p> +While we were waiting to begin the meeting, I said, <q>Boys, we must have +another.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>One of the same sort?</q> they shouted. +</p> + +<p> +<q>Of course,</q> was my reply. And they sang <q>Who's your lady friend?</q> and +when they had sung that, I called out, <q>Boys, we will have one more. +What shall it be?</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>One of yours, sir.</q> +</p> + +<p> +I had not trusted them in vain. +</p> + +<p> +I said, <q>Very well, you choose your hymn.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>When I survey the wondrous Cross</q>—that was the song they chose. +</p> + +<p> +And they sang it all the better because I had sung their songs with +them. Before we had got to the end of the last verse some of those boys +were in tears, and it wasn't hard to pray. It isn't far from rag-time to +<q>When I survey the wondrous Cross.</q> +</p> + +<p> +When they had finished the hymn I said, <q>Boys, I am going to tell you +the story of my father's conversion.</q> For I had to convince my padre +friend that they were not sceptical. I took them to the gipsy tent and +told them of my father and five motherless children, and +<pb n="18" /><anchor id="Pg18" />of how Jesus +came to that tent, saving the father and the five children and making +preachers of them all. +</p> + +<p> +I said, <q>Did my father make a mistake when he brought Christ to those +five motherless children?</q> And the eight hundred boys shouted, <q>No, +sir.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>Did he do the right thing?</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>Yes, sir.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>What ought you to do?</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>The same, sir.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>Do you want Jesus in your lives?</q> and every man of the eight hundred +jumped to his feet. +</p> + +<p> +You say they are sceptical where Jesus is concerned. I'll tell you when +they are sceptical—when they see the caricature of Jesus in you and me. +</p><milestone unit="tb" rend="stars: 5" /><p> +I was, as I have said, under shell fire for a month in one place—night +and day for a month—and never allowed out without a gasbag round my +neck. I slept in a cellar there at night when I did sleep—only 700 +yards from the Germans—and, as I have said before, it <hi rend="font-style: italic">was</hi> cold. +</p> +<pb n="19" /><anchor id="Pg19" /> +<p> +When the thaw set in, I put a couple of bricks down and put a box-lid on +top, so that I could stand in a dry place. We had two picks and two +shovels in that cellar in case anything happened overnight. I have been +up against it. Whenever I talked to the boys there they sat with their +gas-bags round their necks, and one held mine while I talked. It was +quite a common thing to have something fall quite close to us while we +were singing. +</p> + +<p> +Imagine singing <q>Cover my defenceless head,</q> just as a piece of the roof +is falling in. Or—</p> +<quote> +In death's dark vale I fear no ill +With Thee, dear Lord, beside me— +</quote> +<p> +then another crash! That makes things real. Every word was accompanied +by the roar of guns—the rattle of the machine gun and the crack of the +rifle. We never knew what it was to be quiet. +</p> + +<p> +A shell once came and burst just the other side of the wall against +which I was standing and blew part of it over my head. I have suffered +as your boys have, and I have preached the Gospel to your boys in the +front line. I long for the privilege of doing it again. +</p><milestone unit="tb" rend="stars: 5" /> +<pb n="20" /><anchor id="Pg20" /> +<p> +If I had my way I'd take all the best preachers in Britain and I'd put +them down in France. And if the church and chapel goers grumbled, I'd +say, <q>You're overfed. You can do without a preacher for a little.</q> And +if they were to ask, <q>How do you know?</q> I should reply, <q>Because it's +hard work to get you to one meal a week. You only come once on a Sunday +and often not that. That's how I know you are not enjoying your food.</q> +</p> + +<p> +I love talking to the Scottish boys—the kilties. Oh! they are great +boys—the kilties. When the French first saw them they didn't know what +they were, whether they were men or women. +</p> + +<p> +<q>Don't you know what they are?</q> said a bright-faced English boy. <q>They +are what we call the Middlesex.</q> +</p> + +<p> +You can't beat a British boy, he's on the spot all the time—<q>the +Middlesex!</q> Some of you haven't seen the joke yet. +</p><milestone unit="tb" rend="stars: 5" /><p> +I once went to a hut just behind the line, within the sound of the guns. +Buildings all round us had been blown to pieces. The leader of this hut +was a clergyman of the Church of +<pb n="21" /><anchor id="Pg21" /> +England, but he wasn't an ecclesiastic +there, he was a man amongst men, and we loved him. +</p> + +<p> +<q>Gipsy Smith,</q> he said, <q>I don't know what you will do; the boys in the +billets this week are the Munsters—Irish Roman Catholics. You would +have got on all right last week; we had the York and Lancasters.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>Do you think they will come to the meetings?</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>I don't know,</q> he replied; <q>they come for everything else! They come +for their smokes, candles, soap, buttons—bachelor's buttons—postcards, +and everything else they want. But whether they will come for the +religious part, I don't know.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>Well,</q> I said, <q>we can but try.</q> +</p> + +<p> +It was about midday when we were talking, and the meeting was to be at +6.30. +</p> + +<p> +<q>Have you got a boy who could write a bill for me?</q> I asked. +</p> + +<p> +<q>Yes,</q> he said, <q>I've got a boy who could do that all right.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>Print it on green paper,</q> said I. +</p> + +<p> +Why not? They were the Munsters. Why shouldn't we use our heads? People +think <pb n="22" /><anchor id="Pg22" /> +mighty hard in business, why shouldn't we think in the religious +world? +</p> + +<p> +<q>Just say this and nothing more,</q> I said. +</p> + +<p> +<q>'<hi rend="font-style: italic">Gipsy Smith will give a talk in the Hut to-night at</hi> 6.30. +<hi rend="font-style: italic">Subject—Gipsy Life</hi>.'</q> +</p> + +<p> +I knew that would fetch them. +</p> + +<p> +At half-past six the hut was crowded with eight hundred Munsters. If you +are an old angler, indeed if you know anything at all about angling, you +know that you have got to consider two or three things if you are to +stand any chance of a catch. You have got to study your tackle, you have +got to study your bait, you have got to study the habits of your fish. +When the time came to begin that meeting, one of the workers said, +</p> + +<p> +<q>Shall I bring the box of hymn-books out?</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>No, no,</q> I replied; <q>that's the wrong bait.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Those Munster boys knew nothing about hymn-books. We preachers have got +to come off our pedestals and not give our hearers what we want, but the +thing that will catch them. If a pretty, catchy Sankey hymn will attract +a crowd, why shouldn't we use it instead of +<pb n="23" /><anchor id="Pg23" />an anthem? If a brass band +will catch them, why shouldn't we play it instead of an organ? +</p> + +<p> +<q>Keep back those hymn-books,</q> I said. <q>They know nothing about +hymn-books.</q> I had a pretty good idea of what would have happened if +those hymn-books had been produced at the start. +</p> + +<p> +I got on that platform, and I looked at those eight hundred Munsters and +said, <q>Boys, are we down-hearted?</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q><hi rend="font-style: italic">No</hi>,</q> they shouted. +</p> + +<p> +You can imagine what eight hundred Munsters shouting <q>No</q> sounds like. +They were all attention instantly. I wonder what would happen if the +Vicar went into church next Sunday morning and asked the question, <q>Are +we down-hearted?</q> I knew it would cause a sensation, but I'd rather have +a sensation than a stagnation. +</p> + +<p> +Those boys sat up. I said, <q>We are going to talk about gipsy life.</q> I +talked to them about the origin of my people. There's not a man living +in the world who knows the origin of my people. I can trace my people +back to India, but they didn't come from India. We are one of the oldest +races in the world, so old that +<pb n="24" /><anchor id="Pg24" />nobody knows how old. I talked to them +about the origin of the gipsies, and I don't know it, but I knew more +about it than they did. I talked to them about our language, and I gave +them specimens of it, and there I was on sure ground. It is a beautiful +language, full of poetry and music. Then I talked about the way the +gipsies get their living—and other people's; and for thirty minutes +those Munsters hardly knew if they were on the chairs or on the +floor—and I purposely made them laugh. They had just come out of the +hell of the trenches. They had that haunted, weary, hungry look, and if +only I could make them laugh and forget the hell out of which they had +just climbed it was religion, and I wasn't wasting time. +</p> +<p> +When I had been talking for thirty minutes, I stopped, and said, <q>Boys, +there's a lot more to this story. Would you like some more?</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>Yes,</q> they shouted. +</p> + +<p> +<q>Come back to-morrow,</q> I said. +</p> + +<p> +I was fishing in unlikely waters, and if you leave off when fish are +hungry they will come back for more. For six nights I told those boys +gipsy stories. I took them out into the +<pb n="25" /><anchor id="Pg25" />woods. We went out amongst the +rabbits. I told the boys the rabbits got very fond of me—so fond that +they used to go home with me! I took them through the clover-fields on a +June day and made them smell the perfume. I took them among the +buttercups. I told them it was the Finger of Love and the Smile of +Infinite Wisdom that put the spots upon the pansy and the deep blue in +the violet. And then we went out among the birds and we saw God taking +songs from the lips of a seraph and wrapping them round with feathers. +</p> + +<p> +And the boys saw Jesus in every buttercup and every primrose, and every +little daisy, and in every dewdrop, and heard something of the song of +the angels in the notes of the nightingale and the skylark. Oh! Jesus +was there, and they felt Him, and they saw Him. I took them amongst the +gipsy tents, amongst the woodlands and dells of the old camping-grounds. +They walked with Him and they talked with Him. I didn't use the usual +Church language, but I used the language of God in Nature and the boys +heard Him. +</p> + +<p> +Towards the end of the week one of those Munster boys came and touched +me and said, +<pb n="26" /><anchor id="Pg26" /><q>Your Riverence! Your Riverence!</q> he says. <q>You're a +gentleman.</q> +</p> + +<p> +I <hi rend="font-style: italic">knew</hi> I had got that boy. +</p> + +<p> +Now, if you are an old angler you know what happens if you begin to tug +at the line the first time you get a bite. When you hook a fish, if he +happens to be a Munster, you have got to keep your head and play him, +let him have the line, let him go, keep steady, no excitement, give him +play. I gave him a bit of line, that young Munster. I thanked him for +his compliment and then walked away—with my eyes over my shoulder, for +if he hadn't come after me I should have been after him. +</p> + +<p> +Presently he pulled my tunic and said, <q>Won't you give me a minute, +sir?</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>What's the trouble?</q> I said. +</p> + +<p> +<q>Sir,</q> he said, with a little catch in his voice that I can hear now, +<q>you've got something I haven't.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>How do you know?</q> I asked. +</p> + +<p> +<q>It's like the singing of a little song, and it gets into my heart. I +want it. Won't you tell me how to get it? I want it.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>Sonny,</q> I said, <q>it's for you. You can have it at the same price I paid +for it.</q> +</p> +<pb n="27" /><anchor id="Pg27" /> +<p> +<q>Begorra,</q> says he, <q>you will tell me to give up my religion, you will!</q> +</p> + +<p> +I said, <q>If God has put anything in your life that helps you to be a +better and a nobler and a braver man, He doesn't want you to give it +up.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>He doesn't?</q> he asked. <q>What am I to give up, then?</q> +</p> + +<p> +And I replied, <q>Your sin.</q> +</p> + +<p> +The boy said again, <q>You're a gentleman.</q> +</p> + +<p> +If I had said one word about his religion or his creed, my line would +have snapped and I would have lost my fish. +</p> + +<p> +That night, when all the boys had gone, we got into a corner and we +knelt down, and when he went he said, <q>I've got it, sir. I've got the +little song—<hi rend="font-style: italic">and it's singing</hi>.</q> +</p><milestone unit="tb" rend="stars: 5" /><p> +At one of my meetings the boys were four thousand strong and the +Commandant of the camp was to preside. As they say in the Army, he had +got the wind up. He did not know me. When he saw the crowd there he +began to wonder what was going to happen. He called one of the officers +to him, and said, +</p> +<p> +<q>I don't know what he's going to do. I hope +<pb n="28" /><anchor id="Pg28" />he's not going to give us a +revival meeting or something of that sort. I hope he knows that +one-third of these fellows are Roman Catholics.</q> +</p> + +<p> +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, <q>I don't think you need +trouble, sir. He's all right, and knows his job.</q> +</p> + +<p> +When we were ready, I went to the Colonel, and said, <q>We are quite ready +to begin, sir.</q> +</p> + +<p> +The Colonel rose and announced, <q>Officers, non-commissioned officers, +and men, I now introduce to you Gipsy Smith, who will perform.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Now, the first thing I wanted to do was to disarm all prejudice in the +mind of both officers and men. So I said, <q>Are you ready, boys?</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>Yes, sir.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>Well, we'll have our opening hymn, 'Keep the home fires burning.'</q> +</p> + +<p> +And didn't those boys sing that! Some of them were smoking, and I wasn't +going to tell +<pb n="29" /><anchor id="Pg29" />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, <q>Boys, you sang that very well, but you were not +<hi rend="font-style: italic">all</hi> singing. Now, if we have another, will you all sing?</q> And they +answered, <q>Yes.</q> I knew if they sang they couldn't smoke. So we had +<q>Pack up your troubles,</q> and this time every smoke was out and every boy +was singing. <q>We'll have another,</q> said I, when they had finished; +<q rend="pre">we'll have—</q> +</p> +<lg> +<l> <q rend="pre">Way down in Tennessee</q></l> +<l> Just try to think of me</l> +<l> <q rend="post"><q rend="post">Right on my mother's knee.</q></q></l> +</lg> +<p> +I knew if I got them round their mothers' knees I should be all right. +</p> +<p> +<q>Now, boys,</q> I said, <q>what am I to talk to you about?</q> I let them choose +their subject very often. +</p> + +<p> +<q>Tell us the story of the gipsy tent,</q> they called out. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> +<pb n="30" /><anchor id="Pg30" /> +<p> +<q>Now, boys, I'm through,</q> 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 <q>performer</q>—and he couldn't do it; there was a lump +in his throat and big tears were rolling down his cheeks. +</p> + +<p> +<q>Boys, I can't say what I want to, but,</q> said he, <q>we have all got to be +better men.</q> +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p><milestone unit="tb" rend="stars: 5" /><p> +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 +<pb n="31" /><anchor id="Pg31" />knew that for many +it was the last service they would attend on earth. I said, +</p> + +<p> +<q>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 <hi rend="font-style: italic">that</hi> 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.</q> +</p> + +<p> +You should have heard the boys all over that hut whisper, <q>Yes, +sir—Jesus.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>Well,</q> I said, <q>I want every man that is anxious to take Jesus with him +into the trench to stand.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Instantly and quietly every man in that hut stood up. And we prayed as +men can pray only under those conditions. We sang together, <q>For ever +with the Lord.</q> I shall never sing that hymn again without a lump in my +throat. My mind will always go back to those dear boys. +</p> + +<p> +We shook hands and I watched them go, +<pb n="32" /><anchor id="Pg32" />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, +</p> + +<p> +<q>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.</q> +</p> + +<p> +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—<hi rend="font-style: italic">they had +settled it</hi>. +</p><milestone unit="tb" rend="stars: 5" /><p> +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, <q>Sister, how battered and bruised his poor head is!</q> +</p> + +<p> +He looked up and said, <q>Yes, it is battered and bruised; but it will be +all right, Gipsy, when I get the crown!</q> +</p> + +<p> +One night I had got about fifty boys round me in a dug-out, with the +walls blown out and +<pb n="33" /><anchor id="Pg33" />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:</p> +<p rend="text-align: center"><q>Jesu, Lover of my soul,</q></p> +<p>and I have heard them sing,</p> +<p rend="text-align: center"><q>Cover my defenceless head,</q></p> +<p>with the shells falling close to them. I have heard them sing,</p> +<p rend="text-align: center"><q>I fear no foe ...</q></p> +<p>with every seat and every bit of building round us rocking with the +concussion of things. And then they will choose:</p> +<lg rend="display"> +<l rend="margin-left: 1"><q>The King of Love my Shepherd is,</q></l> +<l rend="margin-left: 1"><q>The Lord's my Shepherd, I'll not want,</q></l> +<l rend="margin-left: 1"><q>Abide with me,</q></l> +<l rend="margin-left: 1"><q>Rock of ages, cleft for me,</q></l> +</lg> +<pb n="34" /><anchor id="Pg34" /> +<p>and the one they love, I think, most of all is,</p> +<p rend="text-align: center"><q>When I survey the wondrous Cross.</q></p> +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +That night I said, <q>I have brought some hymn-sheets. I thought we might +have some singing, but I'm afraid it's too dark.</q> +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +I said, <q>Put the candles out, boys. I can talk in the dark.</q> +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p><milestone unit="tb" rend="stars: 5" /> +<pb n="35" /><anchor id="Pg35" /> +<p> +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! +</p><milestone unit="tb" rend="stars: 5" /><p> +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, +</p> + +<p> +<q>I wonder if any of you would like to meet me for a little prayer?</q> +</p> + +<p> +And from all over the camp came the answer, <q>Yes, sir; yes, sir; yes, +sir.</q> +</p> + +<p> +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, +</p> + +<p> +<q>You have elected to come here to pray, so +<pb n="36" /><anchor id="Pg36" />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.</q> +</p> + +<p> +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, <q>Please God, You know I've been a +rotter.</q> That's the way to pray. That boy was talking to God and the +Lord was very glad to listen. +</p><milestone unit="tb" rend="stars: 5" /><p> +I was talking to one boy—an American; he was a little premature, he was +in the fight before his country. +</p> + +<p> +<q>Sonny,</q> I said, <q>you're an American?</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>Yes, sir. I was born in Michigan.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>Well, what are you doing, fighting under the British flag?</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>I guess it's my fight too, sir. This,</q> he said, <q>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.</q> +</p> +<pb n="37" /><anchor id="Pg37" /> +<p> +I told that story to one of our Generals who died last September. +</p> + +<p> +<q>Ah!</q> he said, <q>that boy got to the bottom of the business. It's for the +race. It's for the race.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>Are you a Christian?</q> I asked. +</p> + +<p> +<q>No,</q> he answered; <q>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.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Then he continued slowly, <q>On the Somme, a few hours before I was badly +wounded</q>—he put his hand in his pocket and drew out a little +crucifix—<q>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 <hi rend="font-style: italic">nothing</hi>. 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 +<pb n="38" /><anchor id="Pg38" />for me—not +this little bit of metal, but what it means.</q> +</p> + +<p> +I said, <q>Have you ever prayed?</q> +</p> + +<p> +He replied, <q>No, sir. I've wept over this little crucifix—is that +prayer?</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>That's prayer of the best sort,</q> I said. <q>Every tear contained volumes +you could not utter, and God read every word. He knows all about it.</q> +</p> + +<p> +I pulled out a little khaki Testament. <q>Would you like it?</q> I said. +<q>Would you read it?</q> +</p> + +<p> +He answered, <q>Yes,</q> and signed the decision in the cover. +</p> + +<p> +When I shook hands with him there was a light in his eyes. Have you ever +seen the light break over the cliff-tops of some high mountain peak? +Have you ever watched the sun kiss a landscape into beauty? Have you +ever seen the earth dance with gladness as the sun bathed it with +radiance and warmth? Oh, it's a great sight; but there's no sight like +seeing the light from Calvary kiss a human face as it fills the heart +with the assurance of Divine forgiveness. +</p><milestone unit="tb" rend="stars: 5" /> +<pb n="39" /><anchor id="Pg39" /> +<p> +One hundred and fifty-two thousand cups of tea and coffee are given away +monthly at one railway-station. I once happened to be at a +railway-station on the main lines of communication. There are women +working there, women of position and means, working at their own +expense. I have seen rough fellows go up to a British woman behind a +counter—the first time they have seen a British woman for months—and I +have heard them say, <q>Madam, will you shake hands with me?</q> I saw an +Australian do that. He got her hand—and his was like a leg of +mutton—and he thought of his mother and his home-folk. He forgot his +tea. It was a benediction to have that woman there. +</p> + +<p> +Well, on this occasion two of these ladies said to me, <q>Gipsy, we're +having a relief train pass through to-morrow, and one comes through up +and one comes through down.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>I'll be there,</q> I said. +</p> + +<p> +The train that was coming from the front we could hear before we could +see it. And it wasn't the engine that we heard, because that came so +slowly, but I could hear the boys singing as they came round the curve, +</p> +<p rend="text-align: center"> +<anchor id="Pg40" /> +<q>Blighty, Blighty is the place for me.</q> +</p> +<pb n="40" /> +<p> +We served them with tea and coffee, French bread a yard long, and +candles and matches and <q>Woodbines,</q> and then we got that crowd +off—still singing <q>Blighty.</q> +</p> + +<p> +They had been gone about five minutes when the other train <hi rend="font-style: italic">from</hi> +Blighty came in. We couldn't hear them singing. They were quiet and +subdued. We served them with coffee and tea, candles, bootlaces, and +smokes, and then, as they had some time, they started having a wash—the +first since they left Blighty. The footboard of the train was the +washstand, the shaving-table, and the dressing-table. But they didn't +sing. +</p> + +<p> +I saw in a corner of that little canteen a pile of postcards, and I +said, <q>Who says a postcard for wife or mother?</q> +</p> + +<p> +Somebody asked, <q>Who's going to see them posted?</q> +</p> + +<p> +I said, <q>I am. You leave them to me.</q> +</p> + +<p> +They said, <q>All right,</q> and I began to give out the postcards. +</p> + +<p> +I started at one end of the train and went on to the other end. In the +middle I found two carriages full of officers. +</p> +<pb n="41" /><anchor id="Pg41" /> +<p> +<q>Gentlemen,</q> I said, <q>will you please censor these postcards as I +collect them, and that will relieve the pressure on the local staff, for +I don't want to put any extra work on them?</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>Oh, certainly,</q> they answered, and I sent a dozen or twenty up at a +time to them, and in fifteen minutes that train was steaming out of the +station and the boys were singing, <q>Should auld acquaintance.</q> +</p> + +<p> +When they had gone I collected the postcards that had been written and +censored—and there were 575. To keep the boys in touch with home is +religion; to keep in their lives the finest, the most beautiful +home-sentiment that God ever gives to the world is a bit of +religion—pure and undefiled. +</p><milestone unit="tb" rend="stars: 5" /><p> +How gloriously brave are the French women and Belgian women! I was +talking to one in London—a young girl not more than eighteen or +nineteen. She was serving me in a restaurant, and I saw she was wiping +her eyes, so I called her to me and said, <q>What's the matter, my child?</q> +</p> + +<p> +She answered, <q>Sir, I came over on the boat from Belgium early in the +war, and my +<pb n="42" /><anchor id="Pg42" /> +mother and sisters got scattered, and I have never seen or +heard of them since.</q> +</p> + +<p> +And the Madame of the restaurant came to me a little while afterwards, +and said, <q>We dare not tell her, but they were all killed.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Many people at home don't realise what is going on. Some are in +mourning, some have lost boys, some have lost husbands, brothers, but we +have not suffered as others have suffered. I was riding in a French +train a few weeks ago. Beside me sat a lady draped in mourning. I could +not see her face, it was so thickly veiled with crape. Beside her was a +nurse, and the lady wept, oh, so bitterly! I cannot bear to see anybody +weeping. If I see a little child crying in the street I want to comfort +it. If I see a woman crying in the street I want to comfort her. God has +given me a quick ear where grief is concerned—and I am thankful. I +wouldn't have it otherwise—though I have to pay for it. +</p> + +<p> +That woman's tears went through me. Every little while she was counting +in French, <q><hi rend="font-style: italic">Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq,</hi></q>—then she would weep again +and then she would count. +</p> + +<p> +I said to the nurse, <q>Nurse, what's the +<pb n="43" /><anchor id="Pg43" />trouble?</q> and she said, <q>Sir, +her mind has given way. Before the war she had five handsome sons, and +one by one they have been killed, and now she spends her time counting +over her boys and weeping.</q> +</p> + +<p> +And all that is for you and for me! What sort of people ought we to be, +do you suppose? Are we really worth—<hi rend="font-style: italic">that</hi>? +</p><milestone unit="tb" rend="stars: 5" /><p> +I was talking to some Canadians one night—and the Canadians are fine +boys. I was putting my foot on the platform, just about to begin, when a +bright young Canadian touched me and said, <q>Say, boss, can <hi rend="font-style: italic">you</hi> shoot +quick?</q> and I replied, +</p> + +<p> +<q>Yes, and straight.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>Well,</q> he said, <q>you'll do.</q> +</p> + +<p> +I had a great time with those fellows. Hundreds of those Canadian boys +stood up to say, <q>God helping me, I am going to lead a better +life!</q>—hundreds of them. And then I put another test to them. <q>I want +you all to promise,</q> I said, <q>that you'll kneel down and say your +prayers to-night in the billet, and those of you who will promise to do +that +<pb n="44" /><anchor id="Pg44" />come up and shake hands with me as you go out.</q> I was kept one +half-hour shaking hands. +</p> + +<p> +Now, there were nine fellows sleeping in one billet and not one knew the +other eight had been to the meeting. They all got mixed up, but all the +nine came up to shake hands, and the one that got back to billets first +told the story afterwards. This one had made up his mind he would kneel +down and say his prayers, but when he returned he found there was no one +there. Somehow he felt different then—he felt he couldn't do it. He was +more afraid of nobody than he would have been of somebody. Then just +suppose the others came back and found him kneeling there! +</p> + +<p> +<q>I funked it,</q> he said. <q>I got under the blanket, and tried to say my +prayers under the blanket, but it wouldn't work. Then I heard one man +come into the room, then two, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight. +And the eighth man was the champion swearer of the company.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>Boys,</q> said this man, <q>did you hear him?</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>Yes,</q> they said, <q>we heard him.</q> +</p> + +<p> +And the little chap under the blanket said <q>Yes</q> too. +</p> +<pb n="45" /><anchor id="Pg45" /><p> +<q>Well, I shook hands with that man, and I promised him for my mother's +sake that I'd kneel down and say my prayers to-night.</q> +</p> + +<p> +And the little chap under the blanket jumped up, blanket and all, and +said, <q>So did I. I'm with you.</q> +</p> + +<p> +And the others said, <q>So did we.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>Well,</q> the last comer said, <q>the best thing we can do is to kneel down +now and say a little prayer.</q> +</p> + +<p> +So they all knelt down, and they each said a little prayer—I wish I had +a record of those prayers—and they finished up with <q>Our Father.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Then the champion swearer said, <q>Boys, I've cut it all out: no more +drink—not another drop.</q> +</p> + +<p> +And they said, <q>All right, we are with you. We'll cut it out.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Then he said, <q>I've cut something else out. No more swearing.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Eighty-five times out of every hundred that the boys in France use a +swear-word they mean no more than I do when I say, <q>Great Scott.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>Do you, boys?</q> I ask them. +</p> + +<p> +<q>No, sir,</q> they invariably reply. +</p> +<pb n="46" /><anchor id="Pg46" /><p> +<q>Well, then, why do you use these swear-words?</q> +</p> + +<p> +And then I've got them and, out of their own mouths, they are condemned. +I tell them it is bad form, and I say, <q>Cut it out.</q> +</p> + +<p> +These boys made a solemn compact that night that the first man who swore +should clean all nine guns, and before the week was out my champion was +cleaning nine guns. +</p> + +<p> +But those eight boys didn't go back on him. They were sporty. +</p> + +<p> +I have seen a little bird's nest all broken with the wind and torn with +the storm, and two or three little eggs, with a few wet leaves over +them, addled and cold and forsaken, and my little gipsy heart cried over +those poor little motherless things, for I was motherless too. And up in +a tree I have heard a thrush singing the song of a seraph and I have +said, as I looked at the eggs, <q>You would have been singers too, but you +were forsaken.</q> +</p> + +<p> +These boys—they did not forsake their chum. They said, <q>Buck up, old +boy. We'll help you.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>No,</q> he said. <q>This is my job.</q> +</p> + +<p> +So they stood by him and cheered him on. +<pb n="47" /><anchor id="Pg47" /> +People, I say again, don't die +of overmuch love, but for the want of a bit of it. These boys stood by +my champion swearer, and when he was putting the polishing touches on +the last gun he stood up, his face radiant, like a man that has fought a +battle and won: <q>Boys, this is the last gun I shall clean for anybody +under these conditions, because, God helping me, I'm going to see this +thing through.</q> +</p> + +<p> +And he <hi rend="font-style: italic">is</hi> seeing it through. +</p><milestone unit="tb" rend="stars: 5" /><p> +I was at a home for limbless men the other day—there are over one +hundred and eighty of them in that home. I held my hand out to shake +hands with the first two men I met, and they laughed at me. I looked +down for their hands—they hadn't got one between them! I took the face +of one of those dear boys and I patted it. I wanted to kiss it with +gratitude. I wonder how you feel! +</p> + +<p> +I walked round amongst those boys—one hundred and eighty limbless! I +found one boy without legs and without an arm. He was just a trunk, and +his comrades, those who could, were carrying him around. He was the +sunshine in the whole place—not a grouse. +<pb n="48" /><anchor id="Pg48" />They are doing no +grousing—your boys there. When they see you they just say, <q>Cheerio.</q> +</p> + +<p> +A friend of mine, a minister, went to see one of these boys, and he was +wondering what he could say to him; he thought he had got to cheer him +up. The boy looked at the padre and said, +</p> + +<p> +<q>Guv'nor, don't get down-hearted. I am going to make money out of this +job. Why, I shall only want a pair of trousers with one leg, and I shall +only want a coat with one sleeve, and I shall only want a pair of boots +with one boot.</q> +</p> + +<p> +It reminds me of the question I once asked: <q>Sonny, what struck you most +when you got in the trenches?</q> and the reply came sharp, +</p> + +<p> +<q>A bit of shrapnel.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Another of your boys, just picked up in the trenches by those tender +fellows, the stretcher-bearers, those men with the hands of a woman and +with the heart of a mother—God bless them!—called out as they came to +him, <q><hi rend="font-style: italic">Home, John</hi>.</q> And when he was passing the officer and they were +carrying him into the Red Cross train, he cried, <q><hi rend="font-style: italic">Season</hi>.</q> He had two +gold stripes already. That's the spirit of your boys. +</p><milestone unit="tb" rend="stars: 5" /> +<pb n="49" /><anchor id="Pg49" /><p> +There was a dear old Scotchman from Aberdeen. A telegram had come to +that granite city to say that his boy was badly wounded, and he ran all +the way to the station and jumped into a train without stopping to put +on a collar. You don't think of collars when your boys are dying. I saw +him when he landed. It was my job to help him. The dear old fellow was +just in time to see his boy die—and afterwards he came and laid his +head on my shoulder and he sobbed. And I wept too. He was seventy. +</p> + +<p> +Presently he said, <q>It will be hard to go home and tell mother that her +only boy has gone, but I've got a message for her. 'Father,' my boy +said, 'tell mother I am not afraid to die. I have found Jesus. Tell +mother that.'</q> +</p> + +<p> +There are some people who think you are not doing Christian work unless +you have a hymn-book in one hand and a Bible in the other and are +singing, <q>Come to Jesus.</q> I am glad I haven't to live with that kind of +people. I call them the Lord's Awkward Squad. +</p> + +<p> +If you take <q>firstly,</q> <q>secondly,</q> <q>thirdly,</q> out to the front with you, +by the time you get to thirdly the boys will be in the trenches. I +<pb n="50" /><anchor id="Pg50" /> +never take an old sermon out with me to France. I write my prescription +after I've seen my patients. +</p> + +<p> +I was talking to a thousand boys one day. <q>Boys,</q> I said, <q>how many of +you have written to your mother this week?</q> +</p> + +<p> +Now, that's a proper question. I wonder what would happen if the +preacher stopped in his sermon next Sunday morning and said, <q>Have you +paid your debts this week?</q> <q>In what sort of a temper did you come down +to breakfast this morning?</q> +</p> + +<p> +If a man's religion does not get into every detail of his life he may +profess to be a saint, but he's a fraud. Religion ought to permeate life +and make it beautiful—as lovely as a breath of perfume from the garden +of the Lord. +</p> + +<p> +The boys have given me the privilege of talking straight to them. <q>If +you don't write, you know what you'll get,</q> I said, and I began to give +out the note-paper. I can give boys writing-paper and envelopes and sell +them a cup of coffee or a packet of cigarettes with as much religion as +I can stand in a pulpit and talk about them. Why, my Master washed +people's +<pb n="51" /><anchor id="Pg51" />feet and cooked a breakfast for hungry fishermen. He kindled +the fire with the hands that were nailed to a tree for humanity. There +are no secular things if you are in the spirit of the Master—they are +all Divine. +</p> + +<p> +I went on dealing the note-paper out, and presently a clergyman came to +me and said, <q>Gipsy Smith, a man in my room wants to see you.</q> +</p> + +<p> +When I got there, I saw he was crying, sobbing. +</p> + +<p> +<q>I am not a kid,</q> he said; <q>I am a man. I'm forty-one. You told me to +write to my mother. Read that,</q> he said, throwing down a letter; and +this is what I read:</p> + +<p> +<hi rend="font-variant: small-caps">“My dear Mother,</hi><lb /> +“It's seven years since I wrote you last. I've done my best to +break your heart and to turn your hair grey. I've lived a bad life, +but it's come to an end. I have given my heart to God. I won't ask +you to believe me, or to forgive me. I deserve neither. But I ask +for a bit of time that I may prove my sincerity.<lb /> +</p> +<p rend="text-align: right"> +“Your boy still,<lb /> +<hi rend="font-variant: small-caps">“Jack.”</hi> +</p> + +<pb n="52" /><anchor id="Pg52" /> +<p> +<q>Shall I put a bit at the bottom for a postscript?</q> I asked. <q>But first +of all, let us pray.</q> +</p> + +<p> +We got on our knees, and I said, <q>You begin.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>I'm not used to it,</q> he replied. +</p> + +<p> +<q>Begin; never mind how. Did you ever pray?</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>Yes,</q> he said; <q>I prayed as a child.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>Start with that, then—He loves cradle faith.</q> +</p> + +<p> +It took him some time, but presently he began with his mother's prayer, +<q>Jesus, tender Shepherd, hear me.</q> When he got to the third line there +was a big lump in his throat and one in mine, and then he gave me a dig +with his elbow and said, <q>You'll have to finish</q>—and I finished. +</p> + +<p> +I put my postscript to that letter. <q>God has saved him,</q> I wrote. +<q>Believe him. Write and tell him you forgive him.</q> +</p> + +<p> +And when that mother got that she knew that giving out note-paper was +religion. +</p><milestone unit="tb" rend="stars: 5" /><p> +I was in a cemetery just behind the lines, walking among the graves of +our dear lads who have fallen, and weeping for those at home +<pb n="53" /><anchor id="Pg53" /> +who weep +over graves that they will never see. There I found an old soldier who +had been to the woods and had cut a big bundle of box trimmings. He was +setting a little border of box round the graves. +</p> + +<p> +<q>But,</q> I said to him, <q>they won't strike. It's not the right time of +year—and the ground's too dry.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>I know, sir,</q> he said, <q>but it will look as if somebody cares.</q> +</p> + +<p> +God's jewels lie deep, and if you will dig deep enough you will find +them—so I took the trouble to dig a little deeper. I said, <q>Nobody will +see them here.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>Yes, sir, the angels will. You taught me to think like this in one of +the meetings in the huts, and since I can't do any more in the +fight</q>—for he was disabled—<q>I am putting in my time caring for the +boys' graves, and if the wives and mothers don't see them—well</q>—and +his face lit up with a radiance that I can't put into words—<q>the angels +will, sir.</q> +</p><milestone unit="tb" rend="stars: 5" /><p> +I have had your boys say to me, <q>Gipsy, does it mean Blighty, or does it +mean West?</q> I +<pb n="54" /><anchor id="Pg54" /> +have had to say to some of them, <q>It doesn't mean +Blighty.</q> +</p> + +<p> +A sister took me to see one dear fellow. He was blown up by a mine, both +his legs and his arm were broken. +</p> + +<p> +<q>I was lying out there, after the mine blew up, for twenty-four hours, +and I was half buried,</q> he told me. +</p> + +<p> +Fancy lying out there in No Man's Land for twenty-four hours with both +legs broken and an arm! +</p> + +<p> +I said, <q>Sonny, you have had a rough time.</q> +</p> + +<p> +And this was his reply: <q>They copped me, worse luck, before I had a pot +at them.</q> +</p> + +<p> +You can't beat these boys of yours, the nation's boys, the best boys of +our homes, the flower of our manhood, the noblest and the dearest that +God ever gave to a people. These boys, they are worth everything in the +world, and there is <hi rend="font-style: italic">nothing</hi> you and I can do will ever repay them for +what they are doing for you and for me. +</p><milestone unit="tb" rend="stars: 5" /><p> +When the great end of the day comes, the greatest joy of all will be the +joy of knowing you have tried to make somebody else's life +<pb n="55" /><anchor id="Pg55" />happy. It is +the flowers that you have made grow in unlikely places that will +tell—not how much money you have made, not how big a house you have +lived in, not how popular you were in the world of letters, of science, +of finance, but—how many burdens have you lifted? How many dark hearts +have you lightened? You can't do too much for your boys. Remember what +they are doing for you. Remember the lives that are being laid down for +you. +</p> + +<p> +I shook hands with a boy a little while ago in Scarborough, and he said, +<q>I believe I hold the record for having lost most in the war. I have +lost five brothers, my sister was killed in the war, and my mother died +of a broken heart through grief, but,</q> he said, <q>I'll give my next +week's pay, sir, towards this new hut.</q> +</p> + +<p> +Another boy, when I was making my appeal, said, <q>I've been wounded and I +am discharged. I'll give my next week's pay,</q> and up jumped a war-widow +and she said, <q>I'll give my next week's pension.</q> +</p> + +<p> +I was talking in Doncaster, and I had a batch of wounded men from one of +the local hospitals—a batch of twenty dressed in blue—and +<pb n="56" /><anchor id="Pg56" />every one +of them gave something; and when I looked round and said, <q>Boys, why are +you giving?</q> one said, <q>Well, sir, we're grateful for what it did for us +when we were there.</q> +</p> + +<p> +People say, <q>What are you going to do with the huts after the war?</q> We +want to pick them up, and bring them back to this country and put one +down in every parish in the land, so that when the boys do come back +they will still have the Y.M.C.A. hut to go into, so that they can still +keep up the spirit of unity. +</p> + +<p> +Woe be to the man who goes into the hut and tries to preach +sectarianism. The Y.M.C.A. is creating a spirit of unity amongst the +boys, and that is going on all the time. I want the limitations to +vanish at home. I want the ecclesiastical barriers to go. When you get +to Heaven the Lord will have to give Gabriel a job to introduce many +Christians to one another. You should see your boys, how they mix up. +They come in—the Roman Catholics, the Church of England, and the +Nonconformists and Plymouth Brethren and Salvation Army, and all +sorts—you don't know who's who. We are not quarrelling over religions +at +<pb n="57" /><anchor id="Pg57" /> +the front—we are fighting and dying for the folks who are doing +that at home. +</p> + +<p> +Let's stop our religious nonsense. Religion's too big to be confined +within our four little walls. If our Church rules are so rigid that they +won't let us come together, then our Church rules are wrong. God never +made rules which divide men—all God's laws unite. Christ died that we +might be one, and it is time we got together. Your boys are bigger than +your Churches. You and I have got to rise to the opportunity. God help +us to do it! +</p><milestone unit="tb" rend="stars: 5" /><p> +Somebody asks, <q>Why does the Y.M.C.A. always want more new huts? Why not +move the old ones?</q> What will the boys do who take the places of those +who have gone forward? When the line goes forward, it does not come +back—not in these days; it abides—and the boys who come up as a +support, they take the huts the other boys leave. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<pb n="58" /><anchor id="Pg58" /> +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. +</p> + +<p> +It is doing magnificent work. +</p> + +<p> +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, <q>Gipsy, I'm homesick; I want my mother,</q> and +then, with a sob, he said, <q>Tell me more about Jesus.</q> +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +He was lying on a stretcher, and it was my privilege to hold his hand +and to kiss him for his mother. +</p> +<pb n="59" /><anchor id="Pg59" /> +<p> +<q>Gipsy,</q> he said, <q>does it mean West?</q> +</p> + +<p> +I said, <q>Sonny, it means West.</q> +</p> + +<p> +As I held his hand it flickered for a moment and he said, <q>I am not +afraid to go. I know Christ. I found Him in your meetings, and—it's +great to die, for freedom.</q> +</p> + +<p> +And it was a great thing for me to be with your boy then. +</p><milestone unit="tb" rend="stars: 5" /> +<p> +<hi rend="font-style: italic">I thank my God upon every remembrance of your boys.</hi> +</p> +<lb /><lb /> +<p rend="text-align: center"> +<hi rend="font-variant: small-caps">the end</hi> +</p> +</div> + + +</body> + <back> +<div rend="page-break-before: right"> + <divGen type="pgfooter" /> +</div> + </back> + </text> +</TEI.2> + +<!-- +A Word from Project Gutenberg + + +This file should be named 16495-0.txt or 16495-0.zip. + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + + + http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/6/4/9/16495/ + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one — the old editions will be +renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one +owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and +you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission +and without paying copyright royalties. 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