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diff --git a/16495-h/16495-h.htm b/16495-h/16495-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b72e1c2 --- /dev/null +++ b/16495-h/16495-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1714 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="utf-8"> + <title>Your Boys, by Gipsy Smith—A Project Gutenberg eBook</title> + <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> + <style> + body { margin-left:8%; margin-right:8%;} + + p { margin-top:0.1em; margin-bottom:0.1em; text-align:justify; + text-indent:1.15em; } + p.ni { text-indent:0; } + + .section { margin-top:4em; margin-bottom:4em; } + + h1 { text-align:center; font-weight:normal; } + h1 { font-size:1.4em; } + + .figcenter { clear:both; max-width:100%; margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:2em; text-align:center; } + .figcenter p { text-align:center; text-indent:0; margin-top:0; } + .figcenter img { width:100%; } + + .tac { text-align:center; } + .tar { text-align:right; } + .fss { font-size:smaller; } + .sc { font-variant:small-caps; } + + hr.page { margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:2em; } + hr.tb { border:none; border-bottom:1px solid black; width:60%; + margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; } + div.poetry { margin-left:2em; margin-top:0.3em; margin-bottom:0.3em; } + </style> + </head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center; font-weight:bold; margin-bottom:1em;'> +The Project Gutenberg eBook of Your Boys, by Gipsy Smith +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world 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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='height:10px;'></div> +<div style='display:table;'> + <div style='display:table-row;'> + <div style='display:table-cell;padding-right:0.5em;'>Title:</div> + <div style='display:table-cell;'>Your Boys</div> + </div> +</div> +<div style='height:10px;'></div> +<div style='display:table-row;'> +<div style='display:table-cell;padding-right:0.5em;'>Author: </div><div style='display:table-cell;'>Gipsy Smith</div> +</div> +<div style='height:10px;'></div> +<div style='white-space:nowrap'>Release Date: August 9, 2005 [eBook #16495]</div> +<div>[Most recently updated: May 14, 2021]</div> +<div style='height:10px;'></div> +<div style='white-space:nowrap'>Original publication date: 1918</div> +<div style='height:10px;'></div> +<div>Language: English</div> +<div style='height:10px;'></div> +<div style='display:table;'> + <div style='display:table-row;'> + <div style='display:table-cell;padding-right:0.5em; white-space:nowrap'>Produced by:</div> + <div style='display:table-cell;'>Roger Frank and The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net</div> + </div> +</div> +<div style='height:10px;'></div> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YOUR BOYS ***</div> +<div style='height:10px;'></div> + +<div class='section tac'> + <h1>Your Boys</h1> + + <div style='font-size:smaller; margin-top:1em;'>BY</div> + <div style='font-size:larger;'>Gipsy Smith</div> + + <div style='font-size:smaller; margin-top:1em;'>With a Foreword</div> + <div style='font-variant:small-caps'>by The Bishop of London</div> + + <div style='margin-top:1em;'>NEW YORK<br /> + GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY</div> +</div> + +<div class='section tac fss'> + <div>COPYRIGHT, 1918,<br /> + BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY</div> + <div style='margin-top:1em;'>PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</div> +</div> + +<!-- cover image was here --> + +<hr class='page'/> + +<p class='ni tac' style='font-size:1.2em; margin-bottom:1em;'>Foreword</p> + +<p class='ni'>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 “Jesus.” This devotion to “Jesus” 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 “Jesus,” +but love of our “our boys.” They <i>are</i> 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 “our boys.” Anything unreal, merely sentimental, washy, they +detect in a moment. You must draw them “with the cords of a man and the bonds of +love,” and those who read this book will find many a hint as to how to do +it.</p> + +<p class='tar sc'>A.F. London.</p> + +<hr class="page" /> + +<p class='ni tac' style='font-size:1.4em; margin-bottom:1em;'>Your Boys</p> + +<p class='ni'>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> + +<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>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Never mind me,” said the man; “carry on!”</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>“I am sorry, sir,” said my friend. “I did not know. I oughtn’t to have spoken +to you in that familiar way.”</p> + +<p>“You have earned the right to say anything you like to me,” said the Colonel. +“Go right on.”</p> + +<p>And then my friend said, “Well, come with me, sir, to the back, and I will +get you a cup of coffee.”</p> + +<p>“No, not a minute before the boys. I’ll take my turn with them.”</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 +Place, a meeting-place for the crowned heads of Europe, gone! “Thou hast made of +a city a heap”—a heap of rubbish. <i>Your</i> 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—“A gentleman wants to see you, sir,” 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>“I’ve come to invite you to dinner to-morrow night, Mr. Smith. I want you to +come to the officers’ mess.”</p> + +<p>“What time, sir?” I asked. “I cannot miss my meeting at half-past six with +the boys.”</p> + +<p>“Well, the mess will be at half-past seven. We will arrange that.”</p> + +<p>“Before you go, sir, I should like to ask why you are interested in me.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I’ll tell you, if you wish,” he said. “Men are writing home to their +wives, mothers, sweethearts, and they are talking about a new power in their +lives. ‘We have got something that is helping us to go straight and play the +game,’ they write. And so,” said the General, “we should like to have a chat +with you.”</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, “Come to Jesus.” 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 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, “Pack up your troubles,” 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, “Sister, stop a minute and put +a word in for Jesus. This is a great opportunity.”</p> + +<p>“But,” she replied, “they are wet and tired; let me give them something hot +as soon as I can.”</p> + +<p>“Oh! but let’s put a word in for Jesus,” urged this chap.</p> + +<p>Then a bright-faced soldier lad called out, “Guv’nor, she puts Jesus in the +coffee.” That is what I mean when I say you have got to put Jesus into every bit +of the day’s work.</p> + +<hr class='tb' /> + +<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> + +<hr class='tb' /> + +<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 camps, and two of the boys said to me +afterwards,</p> + +<p>“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.”</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> + +<hr class='tb' /> + +<p>“I am afraid,” said a padre to me once, “the boys are sceptical.”</p> + +<p>“Come with me to-morrow,” I answered. “I’ll prove to you they are <i>not</i> +sceptical.”</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 “an old +rooster—as you used to.”</p> + +<p>Do you suppose I had no better sense than to go in and say, “Stop this +ungodly music?” You can catch more flies with treacle than with vinegar.</p> + +<p>I looked at the boys and said, “That’s great, sing it again.”</p> + +<p>And I turned to the padre and asked, “Isn’t that splendid? Isn’t that +fine?”</p> + +<p>While we were waiting to begin the meeting, I said, “Boys, we must have +another.”</p> + +<p>“One of the same sort?” they shouted.</p> + +<p>“Of course,” was my reply. And they sang “Who’s your lady friend?” and when +they had sung that, I called out, “Boys, we will have one more. What shall it +be?”</p> + +<p>“One of yours, sir.”</p> + +<p>I had not trusted them in vain.</p> + +<p>I said, “Very well, you choose your hymn.”</p> + +<p>“When I survey the wondrous Cross”—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 “When I survey the +wondrous Cross.”</p> + +<p>When they had finished the hymn I said, “Boys, I am going to tell you the +story of my father’s conversion.” 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 of how Jesus came to that tent, saving +the father and the five children and making preachers of them all.</p> + +<p>I said, “Did my father make a mistake when he brought Christ to those five +motherless children?” And the eight hundred boys shouted, “No, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Did he do the right thing?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> + +<p>“What ought you to do?”</p> + +<p>“The same, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Do you want Jesus in your lives?” 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> + +<hr class='tb' /> + +<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 <i>was</i> cold.</p> + +<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 “Cover my defenceless head,” just as a piece of the roof is +falling in. Or—</p> + +<div class='poetry'> In death’s dark vale I fear no ill<br /> With Thee, dear +Lord, beside me—</div> + +<p class='ni'>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> + +<hr class='tb' /> + +<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, “You’re +overfed. You can do without a preacher for a little.” And if they were to ask, +“How do you know?” I should reply, “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.”</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>“Don’t you know what they are?” said a bright-faced English boy. “They are +what we call the Middlesex.”</p> + +<p>You can’t beat a British boy, he’s on the spot all the time—“the +Middlesex!” Some of you haven’t seen the joke yet.</p> + +<hr class='tb' /> + +<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 England, but he wasn’t an ecclesiastic there, he was +a man amongst men, and we loved him.</p> + +<p>“Gipsy Smith,” he said, “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.”</p> + +<p>“Do you think they will come to the meetings?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” he replied; “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.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” I said, “we can but try.”</p> + +<p>It was about midday when we were talking, and the meeting was to be at +6.30.</p> + +<p>“Have you got a boy who could write a bill for me?” I asked.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” he said, “I’ve got a boy who could do that all right.”</p> + +<p>“Print it on green paper,” said I.</p> + +<p>Why not? They were the Munsters. Why shouldn’t we use our heads? People think +mighty hard in business, why shouldn’t we think in the religious world?</p> + +<p>“Just say this and nothing more,” I said.</p> + +<p style='margin-top:0.5em; margin-bottom:0.5em;'>“‘<i>Gipsy Smith will give a +talk in the Hut to-night at</i> 6.30. <i>Subject—Gipsy Life</i>.’”</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>“Shall I bring the box of hymn-books out?”</p> + +<p>“No, no,” I replied; “that’s the wrong bait.”</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 an anthem? If a brass band will catch them, why +shouldn’t we play it instead of an organ?</p> + +<p>“Keep back those hymn-books,” I said. “They know nothing about hymn-books.” 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, “Boys, are we down-hearted?”</p> + +<p>“<i>No</i>,” they shouted.</p> + +<p>You can imagine what eight hundred Munsters shouting “No” 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, “Are we down-hearted?” 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, “We are going to talk about gipsy life.” 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 +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, “Boys, +there’s a lot more to this story. Would you like some more?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” they shouted.</p> + +<p>“Come back to-morrow,” 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 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, “Your Riverence! Your Riverence!” he says. “You’re a gentleman.”</p> + +<p>I <i>knew</i> 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, “Won’t you give me a minute, sir?”</p> + +<p>“What’s the trouble?” I said.</p> + +<p>“Sir,” he said, with a little catch in his voice that I can hear now, “you’ve +got something I haven’t.”</p> + +<p>“How do you know?” I asked.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Sonny,” I said, “it’s for you. You can have it at the same price I paid for +it.”</p> + +<p>“Begorra,” says he, “you will tell me to give up my religion, you will!”</p> + +<p>I said, “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.”</p> + +<p>“He doesn’t?” he asked. “What am I to give up, then?”</p> + +<p>And I replied, “Your sin.”</p> + +<p>The boy said again, “You’re a gentleman.”</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, “I’ve got it, sir. I’ve got the little +song—<i>and it’s singing</i>.”</p> + +<hr class='tb' /> + +<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>“I don’t know what he’s going to do. I hope 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.”</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, “I don’t think you need trouble, sir. He’s all +right, and knows his job.”</p> + +<p>When we were ready, I went to the Colonel, and said, “We are quite ready to +begin, sir.”</p> + +<p>The Colonel rose and announced, “Officers, non-commissioned officers, and +men, I now introduce to you Gipsy Smith, who will perform.”</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, “Are you ready, boys?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Well, we’ll have our opening hymn, ‘Keep the home fires burning.’”</p> + +<p>And didn’t those boys sing that! Some of them were smoking, and I wasn’t +going to tell 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, +“Boys, you sang that very well, but you were not <i>all</i> singing. Now, if we +have another, will you all sing?” And they answered, “Yes.” I knew if they sang +they couldn’t smoke. So we had “Pack up your troubles,” and this time every +smoke was out and every boy was singing. “We’ll have another,” said I, when they +had finished; “we’ll have—</p> + +<div class='poetry'>‘Way down in Tennessee<br /> Just try to think of me<br /> +Right on my mother’s knee.’”</div> + +<p>I knew if I got them round their mothers’ knees I should be all right.</p> + +<p>“Now, boys,” I said, “what am I to talk to you about?” I let them choose +their subject very often.</p> + +<p>“Tell us the story of the gipsy tent,” 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> + +<p>“Now, boys, I’m through,” 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 “performer”—and he couldn’t do it; there was a lump in his +throat and big tears were rolling down his cheeks.</p> + +<p>“Boys, I can’t say what I want to, but,” said he, “we have all got to be +better men.”</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> + +<hr class='tb' /> + +<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 knew +that for many it was the last service they would attend on earth. I said,</p> + +<p>“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 <i>that</i> 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.”</p> + +<p>You should have heard the boys all over that hut whisper, “Yes, +sir—Jesus.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” I said, “I want every man that is anxious to take Jesus with him into +the trench to stand.”</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, “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.</p> + +<p>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,</p> + +<p>“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.”</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—<i>they had settled +it</i>.</p> + +<hr class='tb' /> + +<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, “Sister, how battered and bruised his poor head is!”</p> + +<p>He looked up and said, “Yes, it is battered and bruised; but it will be all +right, Gipsy, when I get the crown!”</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<div class='poetry'>“Jesu, Lover of my soul,”</div> + +<p>and I have heard them sing,</p> + +<div class='poetry'>“Cover my defenceless head,”</div> + +<p>with the shells falling close to them. I have heard them sing,</p> + +<div class='poetry'>“I fear no foe ...”</div> + +<p>with every seat and every bit of building round us rocking with the +concussion of things. And then they will choose:</p> + +<div class='poetry'>“The King of Love my Shepherd is,”<br /> “The Lord’s my +Shepherd, I’ll not want,”<br /> “Abide with me,”<br /> “Rock of ages, cleft for +me,”</div> + +<p>and the one they love, I think, most of all is,</p> + +<div class='poetry'>“When I survey the wondrous Cross.”</div> + +<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, “I have brought some hymn-sheets. I thought we might have +some singing, but I’m afraid it’s too dark.”</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, “Put the candles out, boys. I can talk in the dark.”</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> + +<hr class='tb' /> + +<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> + +<hr class='tb' /> + +<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>“I wonder if any of you would like to meet me for a little prayer?”</p> + +<p>And from all over the camp came the answer, “Yes, sir; yes, sir; yes, +sir.”</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>“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.”</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, “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.</p> + +<hr class='tb' /> + +<p>I was talking to one boy—an American; he was a little premature, he was +in the fight before his country.</p> + +<p>“Sonny,” I said, “you’re an American?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir. I was born in Michigan.”</p> + +<p>“Well, what are you doing, fighting under the British flag?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>I told that story to one of our Generals who died last September.</p> + +<p>“Ah!” he said, “that boy got to the bottom of the business. It’s for the +race. It’s for the race.”</p> + +<p>“Are you a Christian?” I asked.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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 <i>nothing</i>. 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.”</p> + +<p>I said, “Have you ever prayed?”</p> + +<p>He replied, “No, sir. I’ve wept over this little crucifix—is that +prayer?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>I pulled out a little khaki Testament. “Would you like it?” I said. “Would +you read it?”</p> + +<p>He answered, “Yes,” 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> + +<hr class='tb' /> + +<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, “Madam, will you shake +hands with me?” 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, “Gipsy, we’re having a +relief train pass through to-morrow, and one comes through up and one comes +through down.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll be there,” 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> + +<div class='poetry'>“Blighty, Blighty is the place for me.”</div> + +<p>We served them with tea and coffee, French bread a yard long, and candles and +matches and “Woodbines,” and then we got that crowd off—still singing +“Blighty.”</p> + +<p>They had been gone about five minutes when the other train <i>from</i> +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, +“Who says a postcard for wife or mother?”</p> + +<p>Somebody asked, “Who’s going to see them posted?”</p> + +<p>I said, “I am. You leave them to me.”</p> + +<p>They said, “All right,” 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> + +<p>“Gentlemen,” I said, “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?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, certainly,” 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, “Should auld acquaintance.”</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> + +<hr class='tb' /> + +<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, “What’s the matter, my child?”</p> + +<p>She answered, “Sir, I came over on the boat from Belgium early in the war, +and my mother and sisters got scattered, and I have never seen or heard of them +since.”</p> + +<p>And the Madame of the restaurant came to me a little while afterwards, and +said, “We dare not tell her, but they were all killed.”</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, “<i>Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq,</i>”—then she would weep again +and then she would count.</p> + +<p>I said to the nurse, “Nurse, what’s the trouble?” and she said, “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.”</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—<i>that</i>?</p> + +<hr class='tb' /> + +<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, “Say, boss, can <i>you</i> shoot quick?” and +I replied,</p> + +<p>“Yes, and straight.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” he said, “you’ll do.”</p> + +<p>I had a great time with those fellows. Hundreds of those Canadian boys stood +up to say, “God helping me, I am going to lead a better life!”—hundreds of +them. And then I put another test to them. “I want you all to promise,” I said, +“that you’ll kneel down and say your prayers to-night in the billet, and those +of you who will promise to do that come up and shake hands with me as you go +out.” 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>“I funked it,” he said. “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.”</p> + +<p>“Boys,” said this man, “did you hear him?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” they said, “we heard him.”</p> + +<p>And the little chap under the blanket said “Yes” too.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>And the little chap under the blanket jumped up, blanket and all, and said, +“So did I. I’m with you.”</p> + +<p>And the others said, “So did we.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” the last comer said, “the best thing we can do is to kneel down now +and say a little prayer.”</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 “Our Father.”</p> + +<p>Then the champion swearer said, “Boys, I’ve cut it all out: no more +drink—not another drop.”</p> + +<p>And they said, “All right, we are with you. We’ll cut it out.”</p> + +<p>Then he said, “I’ve cut something else out. No more swearing.”</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, “Great Scott.”</p> + +<p>“Do you, boys?” I ask them.</p> + +<p>“No, sir,” they invariably reply.</p> + +<p>“Well, then, why do you use these swear-words?”</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, “Cut it out.”</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, +“You would have been singers too, but you were forsaken.”</p> + +<p>These boys—they did not forsake their chum. They said, “Buck up, old +boy. We’ll help you.”</p> + +<p>“No,” he said. “This is my job.”</p> + +<p>So they stood by him and cheered him on. 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: “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.”</p> + +<p>And he <i>is</i> seeing it through.</p> + +<hr class='tb' /> + +<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. They are doing no grousing—your boys +there. When they see you they just say, “Cheerio.”</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>“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.”</p> + +<p>It reminds me of the question I once asked: “Sonny, what struck you most when +you got in the trenches?” and the reply came sharp,</p> + +<p>“A bit of shrapnel.”</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, “<i>Home, +John</i>.” And when he was passing the officer and they were carrying him into +the Red Cross train, he cried, “<i>Season</i>.” He had two gold stripes already. +That’s the spirit of your boys.</p> + +<hr class='tb' /> + +<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, “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.’”</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, “Come to +Jesus.” 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 “firstly,” “secondly,” “thirdly,” out to the front with you, by +the time you get to thirdly the boys will be in the trenches. I 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. “Boys,” I said, “how many of you +have written to your mother this week?”</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, “Have you paid your debts +this week?” “In what sort of a temper did you come down to breakfast this +morning?”</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. “If you +don’t write, you know what you’ll get,” 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 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, “Gipsy Smith, a man in my room wants to see you.”</p> + +<p>When I got there, I saw he was crying, sobbing.</p> + +<p>“I am not a kid,” he said; “I am a man. I’m forty-one. You told me to write +to my mother. Read that,” he said, throwing down a letter; and this is what I +read:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p class='ni sc'>“My dear Mother,</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p class='tar'> “Your boy still,<br /> <span class='sc'>“Jack.”</span></p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>“Shall I put a bit at the bottom for a postscript?” I asked. “But first of +all, let us pray.”</p> + +<p>We got on our knees, and I said, “You begin.”</p> + +<p>“I’m not used to it,” he replied.</p> + +<p>“Begin; never mind how. Did you ever pray?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” he said; “I prayed as a child.”</p> + +<p>“Start with that, then—He loves cradle faith.”</p> + +<p>It took him some time, but presently he began with his mother’s prayer, +“Jesus, tender Shepherd, hear me.” 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, “You’ll have to finish”—and I finished.</p> + +<p>I put my postscript to that letter. “God has saved him,” I wrote. “Believe +him. Write and tell him you forgive him.”</p> + +<p>And when that mother got that she knew that giving out note-paper was +religion.</p> + +<hr class='tb' /> + +<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 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>“But,” I said to him, “they won’t strike. It’s not the right time of +year—and the ground’s too dry.”</p> + +<p>“I know, sir,” he said, “but it will look as if somebody cares.”</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, “Nobody will +see them here.”</p> + +<p>“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”—for he +was disabled—“I am putting in my time caring for the boys’ graves, and if +the wives and mothers don’t see them—well”—and his face lit up with +a radiance that I can’t put into words—“the angels will, sir.”</p> + +<hr class='tb' /> + +<p>I have had your boys say to me, “Gipsy, does it mean Blighty, or does it mean +West?” I have had to say to some of them, “It doesn’t mean Blighty.”</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>“I was lying out there, after the mine blew up, for twenty-four hours, and I +was half buried,” 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, “Sonny, you have had a rough time.”</p> + +<p>And this was his reply: “They copped me, worse luck, before I had a pot at +them.”</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 +<i>nothing</i> you and I can do will ever repay them for what they are doing for +you and for me.</p> + +<hr class='tb' /> + +<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 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, “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,” he said, “I’ll give my next week’s pay, sir, towards this +new hut.”</p> + +<p>Another boy, when I was making my appeal, said, “I’ve been wounded and I am +discharged. I’ll give my next week’s pay,” and up jumped a war-widow and she +said, “I’ll give my next week’s pension.”</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 every one of +them gave something; and when I looked round and said, “Boys, why are you +giving?” one said, “Well, sir, we’re grateful for what it did for us when we +were there.”</p> + +<p>People say, “What are you going to do with the huts after the war?” 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 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> + +<hr class='tb' /> + +<p>Somebody asks, “Why does the Y.M.C.A. always want more new huts? Why not move +the old ones?” 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 +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, “Gipsy, I’m homesick; I want my mother,” and then, with a +sob, he said, “Tell me more about Jesus.”</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> + +<p>“Gipsy,” he said, “does it mean West?”</p> + +<p>I said, “Sonny, it means West.”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>And it was a great thing for me to be with your boy then.</p> + +<hr class='tb' /> + +<p><i>I thank my God upon every remembrance of your boys.</i></p> + +<p class='tac fss' style='margin-top:1.4em; margin-bottom:2em;'>THE END</p> +<div style='height:20px;'></div> +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YOUR BOYS ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law 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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