[Ill.u.s.tration: THE Y.M.C.A. AT BASRA, MESOPOTAMIA]
A striking article recently appeared in a Catholic journal, from which we cull the following paragraphs, expressing as they do another point of view:--
""R.C.," "C. of E.," "Y.M.C.A."--these three are the religions of the Front. The drum-head service, whilst nominally "C. of E.," is, of course, more a military parade than a religious function. It is not without a certain amount of picturesque Army ceremonial, but to the Catholic soldier, as a Catholic, the spectacle is an uninteresting one.
The Y.M.C.A., too, I think, would not claim to be a religion. It is perhaps a religious inst.i.tution; a kind of spiritual ration-dump. Its huts, even during a cinema show, and at the counters where they sell Woodbines and chocolates, have a Christianised atmosphere. No soldier fears to be thought "too good" through attending a Y.M.C.A.
service. That is, perhaps, where its undoubtedly great influence comes in. It gives the impression, one supposes, to these soldiers that here they have what the P.S.A. fraternity call "a man"s religion for man." It caters for the frequent English soul which (perhaps in the Charity of G.o.d) finds a path to Heaven in the singing of second-rate hymns on Sunday evening; in the constant repet.i.tion of "Abide with me," and "O G.o.d, our help in ages past." It is difficult to say if the influence of the Y.M.C.A. is much responsible for the remarkably even, and considering all things, somewhat high moral code of the Army out here. Rather, perhaps (Deo gratias), it is an English heritage from the past.
Most emphatically one cannot help being struck by the excellent moral lives that many of these men live, when all things are considered. Of course, to a large extent, there is the lack of occasions of sin. Drunkenness, most possibly, is rare because the authorities have greatly restricted, and wisely, the hours of drinking, and the beer, etc., available, even if taken in large quant.i.ties, is rarely intoxicating. Frankly, it appears that the good influence of the Y.M.C.A. is derived from the temporal comforts and conveniences it offers to the much-tried B.E.F.
men. I stood outside a Y.M.C.A. building one night, in the worst of weather, weather as foul as it can be in France in war time. Three rain-sodden Canadian infantrymen trudged along towards the place, and their ears caught the sound of some execrable piano-strumming. "Holy h.e.l.l," said one, "there"s some music there; come on!" That is the story, in epitome, of the Y.M.C.A. In the mercy of G.o.d, it is a good one."
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CENTRAL Y.M.C.A., BAGHDAD]
A young soldier sent to an English paper the following interesting account of a Communion Service held in one of our huts at the Front:--
"The following Tuesday, just as our company was going "up the line" to the trenches, a Communion service was held in the rest-room of the Y.M.C.A.
hut. I attended it along with nine other men, and the service was conducted by a well-known Scottish Y.M.C.A. worker, who at the time was acting as the leader of the hut. In that little room we ten men in khaki were verily in the presence of the Unseen. I never realised Christ to be so near as when we handled the elements. For myself I can truly say that, in the grey dawn of the following morning, I went up to meet the enemy with a strange peace, and a deep a.s.surance in my soul that, come what might, I need fear no evil, knowing that He was with me--and so it proved to be. Our time in the trenches was the most exciting I have yet experienced, but He kept near, and so "all"s well.""
CHAPTER XVII
STORIES OF THE INVERTED TRIANGLE
I am sending you a pound note, the first I ever received, as I am a poor old woman not able to work. To maintain my home I used to take in washing, but now I cannot even do my own, but the other Sunday, when I shook hands with one that I used to wash for, he put that bit of paper in my hand, but said nothing, so I received it as part payment for work done over seven years ago, and when I looked at it, I thanked G.o.d, and said I would give it to some good cause, and I think I cannot do better than help you to get shelter for the soldiers. G.o.d bless "em.
MORE than five hundred thousand men have signed the War Roll pledge of allegiance to our Lord Jesus Christ, which has now been formally adopted by the Churches, and which reads as follows:
"I hereby pledge my allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ, as my Saviour and King, and by G.o.d"s help will fight His battles for the Victory of His Kingdom."
Many have no doubt forgotten their promise, but for many it has meant the beginning of a new life, and to thousands of parents the knowledge that the boy, who was their all, signed this declaration before making the supreme sacrifice, has brought untold comfort.
Wherever practicable a Quiet Room for prayer and Bible study is included in our camp outfit, also a book-stall for Testaments, pledge cards, and religious literature. Millions of Testaments and gospel portions have been distributed free of charge, and realising the difficulty of obtaining gospel booklets or tracts that appeal to men, a new one from the pen of the General Secretary was issued each of the first thirty weeks of the war. The approved plan has been to have family prayers, no matter how brief, as far as practicable in every hut, every night, and if this feature of the programme is not popular, the fault is usually to be found in the one who leads.
A casual observer, after visiting a Y.M.C.A. hut, sometimes comes to the conclusion that the a.s.sociation is doing a great social work, but is not much as a religious force. It is not difficult to understand that point of view. He has seen two or three hundred men clamouring at the refreshment counter for coffee, buns or cigarettes; the billiard tables have been fully occupied; hundreds of soldiers were writing letters at the tables provided for the purpose, and hundreds joining in some rowdy chorus, or heartily laughing at a humorous song or funny sketch. Where then does the spiritual work of the Red Triangle come in? The best answer is to quote what has actually happened.
To the south-west of Salisbury Plain there was before the war a tiny village. To-day it is the centre of a big camp, which, incidentally, contains several Y.M.C.A. huts. The leader of No. 4 was talking to the Church of England padre one morning. They were warm friends and the chaplain was frank in his remarks: "I think you are overdoing it," said he, "by having prayers in the hut every night. Surely it would be better," he added, "if you concentrated on one evening of the week instead." "I have thought and prayed about it," replied the leader, "and it is a matter of principle with me. These dear boys are all going to the Front next week, and no matter what the programme of the day, I feel we ought to finish at night with a public acknowledgment of G.o.d." "Very good," replied the padre, "if that is your conviction, carry on! Take prayers yourself this evening." And he did. He was no orator; he was not a college man, neither was he ordained. It was a simple little service, and did not take more than ten or fifteen minutes from start to finish.
There was an opening hymn, one of the old familiar ones, that took the lads away back to the homes of their childhood. A short pa.s.sage of scripture was read, followed by a few straight but sympathetic words of exhortation and a brief closing prayer. That was all, and the same thing, no doubt, took place in hundreds of centres the same night.
Prayers over and the "King" sung, the leader came down from the platform, where a young private greeted him and shook his hand till it hurt saying, "I want to thank you for giving me a new vision of a G.o.d I once knew." Walking towards the centre of the hall, a young subaltern greeted him saying, "I want to thank you for that little service; it has been no end of a help to me, and I should like to give you this for your work," so saying he handed him an envelope, and looking inside he found a letter from the lieutenant"s mother, containing thirty shillings in postal orders to be spent by him in camp. The service had helped him, and that was his thankoffering. The hut cleared, the men retired for the night to their sleeping quarters. A solitary soldier lingered by the doorway as if he wanted some one to speak to him. "Good-night, my lad,"
said the leader, "can I do anything for you?" Instead of replying the soldier burst out crying, and later said, "If you will you can save me from a great crime!" "Save you from a crime--whatever do you mean?" And then the trooper told his story. There was nothing uncommon about it. He and his brother had made love to the same girl, their mother had intervened, "and," he said, "I have written to my mother this evening a letter that no boy should write to his mother, and after attending your service to-night, I feel I would give all I"ve got to take back that letter!" The letter was found and destroyed, and the soldier rejoiced in what he regarded as a great deliverance. This is no story of an orthodox revival, but of the kind of thing that may be taking place hundreds of times any week.
In the early days the famous ---- Division a.s.sembled in one of the great camps near Winchester. Regiments and units were there from India, South Africa--from all parts of the world. Rain came down in torrents and the mud was appalling. The huge Red Triangle tents were crowded from morning till night and the devoted workers, all too few in number, had neither time nor strength for religious work in the ordinary acceptance of the term. They could have limited their canteen work, and closed the refreshment counter excepting for a few hours daily. That would have been the easier plan, and would have given them the opportunity of devoting themselves to concerts and meetings in the evenings. The alternative would have been to spend and be spent in serving the material needs of the men, trusting that G.o.d would use the atmosphere of the place and the personal contact of the workers to influence the men, and thus make up for their inability to do much in the meeting line.
They chose the latter plan, and the leader retiring for the night would throw himself on his bed and sometimes fall asleep without undressing.
At times suffering from the reaction, he would ask himself the question, "Is it worth while? Am I doing the right thing?" The answer came the night before the men left for the Front. It had been a record day, every moment had been crowded, and they had sold out. The majority had retired for the night, a few remained to tidy up the tents. This task accomplished, a group of soldiers gathered round the leader, and the talk soon turned quite naturally to some of the deepest problems of life. Presently a stalwart young Gordon Highlander told of his home in far away Scotland, of his farewell to his dear old mother before he went out to India, and of the promise he made her--the promise he had not kept--to read his Bible every day, to lead a pure clean life, and to keep clear of drink. The atmosphere of that crowded Y.M.C.A. tent had brought it all back to him and, unknown to the staff, he had renewed his vows to G.o.d and his mother. In making this confession he was overcome by emotion, and throwing his arms round the leader"s neck he sobbed out the story of his repentance. There is no more moving sight than the anguish of a strong man, probably no sight that gives more joy in Heaven than the tears that tell of the return of the one that had been lost.
A young Canadian officer who had lost a leg and an arm wrote to me before sailing to Montreal from Bristol in May 1918, and this is what he said:--"I would like to tell you how much we have appreciated the Y.M.C.A. I came over with the first batch of Canadians; we were drafted to Larkhill, Salisbury Plain. After leaving my home--a G.o.dly home--I fell into the hands of very unG.o.dly people and sank very, very deep in.
I was lying on the roadside much the worse for drink. I was down and couldn"t get up; comrades and every one seemed to have left me. I saw one of your cars rush by. When it had pa.s.sed about a hundred yards, out jumped a Y.M.C.A. man. He came back to me and said, "Come along my friend, I will take you to your hut." I looked at him and said, "I"ve sunk too low for a man like you to touch me." He helped me up, took me to my hut, and said, "This is my work in the Y.M.C.A., to help the helpless. Come in and have a cup of tea with me to-morrow." Shamefaced, I went the next day. He was there to greet me; he talked and prayed with me, but I saw no light until one night in the trenches, I thought I heard this man praying, and I heard it again and again, and had no rest till I laid my sins at the foot of the Cross. Although I am going home with a leg and an arm off, I have a clean heart washed in the Blood of the Lamb. I have visited many huts, but that was the only man who spoke to me personally about my sinful condition. Your leaders can do much if they will. G.o.d bless the work and the workers. I will enclose this leader"s card so that you can let him know his prayers followed me up to the trenches. G.o.d bless him!"
Cecil Thompson, the leader referred to, never saw this letter. Long before it was written he had "gone west," had pa.s.sed to his reward, one of the Red Triangle martyrs of Salisbury Plain. But he "shall in no wise lose his reward," for it is work like this that pays, and the spirit of Cecil Thompson lives on in the lives of those who have been won, not by his eloquence, but by the personal contact of a man who had yielded himself to become a channel for the Divine blessing.
The greatest romance of the Red Triangle is the romance of its religious work. War always seems to have one of two effects upon the lives of those who partic.i.p.ate in it--either it hardens a man and makes him callous, or else it purifies and enn.o.bles him. The Chaplains, the Churches, the Y.M.C.A., the Church Army, the C.E.T.S., the Salvation Army, and countless other organisations and individuals are always at work, trying to counteract the power of the downward pull. It was our youngest General, the late Brig.-Gen. R. B. Bradford, V.C., M.C., who addressed to his men in France, shortly before his death, the following stirring words:--"I am going to ask you to put your implicit trust and confidence in me, to look upon me not only as your Brigadier, but as your friend. By the help of G.o.d I will try and lead you to the best of my ability, and remember your interests are my interests. As you all know, a few days from now we are going to attack; your powers of endurance are going to be tested. They must not fail you. Above all, pray; more things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of. It is G.o.d alone who can give us the victory, and bring us through this battle safely."
It is said that General s.m.u.ts" attention was drawn to Herbert Schmalz"s picture, "The Silent Witness," in the Royal Academy. It showed the interior of a French church, and many wearied and wounded French soldiers huddled together on the floor. A soldier with a wounded arm was awakened by the pain, and raising himself on his unwounded arm saw the figure of the Christ, the silent witness of his suffering and agony.
Looking long and earnestly at the picture, it is said the famous Boer General quietly remarked, "Many a man has seen that vision in this war."
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE RED TRIANGLE IN JERUSALEM]
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE HEXHAM ABBEY HUT, SCHEVENINGEN, HOLLAND]
When visiting Bailleul in 1917 the following story was told me by a distinguished padre serving with the Y.M.C.A. It concerned a casualty clearing station on the outskirts of the town. A gentleman ranker was brought in terribly wounded. His shoulder had been shattered by shrapnel and gas gangrene had set in A constant and welcome visitor was the senior chaplain. One day he called, and said cheerily, "Well, old fellow, how goes it to-day?" "Thanks, padre," was the reply, "the pain is not quite so bad to-day, but, padre," he added earnestly, stroking his wounded arm, "I wish you would persuade them to take this away."
"Don"t talk like that," said the chaplain; "you"ll want to use that old arm for many a year to come!" "No, padre," he replied with conviction, "I shall never use it again; I"m going west!" A moment later he was seized with a frightful paroxysm of pain, and with a torrent of oaths shrieked out, "Why the b---- h---- can"t they take this arm away!" He fell back exhausted, but an instant later sat bolt upright and with arms held out looked intently towards the roof of the hut. His face became radiant, and there was no trace of pain. In an ecstatic voice he cried out, "Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!" and fell back dead. Thank G.o.d that"s possible, and even in the hour of death, the blasphemer may receive forgiveness and the knowledge of salvation, for
"The ways of men are narrow, But the gates of Heaven are wide."
[Ill.u.s.tration: SALONICA: WINTER ON THE DOIRAN FRONT, SHOWING Y.M.C.A.
TENT]
[Ill.u.s.tration: A WELCOME Y.M.C.A. IN THE TRENCHES]
A lady worker in the Isle of Wight felt unaccountably drawn to a young soldier who had vowed he would never enter the Y.M.C.A. again, because he objected to evening prayers. Little by little she won his confidence, until the night before he left for France with a draft, he came in to say good-bye, and told her she was the first person to speak to him about sacred things, adding--"I may do some day, but at present I cannot see things as you do." He went to France, followed by her prayers, and in due course took part in the famous attack on Cambrai. Nothing was heard of him for weeks, and his friends were forced to the conclusion that he was numbered amongst the dead. Time pa.s.sed by, until one morning the lady of the Red Triangle received a letter from him, written from a German prisoner of war camp. It was a commonplace letter and told of the great fight, of his capture and internment, and so forth, but the concluding words were the ones she wanted--"You will be glad to know I can see things as you do now."
We were speaking at the opening of a hut near Portsmouth. At the close of the ceremony a dear little old widow lady, sitting in the front row, told us of her own boy. He was a young officer serving in France, and was called out late one night to help repel a sudden attack by the enemy. Shot down by machine-gun fire, a brother officer stooped to help him, but he cried, "Lead on, lead forward, I go to my G.o.d!"
A day later another Y.M.C.A. lady in one of the hospital huts told us the story of her nephew. He, too, was a young officer, and was called out to a.s.sist in repelling a sudden attack by the Huns. Our men had scarcely reached No Man"s Land when the enemy turned on their dreadful gas. One of the first to be overcome by its fumes was the sergeant of his platoon. Regardless of the risk he ran, that young officer stuck to his disabled sergeant until help arrived. Not realising that he had himself become affected by the noxious fumes, he tried to stagger to his feet, but fell backwards into a sh.e.l.l-hole, and in falling broke his neck. The sad news was conveyed to his people in the North of England, and the night they received it his father and mother sat alone in the quiet of their home. Presently the mother spoke--"I feel," said she, "that the only thing that would console me in my loss would be to know that the man for whom my boy died was a good man." It was only a week later that the sergeant for whom the young officer died, came to that home, and when he came he was hopelessly intoxicated. The parents quickly ascertained that it was not the case of a man having been overcome by sudden temptation; they could have forgiven that, but he was an utter waster, about as bad as a man could be. When he had left the house those two sat once again in the silence of their home, and it was the mother who spoke, slowly and quietly, "It almost breaks my heart to know my boy gave his precious life for a worthless life like that." And yet, what of the young officer himself? Did he know the type of man it was for whom he was about to make the supreme sacrifice? Of course, he knew; he was in his own platoon, and yet, knowing, he willingly gave his life in an attempt to save him. One cannot recall this story without thinking of those wonderful words: "For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet per-adventure for a good man some would even dare to die, but G.o.d commendeth His Love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."
In a far away corner of the Harfleur Valley the Y.M.C.A. has one of its finest equipments. The leader was a great man in every sense of the word, and every night he organised a sing-song for the troops, which invariably went with a swing. He seemed to know by instinct when to strike right in, and what to say. A night came, however, when he seemed to have struck a bad patch, for no one would play, sing, or recite. The story is told here almost word for word, as it was first told me by a leading worker home from France, who drew a graphic word picture of the hut leader pleading from the platform for help which never came. The huge hut was crammed with men, and looking at the crowd standing at the back he noticed a movement amongst them. A trooper detaching himself from the crowd slowly elbowed his way to the front. It was easy to tell by his unsteady steps that he was under the influence of drink. Mounting the platform, he turned first to the audience and then to the Y.M.C.A.
leader, and cried in a voice that every one could hear: "What"s the matter, Boss? Won"t any one oblige you? Never mind, padre, if n.o.body will help you, I will! What would you like me to do? I can play, or I can sing, or I can recite--or I can pray!" For a moment the secretary did not know what to reply. He was a man of experience, but had never been placed in a predicament like that before. To his horror he saw the poor drunken trooper stumble to the edge of the platform and with hands outstretched called for prayer, and there followed one of the strangest prayers ever heard in public as the drunkard cried out, "Everlasting G.o.d! Everlasting G.o.d! Everlasting G.o.d----!" He could get no further, but broke down and sobbed like a child, and in his agony cried out, "I had a good mother once; I"ve been a d.a.m.ned fool. May G.o.d forgive me!" Could G.o.d possibly hear and answer a prayer like that? Of course He could, and He did! Possibly He would rather have even a prayer like that, than the meaningless prayers with which we sometimes mock Him, and if any man ever gave evidence of his conversion to G.o.d it was that trooper. He stayed only four days longer in that reinforcement camp in the Harfleur Valley, but if he could help it, never for a moment would he let our leader out of his sight, and in a hundred ways he helped him with his work. He would go methodically and frequently round the hut, gather up the dirty mugs, bring them back to the counter and help to wash them. He would go down on his hands and knees under the tables, pick up sc.r.a.ps of paper and cigarette ends and help clean up the floor.
Four days later he was sent with a detachment up the line; three days later still, with his company, he was ordered "over the top," and literally he went into the "Valley of the Shadow of Death," but he did not go alone, for "there went with him One the form of Whom was like unto the form of the Son of G.o.d!"