8. The Association is the soldier's friend and tourist guide, while he is visiting London, Paris, or the other great cities. In some places one table is set apart where a chaplain or secretary is always on duty to help the soldiers make their wills, find out their trains to London, answer their questions, or give them the friendly help they need.

The Y M C A stands by the soldier to the last and even after he falls. After the boy has fought his last fight and lies wounded or crippled or dying in the hospital in France, it meets his parents and relatives and provides for their entire stay in the country. Each relative of the wounded proceeding to France receives printed instructions from the War Office that the Y M C A will meet all the boats and provide transportation and accommodations for all who need it while at the front. Our friend, Mr. Geddes, broke down as he tried to tell us how he and his wife had been met on the lonely shores of France by the Y M C A secretary and motored quickly to the bedside of their dying son, only to find that they were just too late. The funeral was arranged, even to the providing of flowers. The last ministry was performed for the young man away from home and for the loved ones left behind, under the triangle that will forevermore be red.

Thus the Association is at once the soldier's club, his home, his church, his school, his place of rest, his entertainment bureau, his bank and postoffice, his tourist guide, and the friend that stands by him and his bereaved parents at the last. Fifteen hundred just such huts and centers stretch away from Scotland to East Africa, from France to Mesopotamia, from Egypt to India. Could any other single organization have met all these needs of the men under arms, mobilized so quickly, united all denominations, entered all lands, and embraced all forms of work secular and religious?

We conducted meetings for several months throughout the camps in the British Isles. At our last parade service with the brigade out in the open field there were several thousand seated on the grass, with their eight bands drawn up in front. In every service the battle was on between good and evil, between God and mammon, between sacrifice and sin.

One night we visited the sailors' training camp. It was a great meeting, with two thousand of the sailor boys crowded in a big theater. The concert was going on when we arrived and the jeers and yells of the crowd drowned some of the voices of the performers; it was evident that we were going to have a hard time to hold the audience. Captain "Peg" stepped to the stage and soon had them singing, "We'll Never Let the Old Flag Fall." Roars of applause followed and they clamored for more. Out in the glare of the footlights and looking into that sea of faces, we began to fight for that audience. There were two thousand tempted men whom we should never see again. In five minutes the whole theater was hushed—you could hear a pin drop. After half an hour the meeting was interrupted by the noise of the band outside. Surely the men will bolt and leave the meeting. We said to them: "Boys, there is the band. Let everybody go now who wants to go! We are going on. Every man that wants to make the fight for character, the fight for purity with the help of Jesus Christ, stay with us here." There was a shout from the audience, and not a man left the theater. The band thundered on, but the crowd was with us now, and the hopes of hundreds of hearts for the things that are eternal surged to the surface. Several hundred men signed the War Roll, pledging their allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ. One sailor boy came up to thank us, saying that he had all but fallen the week before; and simply for the lack of a sixpence he had been saved from sin. With God's help he would now live for Christ. Another came up who had been drinking heavily and had quarreled with his wife. He did not have the price of a postage stamp to write to her. He wanted to know how he could be saved from drink. Man after man came forward, hungry for human help and longing for a better life.



On another occasion we were with the army of Australian and New Zealand troops, as they were marching by the King at their last review before going to the front. Fortunately, we had secured standing room near the King's side, where we could watch every smile and action as he saluted each passing battalion, and we could even hear him speak a kind word now and then to some officer. There were generals to the right of us and to the left of us, colonels, majors, captains, officers of every rank, and prominent civilians; but the greatest man on that field was the soldier himself. With what a swing those clean-cut young Australian boys marched past; every man was a volunteer and part of that great first army of over four millions of men who came forward for the defense of the Empire without conscription.

Hundreds were playing in the massed bands, as the long file of men marched by. But time and again the firm columns seemed to fade before us, and we could not see them for tears, as we realized that many of these brave boys were going forward to die for us. Above, a great aeroplane was looping the loop and warplanes were darting to and fro.

Away on the horizon stood the great boulders of Stonehenge, erected long before the time of the Saxons, the Britons, or even the ancient Druids, by the sun-worshippers, who offered their human sacrifices on the ancient altar there nearly forty centuries before. We looked at those stones, where through a mistaken conception of God and an inadequate conception of man, human sacrifices were offered long ago. Suddenly we heard the crack of the rifles of a body of troops at practice, moving forward in open line of battle. Today, through a mistaken conception of God and a low conception of man, over 5,000,000 of men have already been killed, offered in human sacrifice; while many millions in lands devastated are homeless, starving, or ruined in body or soul—these are part of the offering, forced upon humanity by a godless materialism, while a divided Christian Church stands by impotent.

II

Let us now visit Egypt where we shall witness very different scenes. Away on the distant horizon are the two triangular points, which grow as we approach into the outlines of the great pyramids. Beyond are the fifty-eight centers which have risen along the banks of the Nile, in the metropolis of Cairo, and in the harbors of Port Said and Alexandria, and which line the Suez Canal and dot the desert even out into the peninsula of Mt. Sinai. The sun is setting as we climb the great pyramid, which stands a silent witness to forty centuries of history which have ebbed and flowed at its base, but surely no stranger sight has it ever seen than these armed camps about it, engaged in this titanic struggle of the world. Away to the south towards far Khartoum, like a green ribbon in the yellow desert, stretches the irrigated basin of the Nile. Beyond it is the bottomless burning sand of the Sahara.

Here on the site of Napoleon's ancient battlefield is the largest concentration camp in Egypt. The white tents of the Australasians shelter a population as numerous as many a city, with three Association buildings for the men. From out the great pyramid there is a constant stream of soldiers passing to and fro. And there under the shadow of the Sphinx are two more Y M C A huts. Jessop, the former secretary at Washington, has been in charge here, with a large staff of secretaries from Australia and New Zealand. General Sir Archibald Murray, in command of the Egyptian Expeditionary Forces, says: "First of all, the men must have mess huts; then we want the Y M C A."

Cairo is the throbbing center of Egypt's life, where vice does not lurk in secret, but flaunts itself in open effrontery. Our secretaries have been at work there in the long lines of men that stand outside the places of vice, handing them Testaments and urging them to come away. The Y M C A has taken over a large amusement center in the Ezbekieh Gardens in the very heart of Cairo; and in spite of the public saloon nearby, with its attraction of music and wine, from two hundred to two thousand men are constantly thronging the Association rooms. The attractive equipment of a garden, an open-air theater, a skating rink, baths, supper counters, and a meeting place, but most of all the personal touch of the two earnest secretaries, make the whole work effective. The Association has also rented the spacious Bourse, where it houses several hundred men who are in the city on short leave, while its lobby is used for concerts and entertainments. During the last action five of the Y M C A huts on the Canal Zone were under fire. But there is no day passes but that the men under canvas in this hot land of Egypt are under fire from temptations more deadly than Turkish bullets.

Leaving Egypt, we passed over the hot and stifling Red Sea, across the Indian Ocean, toward the sunny plains of India. Away from the snowy ridge of the Himalayas, down across the bare plains of the north and the rice fields and cocoa-nut palms of the tropic south, India lies like a vast continent, embracing one-fifth of the human race. It was held before the war by some 75,000 British and twice as many Indian troops. The numbers are completely altered now. Almost the whole regular force, both Indian and British, are away fighting in Mesopotamia, East Africa, France, and Egypt, while a new territorial force of Kitchener's army of London clerks and English civilians has taken its place.

One hundred and fifty secretaries in India were ready upon the outbreak of the war. All across India the Y M C A has opened huts, buildings, or tents for the territorial and other forces.[1] A writer in the Journal of the Royal Sussex Regiment, at Bangalore, said: "Somehow the very letters, Y M C A have gathered to themselves an implication of comfort, pleasure, and welcome; we instinctively feel among friends."

We visited one night the great tent generously given by the Viceroy for the work of the territorials in Delhi. General Sir Percy Lake took the chair and the men gathered in the large marquee for the meeting. Sherwood Day, of Yale, had been in charge of this work during the winter, providing a home for the men of the territorials in this ancient Indian capital. A series of lectures by leading Indians served to interpret Indian life and thought to these soldiers, who were seeing at once the needs and greatness of the Indian Empire at first hand, while leading Indian Christians of the type of Mr. K. T. Paul, Dr. Datta, and Bishop Azariah told them the fascinating story of Indian missions and the history of Christianity in Asia. A new sense of race brotherhood is taking the place of the old antagonism and prejudice, and Indian secretaries stationed with English Tommies have become exceedingly popular with them.

From India as a base, the Association has gone forward with the advancing columns into Mesopotamia and East Africa. As we cross the Persian Gulf and follow the winding courses of the Tigris and the Euphrates up into the heart of Mesopotamia, we find a group of Princeton men and some sixty secretaries stationed here with the troops, under Leonard Dixon of Canada. The men affectionately call him the "padre"; anyone who has ever boxed with Dixon and felt the force of his right, knows that he is a man who has both drive and "punch." The troops in Mesopotamia have been fighting often under terrible conditions, marching through ooze and slime, drinking the yellow unfiltered water, decimated by the attacks both of sickness and of the enemy. In summer the alkali dust lies four inches deep on the floors of their tents, and the thermometer stands at 120 degrees in the sultry shade. Dixon racked his brain to provide recreation and helpful entertainment for these hard fighting men. A bioscope, competitive concerts, a Christmas tree, a New Year's treat, football and hockey tournaments, and entertainments of various kinds have been improvised to make the men forget the awful hardship of the march and of the battle. On Sunday the writing tables are full from dawn till dark and tons of stationery have been used to keep these men in touch with their distant homes.

The secretaries have been kept busy handling the big convoys of wounded as they come down the rivers in the boats from the fighting at the front. One colonel got up from his sick bed to give his testimony unasked as to what the work of the Association had meant to these wounded men. He said that it was not only the big kettles of hot coffee and the caldrons of soup which the secretaries brought aboard the boats, not only the warm blankets, beef tea, and other comforts which had helped the men so much, but the fact that when those men entered that barge with its weight of human suffering and misery, it seemed that the touch of Another hand unseen was resting on the hot brow and feverish pulse of those wounded soldiers.

Bovia McLain, an American secretary, gives us a glimpse of a night on a hospital barge, with a cold wind and rain-storm sweeping down the river. The canvas tarpaulin began to leak like a sieve and most of the wounded were cold and drenched to the skin. Soon the men were lying not only under wet blankets, but actually in two or three inches of water on the undrained decks. They were packed in like sardines, without pillows or comforts. "The whole thing was ghastly and terrible. Men wanted to change their position or have a broken limb slightly moved, and a dozen other wants seemed to demand attention all at once. At times I felt the strain so that it seemed to me I could not control myself longer, but must break down and weep, it was so appalling." After the men had been made comfortable, the workers were ready in the morning with supplies of chocolate and tobacco and other luxuries. It is no wonder that up at the front when the secretary invites the men to remain for evening prayers sometimes nearly the whole battalion stays, and one can understand the new interpretation given by some soldiers to the letters Y. M. C. A.—"You Make Christianity Attractive."

When the war broke out the Association was ready to enter Africa also. With the first contingent of 60,000 South African troops a number of Y M C A secretaries were sent. They erected large marquees in local training camps, and there prepared the way for the even greater opportunity which was to follow in the East African campaign under the Northern Army. The military authorities cabled the Association headquarters at Calcutta, offering to hand over the army canteens of East Africa to the Y M C A and to cut out liquor if the Association would take them over and be responsible for the welfare work among the troops, looking after their physical, social, and moral needs. Instantly, Mr. E. C. Carter, the National Secretary of India, cabled back accepting the offer.

The first score of men were sent over to open up nineteen centers with the advancing column in the jungles of Africa. The 20,000 troops were then occupying Swakopmund, a desolate little town surrounded by a sea of burning sand. There were no trees, not a blade of grass, nor even the song of a solitary bird to relieve the monotony. The men called it "the land of sin, sand, sorrow, and sore eyes." Soon, however, the large hall of the Faber Hotel was procured, with accommodations for a thousand men. It became the social center of the whole camp. So popular was the place that the men fairly fought and struggled to get into the building. Every night at 7:30 the war telegrams were read, and as it was the only way to hear the news from the front, each tent appointed one man to be at the Y M C A at that hour. On the occasion of the opening of the work, one man wrote home: "Two great events have happened today—the Y M C A has commenced and I have had a bath." The story will never be written as to what the Association meant in the hearts of those men who laid down their lives fighting in East Africa. On the cross at the head of every grave in one section of the dark continent is the sentence: "Tell England, ye that pass by, that we who lie here, rest content." Thus, from Cairo in the north, from Swakopmund in the east, clear to Cape Town in the south, the red triangle has followed the army to its last outposts. Space will not permit us to describe the huts which have been opened at Salonica, the twelve centers at Malta, and others dotted along the ports of the Mediterranean.

III

A new development has now been undertaken by the Association among the thousands in the munition works in Great Britain. With the whole nation organized for war, there are millions of workers busily engaged on ten and twelve hour shifts, turning out that steady stream of munitions which must ever flow up to the guns at the front, to supply the army fighting there. Here are men and women without the excitement and the adventure of the front, toiling all day under a strain, far removed from home, congested in unattractive surroundings, and it is of the utmost importance that these workers be kept healthful and happy.

We motored down one afternoon to see the work that is going on in the great arsenal at Woolwich. Outside, where a year ago were orchards and pastures, are long rows of permanent buildings which have sprung up on every side. To meet this situation the Y M C A has within recent months erected more than a hundred huts in the different munition centers, which can provide meals for thousands of tired workers. These huts have already placed the Association in touch with half a million workers. In the first hut we visited, three thousand of them were seated at meals in two relays, while two thousand soldiers were accommodated in the hut during the afternoon and evening. A platform at one end had been put up for musical concerts and entertainments. The price of meals varies from twelve to twenty-five cents. Lady Henry Grosvenor and other leaders have marshalled a force of fifteen hundred voluntary workers in this group of huts.

So appreciative has the government been of this new development, that in addition to providing their own government welfare workers to look after the women and girls, they are permitting the munitions manufacturers to build new Y M C A huts at government expense for the accommodation of the men. We passed down long rows of dormitories, erected almost in a night, where thousands of weary workers were sleeping during the day, preparing for their night shift. It was almost a sad sight to see whole huts filled with hundreds of boys from fourteen to sixteen years of age, all sound asleep at midday. The secretaries look after these boys in their rest and play and provide healthful surroundings, a clean moral atmosphere, and attractive religious influences.

The Young Women's Christian Association has entered the open door for work among the women. In one place where a young girl from the country had been led astray by the temptations of this new and monotonous life and had committed suicide, the Young Women's Christian Association has erected a large hut to provide for the moral welfare of thousands of other girls faced by the same temptations. Oh, the dreary drudgery that faces these tired women!

"Rattle and clatter and clank and whirr, And thousands of wheels a-spinning— Oh, it's dreary work and it's weary work, But none of us all will fail or shirk; Not women's work—that should make, not mar, But the Devil drives when the world's at war; And it's long and long the day is."

The Y W C A has adopted the sign of the blue triangle, to distinguish it from the red triangle of the Y M C A. The huts bore the touch of deft women's hands in the decorations, flowers, and signs of cheer and comfort which the ladies have provided for these hard worked girls. Before the huts were erected some girls had to sleep in the streets all night in the unsanitary communities about the works.

Both the government authorities and the Association workers have seen a large open door for social service among these millions of munition workers. For the work here is permanent. These great buildings will remain as manufacturing centers of some kind after the war. The huts will still be occupied. Already a new and growing body of legislation is being introduced to improve the conditions of the toilers of old England.

It is little wonder that the whole nation has responded to this work so boldly undertaken on such a large scale. From the first gifts have been pouring in unsolicited. His Majesty the King, patron of the Young Men's Christian Association in Britain, has inspected many of the buildings, and sent in his contribution, with the following note: "His Majesty congratulates the Association on the successful results of its War work, which has done everything conducive to the comfort and well-being of the armies, supplying the special and peculiar needs of men drawn from countries so different and so distant. It has worked in a practical, economical, and unostentatious manner, with consummate knowledge of those with whom it has to deal. At the same time the Association, by its spirit of discipline, has earned the respect and approbation of the Military Authorities."

The Queen Mother donated the Alexandra Hut in London, which makes provision for the accommodation of soldiers on leave in the city. She was seen recently serving tea behind the counter in the Association hut to the happy Tommies who had come back strained and tired from the front to "Blighty" once more. The Princess Victoria has been most tireless in opening Y M C A huts, and has given unsparingly of her time and effort for the men.

No one has been more appreciative than the military authorities themselves. Lord Roberts, four days before his death, wrote expressing his appreciation of the work being accomplished. His secretary adds: "He hears on all sides nothing but praise for what the Y M C A is doing at the camps." Lord Kitchener, who had inspected the huts of the Association in England, France, and Egypt, wrote: "From the first the Y M C A gained my confidence, and now I find they have earned my admiration and gratitude." Mr. Asquith, when Prime Minister, after visiting the Association huts and attending the religious meetings said: "The Y M C A is the greatest thing in Europe." Lloyd George, the present Premier, said recently: "I congratulate the Y M C A. Wherever I go I hear nothing but good of the work they are doing throughout the country, and we owe them a very deep debt of gratitude."

[1] In addition to the existing work at Bangalore, Maymyo, and Poona, Association privileges have been provided for soldiers in Lahore, Delhi, Multan, Forozepore, Jhansi, Lucknow, Mhow, Trimulgherry, Jubbulpore, Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, Ahmednagar, Rangoon, Dalhousie, Naini Tal, Karachi, Allahabad, and Jutogh.



CHAPTER V

LIFE IN A BASE CAMP

The man who inaugurated Y M C A army work in France was Joseph Callan. In 1903 he became a secretary of the International Committee in Allahabad, North India, and later in Colombo. Ten years ago in Bangalore he began his wonderful work for soldiers, which, in time, was to set the pace and furnish the standard for the Association work of the present war.

When the British troops were out in camp, Callan opened his big Y M C A tent and beat the army canteen in open competition, so that at the end of the maneuvers the contractors had to haul back much of the liquor unsold. While the canteen was being drained of men, Callan was running a full show almost every evening. He had powerful arc lights placed over the athletic field, and night after night tournaments were played off, company against company, regiment against regiment, until the closing hour of the canteen had passed. Lectures, moving pictures, and concerts were followed by straight religious meetings, with lasting results. The cooperation of the Bishop, clergy, and chaplains, helped to relate permanently these results to the Church.

As soon as the commanding officers saw the value of this work, they began to cooperate and insisted upon its being carried on in every camp. In the great maneuvers at Dacca, Callan was invited to Bengal to run the institutional work for the troops at the expense of the government, which he did with striking results. Each success made the work known to a widening circle of officers and men.

When the war broke out, Callan and Carter approached the Viceroy and Commander-in-Chief to ask if they could serve the Indian Army as it was to start as an expeditionary force to France. Since the Mutiny of 1857, with its religious superstition and prejudice about the greased cartridges, etc., no Christian work had been permitted in the Indian Army. Finally, however, permission was given to the Association to begin work with the troops before embarkation. Upon arrival in Bombay, our secretaries called upon the Commanding Officer, who had wired to the General at Headquarters to know what he could do to hold his discontented troops together in the flooded and crowded quarters about the docks. The general had just wired, "Consult the Y M C A and ask them to send for their army department." He had known of Callan's work at Bangalore, Dacca, and other centers, and believed it would supply just the missing link with the dissatisfied men. When our secretaries called, the Colonel had just received the telegram and was prepared to give them a chance to see what they could do for the troops.

Within twenty-four hours a work was organized which kept the sepoys occupied for all their leisure time. Football and hockey and outdoor athletics, excursions down the harbor, sea bathing, lectures, and entertainments were soon in full swing. This was the first work of the kind ever done for the Indian Army. So instantly and obviously invaluable did it become that the Commanding Officer insisted that the secretaries should accompany the troops on the long and much dreaded trip to France, which was a bold and untried venture for Indian soldiers.

It was a historic event when that great fleet of some seventy-five ships, the largest assembled since the Spanish Armada, freighted with about 25,000 troops bound for France, East Africa, and Persia, weighed anchor, and sailed out of Bombay harbor with the first twelve Y M C A secretaries on board. Arrived in France, permission was finally obtained from the Commander-in-Chief to land and begin work on French soil.

Here the moral problem made the work of the Association a crying necessity. Soon there were some 25,000 Indian troops concentrated around Marseilles. These men could neither safely be let out of bounds nor kept contented within bounds. A cordon of troops around the camp could not keep vice out. The Y M C A was needed as a counter attraction. Upon an outbreak of drinking and immorality on the part of a group of Sikh soldiers, the whole garrison was called out to witness these men stripped and flogged in exemplary punishment. The Sikhs felt this to be such a public disgrace that they asked for the use of the Y M C A hut in which to hold a council meeting. They finally decided to ask one of the secretaries to address the whole body of Sikhs on the subject of intemperance and impurity, for the Association was already tacitly recognized by all as the dominant moral force in the camp.

One of the Indian secretaries, Mr. Roy, addressed the soldiers at their own request for an hour and a half, and a remarkable scene of repentance was witnessed. Men arose on all hands, confessing their sins in respect to these two special failings and requested that penalties be imposed upon them by their own priest in accordance with the custom of their religion, as a punishment for the past and as a guarantee for the future. For nearly two hours the men filed by their priest receiving penalties. Later on they held a service of their own in the Y M C A hut on Christmas day and took up a large collection of copper coins as a thank-offering to the Association. They felt that it had been their one friend in a strange land.

It should be clearly understood, however, that of necessity, in the very nature of the case, the Government of India imposed upon the secretaries the strict obligation of silence regarding the propagation of Christianity. They entered the work on the understanding that the men could live out the spirit of Christ and express it in silent ministry under the motive of Christian love.

It was striking to see how much real Christianity could be packed into life when speech was forbidden. The pent-up prayer and love and sympathy of the workers was forced into the single channel of silent service. It reminded one of those thirty years in our Lord's life, in simple secular toil, which could only minister to the needs of men over a carpenter's bench.

It is no small task to undertake to occupy all the leisure time of 25,000 men far from home, shut up in irksome camps, easily aroused by rumor or superstition. The numbers increased until there were finally some 50,000 men to be cared for. Athletic fields were secured and games were started. Football and hockey were more played by the Indians than by the British troops. Badminton and volley ball, races and track events, were also useful. Indoor games, the gramophone, cinemas and concerts, and especially Indian dramas, were popular in the evening. Lectures on geography, history, and moral subjects were well attended, and French classes were of practical benefit.

An incalculable service has also been rendered in writing letters for the great mass of ignorant soldiers to their families in the far-off Indian villages, miles away from a railway. Illiteracy, superstition, and false rumors existed at both ends of the line. Here is a man who has had no word from home since he left a year or more ago. He hears a baseless rumor or heeds some inborn fear that his child is sick, or his wife unfaithful, or that he has been cheated out of his property. Hundreds of homesick men whose whole lives have been bound up in the family circle pour in upon the secretaries, begging that they will write letters home for them. Here you may see six or eight secretaries writing for hours each day, as fast as the men can dictate their messages and tell their stories.

Then there arose the problem of how to keep these men in touch with their households in isolated and illiterate villages in India. Mr. Hume, one of the secretaries in Lahore, devised a far-reaching plan whereby every letter was forwarded through missionaries or Christian workers or officials to the distant home of the soldier. The whole community gathers to hear the news from the Indian regiment on the other side of the world, and a shout goes up from the village street when they learn that their brave Sepoy is not dead, as rumor had whispered. A message is sent back in eager gratitude from the wife, children, and neighbors, and from the united heart of the little village to the distant soldier and his fighting comrades. The Red Triangle has spanned the gulf from the winter cold and the dreary trenches in France to the little village on the plains of sunny India, and the grateful hearts at both ends somehow dimly know that all this silent ministry is in the name of the White Comrade who is the Friend of man.

Here in France the hut must stand as the friendly home that gathers up all the best traditions of Indian life. It takes the place of the banyan tree in the heat of the day, the village well, and the meeting place for the men in the cool of the evening. Even beyond all hopes it has proved a potent factor for unity, harmony, and peace in a time of unrest. It draws the British officers and the Indian men closer together, and the Indian secretaries have served time and again as the mediators between the two, who could so easily have misunderstood each other. It provides a common meeting place between the caste-ridden and divided Indians themselves, who had no other ground of unity.

Here are men of different languages and races and traditions, from the Gurkhas, the brave little hill men, to the stalwart Pathans, who come as fighting men from far beyond the borders of India for the sheer joy of battle. The chances for supposed loot in the fabled wealth of the West and the accumulation of merit by slaying the "unbelievers" of the enemy, prove an added attraction to men born and bred in border warfare. Here also are men of three separate creeds, who have often fought with one another over the issues of their faiths—the big bearded Sikhs, with a soldier's religion, the warlike Mohammedans, who fight according to their Koran, and the caste-ridden Hindus.

As you walk among the tents the smoke of the fires hangs heavy over the camp; there is the familiar sound of the bubbling rice pots, the smell of pungent curry, the babel of many oriental tongues, and you seem to be back in the very heart of India itself. We gather with the reverent Sikhs for their religious worship. They meet morning and evening for their prayer service, and turn out almost in a body for the weekly Sunday meeting. The service consists principally of singing and the reading of their sacred scripture, the Granth. Seated on the ground, the men show deep reverence, and seem to have a sense of the presence of God in their midst. Their religion has a real restraining influence and there is at present little immorality amongst them.

A little further on in the camp one comes upon an improvised Mohammedan mosque. Five times a day a devout soldier calls the faithful to prayer, and on Friday about three-fourths of them come out to their voluntary service. The Hindus, on the other hand, dependent upon ceremonial rites, without their temple or priest and with no organized public worship, have not a religion which holds them in such a vital grip in this distant land.

As you pass down the camp, the band is playing for the draft that is marching off to take its place in the trenches. The last good-bys are being said and little groups are round the secretaries. The stalwart Sikhs are wringing their hands or kneeling down to wipe the dust from their shoes, or thanking them with tears of gratitude. They are great child-like men, simple of heart, affectionate, but lonely and homesick in a distant land. Here is a man who was once a hard drinker, living an immoral life, but today he is keeping straight. Here is another who has resolved to go back to India to lead a different life. There were tears in the eyes of the secretaries themselves as they came back after bidding good-by to the draft, and there was compensation after long months of service in the gratitude of the men and in that inner voice which says, "I was a stranger and ye took me in."

After Callan had launched the work among the Indian troops, he was called upon to open up the work at a large British base camp behind the lines in France. Here, beside the vast drill ground where Napoleon used to marshal his troops, is a white city of tents, and between 100,000 and 200,000 men are always encamped there for training.

Life in the trenches for the moment drives men to God, but the life in a base camp is one of fierce and insidious temptation. To hold the men in the face of such temptations, Callan has erected his buildings in the thirty principal centers of this base. Here is a typical hut before us, built of plain pine boards, 120 feet long and 60 feet broad. It accommodates from 2,000 to 3,000 men a day and is used by three-fourths of the men in the camp, by practically all, in fact, except those who are confined to their hospital beds. These thirty huts will be filled all winter with an average of 60,000 men a day. Each night at least 15,000 men will be gathered in meetings, lectures, and healthy entertainments. Twice each week there are 12,000 men in attendance at religious meetings, and not a week passes without hundreds of decisions being made for the Christian life. In the course of the year a million men will pass through these camps, or one-sixth of the manhood of the nation now marshalled under arms. These are the men who are to be made or marred by life in the army, and who will go back to build the new empire in the great era of reconstruction that is to follow the war.



To minister to these 60,000 men who daily crowd these thirty huts, there are 167 workers sent over from England, 100 of them men and 67 of them women. The latter are nearly all self-supporting and not only receive no salary but pay all their own expenses. The self-sacrificing toil of these helpers, who form part of a vast army of 30,000 heroic women who are voluntarily serving without compensation in the Associations of England and France, is beyond all praise. Their very presence in the camps is the greatest single moral factor for the creation of that indefinable atmosphere which pervades every hut. Even rude and coarse men never think of swearing or speaking an indecent word within these walls. Nor do they forget to be grateful for the tireless service of these women, who stand for hours day and night serving them and providing for their physical necessities. The women workers are under the direction of Lady Rodney, who has had four sons fighting at the front, one of whom has already fallen in action. The men have been thrilled and moved to the depths as Lady Rodney has addressed them on "What Are We Fighting For?" and by her message to the men from the women at home. Several hundred of the choicest women of America will be needed for service among our own troops. They should be women who can stand for the whole principle of the red triangle. They must be ready for tireless and exhausting physical service, able to work with others without friction, prepared to meet the social needs of the men and to give a sympathetic hearing to the tales that will be poured into their ears, but above all they must be able to give a definite Christian message to men fiercely tempted and beset by doubts and difficulties. The soldier cannot live by bread alone, nor by the tea and coffee of a Y M C A counter; he needs God, and the friendship of good women, and the spirit of home which they carry with them.

The hundred men who are working in these thirty British huts are worthy of note. A score of them are clergymen, who have resigned their churches for the period of the war. Many others are well-known ministers, laymen, or professors who have come over for a period of several months of service. The list of the men who have been serving here contains many distinguished names. There is Professor Burkett, the New Testament scholar of Cambridge, in charge of one of the huts; Professor Bateson, the great biologist of Cambridge, who has been lecturing on his subject, and who was swept off his feet by the response which he received from the troops. He stated that he was able to learn more from these men than in months of research in his laboratory, where he had been shut up for most of his life. Professor Holland Rose, also of Cambridge, has been lecturing to the troops on European history, interpreting the war to the soldier. Professor Oman, of the same university, has been dealing in his lectures with the historical problems of the war. Rev. E. A. Burroughs, of Oxford, has been giving religious lectures. Principal D. S. Cairns, of Aberdeen, has had crowded meetings night after night for his apologetic lectures, and the questions raised in the open discussions would make one think he was in a theological seminary. Principal Kitchie, of Nottingham, has been lecturing on European history and the Balkan situation. Bishop Knight is giving his time seven days a week to looking after the spiritual and ecclesiastical needs of the men, as many seek confirmation and partake of the Holy Communion before going up to the front. Here are Scotch ministers, Anglican clergymen, and laymen, working side by side in a great ministry of service.

A series of missionary lectures has helped to give the men a new world view of Christianity. It has lifted the simple villager, and the man who has never known anything save the narrow ruts of his own denomination, above the petty interests and divisions of his former life to face world problems and the wide extension of the Kingdom of God. Four lecturers have followed each other to present a great world view to the men in these thirty huts: Butcher of New Guinea showed the effect of the impact of the Gospel upon primitive native races; Farquhar of India showed the power of Christianity over the great ethnic religions of India; Lord Wm. Gascoyne Cecil came next on the transformation of China, and was followed by Dennis of Madagascar and Dr. Datta, a living witness of the power of Christianity in the great Indian empire. John McNeill and Gipsy Smith, the well-known evangelists, have spoken to thousands and have brought the challenge of the Christian Gospel to the men, calling upon them for decisions and a change of life in harmony with the teachings of Christ.

Here are some of the finest spirits of England, some of its intellectual and spiritual leaders, brought into daily contact with the manhood of the nation in this formative period and epoch-making crisis. Before us hangs the program for the week. It looks like the schedule of classes and lectures for some great university. It is drawn up in seven columns for the seven days of the week, and includes a score of centers, with an average of three events for each hut per day. It would cover several closely printed pages. Here are some of the events scheduled for a single night:

Hut No. 1, lecture on "The Meaning of Christianity," by Mr. A. D. Mann; choir rehearsal; devotional meeting. No. 2, Rev. Butcher of New Guinea, lecture on "The Failure of Civilization"; French class; Clean Talk League. No. 3, lecture by Lord Wm. Cecil on China; French class; hobby class. No. 4, cavalry band orchestra; Communion Service; evening prayers. No. 5, Lena Ashwell Concert Party from London. No. 6, Rev. N. H. M. Aitken, Bible lecture and discussion; orchestral band. No. 7, concert party; general hospital show. No. 8, lecture on Napoleon by Mr. Perkins; Mrs. Luard's concert party. No. 9, concert given by the men of the auxiliary park camp; draughts tournament. No. 10, religious discussion class; Lord Wm. Cecil; service conducted by Chaplain Berry. No. 11, Professor Thos. Welsh's Bible class; mid-week rally. No. 12, fretwork and carpentry class; games; letter writing. No. 13, mid-week service; Bible class; letter writing. No. 14, cinema show; indoor games. No. 15, lantern lecture on "India in the Trenches." No. 16, ladies' concert party; Hindi and Urdu classes; letter writing; games. All of this covers only the program for half of the huts on a single night!

Principal Fraser, of Ceylon and Uganda, but equally conversant with present-day problems in Britain, has been conducting a weekly parliament in different camps on the great questions of reconstruction after the war. For here are men away from home, lifted above the toil and narrow drudgery of their former cramped lives, and they have learned to think.

There is evidence of wide industrial and social unrest. The men are conscious not only of world wrongs which threaten their country from without, but of wrongs within as well, and they are going to demand that these wrongs shall be righted. A deep tide of feeling runs through the audience, as these men, blunt of speech but clear of brain, openly and frankly discuss the future, and they hang eagerly upon the words of Principal Fraser as he guides their thought to higher ideals for the period of reconstruction that is to follow.

One night they are discussing the present social order, and what is wrong with it; they are dealing with bad housing, employment, low wages, the cleavage between the rich and the poor, industrial oppression, and social injustice. The next night they consider the dangers of demobilization. What will be the effect upon hundreds of thousands of women workers? Here are more than five million soldiers in the army, and a large number of men and women, boys and girls, working on government orders. What steps must be taken to minimize the dislocation of industry and to prevent unemployment? On the night following, they discuss the question of industrial reorganization. They resolve that "the time has come, as the only means of averting social disaster, to grant a constitution to the factory, and quite frankly to recognize and insist that the conditions of employment are not matters to be settled by the employer alone, any more than by the workmen alone, but in joint conference between them; and not even for each establishment alone, but subject to the National Common Rules arrived at for the whole industry by the organized employers and employed, in consultation with the representatives of the community as a whole."

At the next parliament they discuss the future of education in England. What should be its aim, how far should it be technical, and how far should it aim at the development of personality? Should the school-leaving age be raised to fifteen, or half-time education be given up to the age of eighteen? One night in the parliament they discuss the problem of drink and the war; on another night, gambling; and on another, the social evil. The men who attend the lectures and parliaments of these camps will almost get a liberal education during the three years.

We have spoken of the vast work going on in the thirty huts conducted by 167 workers in this single base camp. Let us now pass into a typical center and observe the work a little more in detail. For our first illustration, let us take the Y M C A hut in the Convalescent Camp. We select this because it is the model of the new huts for the American army which are now being constructed. It is a moving sight simply to step inside its doors. Here are two parallel structures of simple pine boards, each 120 by 30 feet. They may be used separately, in eight different departments, including the lecture hall which will seat 500, or with the partitions raised they may be thrown into one large audience hall, holding 1,200 men.

A glance at the crowd within, or at the great city of white tents without, shows that even this building is utterly inadequate for this convalescent camp holding 4,000 men. It is a center for a dozen surrounding hospitals, each containing from 1,000 to 4,000 patients. As the men are cured in these hospitals they are sent up to the Convalescent Camp to be made fit to return to the trenches. It is worth remembering that every one of these 4,000 patients is a wounded man, all of whom have seen service and suffering.

Let us enter first of all the large social hall. Several hundred men are seated at the tables, playing games or chatting over a cup of tea. At one end is the counter, where three women and five men take their turn serving during the day and evening. Two or three thousand of these men will pour in every day this winter. They will stand in a long queue filing by the counter for more than two hours. Here are large urns, each holding ten gallons of tea. Cup after cup is rapidly pushed across the counter without turning off the tap; as 160 men are served in ten minutes, and there is no stop save to place a fresh urn full of tea. As fast as the workers can move, not only hot tea and coffee, but bread and biscuits, cake and chocolate, tobacco, matches, candles, soap, bachelor buttons are furnished, and every other need of the soldier is supplied. The aim is to meet his every demand, so that he will not have to go into the city to places of temptation and evil resorts.

While these men are being served or are seated in the social room, meetings and lectures are conducted at the same time on the other side of the partition in the audience hall, which is occupied several times a day, and is used for social purposes between the meetings. We now pass into the lounge, which is filled with men, busy at their games. Next is the Quiet Room, where no talking or writing is allowed. Men come into this room for quiet meetings or private prayer, and here small group prayer meetings and Bible classes are held.

Just outside the hut is a wide wooden platform which accommodates several hundred men. There nearly a dozen different games are in full swing, all at the same time. Each one is designed to help the patient recover his health. Here are badminton, tennis, volley ball, indoor baseball, quoits, deck billiards, bagatelle, ping-pong, and other games. The front of this platform forms a grandstand for the cricket field beyond.

Here for three nights we conducted meetings, with five or six hundred men in attendance. More than a hundred men signed the decision cards each night, and when asked it was found that one-third of them had made the decision for the first time, about one-third of them were back-sliders who had been living as Christians before the war but who had gone down before temptation, while the remaining third had been maintaining a consistent Christian life during the war.

In a second after-meeting in the Quiet Room one night, men from almost every quarter of the globe spoke and gave testimony. Here was one poor fellow who had come over after several years in the States. He had had delirium tremens three times, and showed the effects of it on his face. He had formerly been the center of the foul talk and vulgar language of his tent. He had now come straight out for Christ and had boldly witnessed for Him before the men. The second boy, the son of a prominent officer in South Africa, arose under deep emotion. He had been living a wild and reckless life and was known as the "Red Light King." After his conversion, he went out and brought in another comrade who openly decided for Christ. There were boys from Canada, Australia, and England who followed, many of them with tragedies in their past lives.

It is impossible to calculate the vast influences for good that have been flowing from this hut to the thousands of men who pass through it. The aim of the young Scotch minister who is the leader has been to make it for all the men "a home away from home." The life in the army, with its irksome toil, daily drill, cold and wet and mud, the horror of battle and the pain of wounds, is all for the moment forgotten as the men enter the place.

We tell the leader that we are taking this building as the model for our new American camps. He says: "Large as this hut is, it is not large enough or good enough for the men. Daily we have need for better equipment. This hut as it stands will serve from two thousand to three thousand men in a day, but nothing is too good for these boys who are coming here to suffer and die in this faraway land. You will send your sons over from America to spend this cold winter on the bleak plains of France in open bell tents. They will be fed on canned goods and corned beef, and they will be housed in the most unattractive towns of France, where there is absolutely no interest or diversion apart from drink and women. You can hardly realize what it means to sit down in a homelike place, to get a hot cup of tea served on a white tablecloth. This is the only home these boys will see in France, and they will either come here or go to the red light resorts. I wish I could tell the men of America what their boys will face here, what they will suffer, what temptations will assail them. The best equipment you can give them is not good enough, for the people at home little realize to what a life their boys are coming, and what hardships will face them here in France."



CHAPTER VI

THE CAMP OF THE PRODIGALS

We are in a natural amphitheater of the forest, near a big base hospital, about seventy miles behind the lines in France. Always in the stillness of the woods, even at this distance, one can hear the intermittent boom of the big guns at the front, and the air is vibrant on this summer evening. Beyond the wood lies the old drill ground of Napoleon, which is used today as a field for final training for the reenforcements for the front line.

In this wide open space in the woods at sundown the patients of the hospital in their blue uniforms are gathering for the meeting. It is a picturesque sight to see about eight hundred of them seated on the grass, while an orchestra composed of their own men is playing before the opening of the meeting. Who are these men before us? They are not the wounded who have fallen on the field of honor, but the sick, and, quite frankly, they all have venereal disease. The war has dragged this moral menace so into the light of day that the times of prudish silence and of fatal ignorance should have passed for all who are truly concerned for the welfare of the soldier and who want to know his actual conditions. We shall, therefore, in this chapter call a spade a spade.

The eight hundred men gathered here are a small part of some thousands of similar cases in France. The London Daily Mail of April 25th, 1917, referring to the report of the military authorities to the House of Commons, stated that there had been some two hundred thousand cases of venereal disease in the British Army in France alone. This does not include England or the men on the other fronts. The British Army is not worse than others. Professor Finger, at a meeting of the Medical Society in Vienna early in the war, estimated that over 700,000, or some ten per cent of the Austrian troops, had contracted venereal disease. More ominous still is the fact that in almost every place yet investigated the majority of the men were confessedly living in immorality amid the temptations of the base camps in France.

As we visit the hospitals in France, we are saddened by the fact that for one of the two venereal diseases no cure has yet been found, that a large proportion of these cases suffer a relapse, and that over seventy per cent will develop complications. As one Commanding Medical Officer said, "There is enough venereal disease in these military camps now to curse Europe for three generations to come."

One young major said: "Every day I am losing my boys. I've lost more men through these forces of immorality than through the enemy's shot and shell." The recent report of the Royal Commission shows the grave menace of the disease to Britain, where twenty per cent of the urban population has been infected. Flexner's terrible indictment in his "Prostitution in Europe" proves how particularly dangerous and pernicious is the system of inspection and regulation which legalizes and standardizes vice as a "necessary evil" and spreads disease through the false sense of security which it vainly promises. Even if the inspection and regulation of vice were physically perfectly successful, it might still lead to national degeneration, but instead of being a success it has proved, especially in France, a miserable failure. We cannot place all the blame upon local conditions, for the presence of an army in a foreign land in wartime creates its own danger.

Among the men in the venereal hospitals of France are musicians, artists, teachers, educated and refined boys from some of the best homes, and in another camp we find several hundred officers and several members of the nobility. What was the cause of their downfall? A questionnaire replied to by several hundred of them revealed the fact that six per cent attributed their downfall to curiosity, ten per cent to ignorance, claiming that they had never been adequately warned by the medical authorities, thirteen per cent to loss of home influences and lack of leave, thirty-three per cent to drink and the loss of self-control due to intoxication, while the largest number of all, or thirty-eight per cent, attributed it to uncontrolled passion when they were unconverted or had no higher power in their lives to enable them to withstand temptation. But perhaps the chief cause of the spread of immorality is the unnatural conditions under which the men are compelled to live in a foreign land in war time.

Donald Hankey, the brilliant young author of "A Student in Arms," who fell at the front, speaks thus of the moral problem in the soldier's life:

"Let us be frank about this. What a doctor might call the 'appetites' and a padre the 'lusts' of the body, hold dominion over the average man, whether civilian or soldier, unless they are counteracted by a stronger power. The only men who are pure are those who are absorbed in some pursuit, or possessed by a great love; be it the love of clean, wholesome life which is religion, or the love of a noble man which is hero-worship, or the love of a true woman. These are the four powers which are stronger than 'the flesh'—the zest of a quest, religion, hero-worship, and the love of a good woman. If a man is not possessed by one of these he will be immoral. . . . Fifteen months ago I was a private quartered in a camp near A——. . . . The tent was damp, gloomy, and cold. The Y M C A tent and the Canteen tent were crowded. One wandered off to the town. . . . And if a fellow ran up against 'a bit of skirt' he was generally just in the mood to follow it wherever it might lead. The moral of this is, double your subscriptions to the Y M C A, Church huts, soldiers' clubs, or whatever organization you fancy! You will be helping to combat vice in the only sensible way."

We agree with Donald Hankey that the appetites hold dominion over the average man, whether civilian or soldier. We do not wish to make any sweeping generalizations or accusations. We have no means of knowing how many men are immoral in peace time, as we have in war time. We only know that conditions of ordinary times are intensified, aggravated, and multiplied; and they are revealed in war time as never before, and thrown upon the screen of the public gaze. The writer also desires to guard against any possible impression that the British army is worse than our own or any other. It is too early to know what record our men will make, but we find it difficult to believe that they could have maintained a higher standard if placed in equal numbers in the same circumstances.

But to return to our meeting. Every one of these eight hundred men in this audience has a history. Tired or hardened or haggard faces are relaxed as they join in singing the hymns on this Sunday evening, "Nearer, My God, to Thee," "Lead, Kindly Light," "Tell Me the Old, Old Story," and "Where is my Wandering Boy Tonight?" There is a tragedy in every heart, and each man has experienced the bitterness of sin and bears its scars branded in his body. Look into the faces of some of these men. Here in front, this very first one, is an American cowboy from Texas, Frank B——. As a "broncho-buster" he became the star rider in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show and was finally adopted as his son. At the age of fifteen he started to go wrong in New Orleans. At an early age he joined the American army, and later, at the outbreak of the war, he served in the Flying Corps of the British army. Here he broke a leg and was smashed up in action. After that he joined an infantry division. In one of the meetings this week he accepted Christ. He has since been standing firm and goes out tomorrow to begin a new life. Near him is a young theological student with a sad look on his face, who has learned here in bitterness the deepest lesson of his life. Next to him is a heartbroken married man with a wife and children at home.

After the crowd has assembled, we speak to them of Christ as the Maker of Men. We tell them of the transformation of others like themselves, of Augustine, Francis of Assisi, Loyola and the saints of old, of John B. Gough, Jerry McAuley, Hadley, and the men of Water Street whom God raised out of the depths, and of men right in their midst who have come out for Christ in the meetings this week. After speaking for an hour, we go into the Y M C A for an after-meeting.

We had a wonderful time with them here one Saturday night. Five hundred of them crowded the hall and listened for an hour as we spoke on the good news of the free offer of life. When the invitation was given, over two hundred stayed to the after-meeting as desiring to follow Christ. After we had spoken one of the men came forward and asked if he could say a word. He had been an earnest Christian before the war, and as he began to speak of his fall and of his trusting wife and children at home, the poor fellow broke down in utter wretchedness. It seemed to strike a responsive chord in the hearts of the married men all over the room. Many a one buried his head in his hands and wept bitterly. A second after-meeting was held and God seemed to be moving in the heart of every man present. Man after man rose to tell of his fall, or of his repentance, or of his new acceptance of Christ. The feeling was deep but controlled. It was one of the saddest and yet one of the gladdest meetings I have ever attended. One minister present said he had seen nothing like it all through the Welsh revival.

During their stay in this hospital great changes have taken place in many of these men. Here is Dan, a young chauffeur, a strong-willed, self-sufficient young fellow who thought he needed no help and no religion. He has a Christian wife at home to whom he has been untrue, for the temptations of the war swept him off his feet like a flood. In the meetings this week he turned to Christ and has been working right and left bringing in others ever since. Beside him is a poor fellow whom he has just brought to the meetings. He went on leave to England, only to find his three children deserted by his wife, who had run away, untrue to him. At last he found her, and brought her home. On his return to the army, he finds that now he has to bear here in the hospital the vicarious result of her fall. He came to me as a non-Christian struggling with the problem of forgiveness. Could he forgive her all this and his broken home? At last in Christ he found the power to forgive and took up his heavy cross. He knelt at the altar of the little chapel and yielded up his life to God. Tomorrow he leaves the hospital to begin a new life.

Here is a young Australian who was untrue to his wife. When we first saw him he was hardened by sin. That night he yielded to Christ. The next Sunday we knelt beside him at the Lord's Supper. He was a new man; his very face was changed. He said, "I have read of miracles in the past, but there was never a greater miracle than the change which has taken place in my heart and life. I am a new man. I can look any one in the face today!"

Beside him at that communion table knelt a young gunner, "Joe," of the Royal Field Artillery. He was a strong, red-cheeked six-footer, winsome and good to look upon, the most popular man in his battery. Away from home among bad companions he was swept off his feet and fell. He has found Christ here among the prodigals in a far country. Before leaving he came up to bid us good-by, saying, "I'm going out to warn other men and to witness for Christ to the end of my days."

Here is M——, a young sergeant, who came up after the meeting, with tears in his eyes. "Sir," he said, "I was never drunk but once in my life, when my pals were home on leave, and that once, under the influence of drink, I fell. Here I am in the hospital, yet I am engaged to a little girl at home who is as white as snow. What is my duty in the matter?" He has accepted Christ and is a changed man.

Oh, it is a wonderful sight to see men transformed by this inward moral miracle, wrought by the touch of the living God. Here in the very center of this venereal camp stands the Y M C A, endeavoring to meet their every need, and even here the red triangle shines with the hope of a new manhood for body, mind, and spirit. Every day at the hour of opening there is a scurry of feet as the men rush in to the one center in the whole camp where they can congregate. Martin Harvey has just been here to cheer them up, and they were enthusiastic over a fine lecture and recital last night on Chopin. The Colonel in command takes particular pride in the Y M C A for his men, and states that crime among them has been reduced ninety per cent since it started.

But even greater than the privilege which the Association has in ministering to the fallen, is its work of prevention in the other camps. Just up the road is a swearing old major in command of a unit which has always had the worst record for immorality and disease of any camp on the plain. He finally came in and demanded a Y M C A hut for his men. A few weeks later he came to the Association headquarters and said, in punctuated language which could not be printed, "For a year and a half my camp has led all the rest as the worst in venereal disease, with some twenty-five fresh cases every week. The first week after the Y M C A was opened we had only ten cases, the next week six, the third week only two, and it has not risen above that since. Your Association is the —— best cure for this evil."

Nothing less than reaching the whole man can meet this gigantic problem. You must take physical precautions and build up a strong, clean, athletic body. Better than all repressive rules and regulations, you must provide healthy and happy occupation for the minds of the men. But beyond the reach of medical and military restrictions you have got to grip and strengthen their spiritual and moral nature. Otherwise, in the artificial and unnatural conditions consequent upon a vast concentration of men in a foreign land, away from all home influences, and in the poisonous atmosphere of a land of "regulated" immorality, where the government still regards it as a "necessary evil," you must see your men fall in ranks before the machine guns of commercialized vice, controlled by the vested interests, or fall a prey to the harpies who walk the streets. In the face of all this we must lay bold claim to the whole of manhood for God and for the high ends for which it was created.

The writer recently walked through a French street of licensed vice, where strong young fellows were tossing away their birthright for a mess of pottage. He passed on the main street of the city two young Americans from a medical unit who were reeling along in the possession of two harpies. They were shouting to all the passers by, trying to hold up the carriages, and widely advertising their uniform and their nation. We recognize the difficulty of maintaining a high moral standard in a foreign land in war time, but we believe it can be done. A plan has recently been suggested by the Association for dealing with this menace.

First of all, it is proposed to conduct a campaign of education on the highest moral grounds by a select group of lecturers, capable of presenting wisely the danger of immorality from both the medical and moral standpoints. This will involve the preparation of lectures, charts, lantern slides, films, and everything needed for the effective presentation both to the ear and eye. It is hoped that these lecturers will be able to instruct chaplains, Y M C A secretaries, and all who are responsible for the moral leadership of the troops, in order that they may be better able to cope with the situation. It is proposed that these lecturers conduct meetings for three days in each center, with a parade lecture for each battalion and voluntary meetings in the evening, which will include addresses on hygiene, lantern lectures, and moral talks. Healthy literature will be prepared and distributed to the men, and similar campaigns will be conducted in the camps in the United States and on shipboard before the troops reach France.

Second, a positive program for the occupation and amusement of the men will be provided. Athletic sports, games, tournaments, track meets, and other events will offer adequate physical facilities. Amusements, entertainments, concerts, classes, and lectures will be arranged for the mental occupation of the men. Meetings, personal interviews, and services will be planned to keep before them the moral and spiritual challenge and the call for clean living. Special campaigns will be carried on in all Y M C A huts from time to time.

Third, we would favor strict regulations and penalties to cope with immorality. We are glad that the selection of camp sites for the American troops in France is being made at places as far removed from the temptations of the cities as possible, where the men will be kept under closer supervision than could be done if the troops were located near large centers of population. Other means are being provided which cannot here be mentioned.

In the fourth place, we favor adequate medical provisions, coupled with the highest moral restraints. We will take our stand against any league with vice, against any recognition of immorality as a "necessary evil." We will stand against all notices, lectures, or medical talks such as are given in some quarters, which practically serve as an invitation or solicitation to immorality. We would oppose any provision on the part of the authorities to provide in advance for immorality, to standardize it, accept it, and attempt to render it safe, and we would oppose any mention of it which tends to advertise and increase the evil. We would strenuously oppose the running of supervised houses of prostitution by our own military authorities, as was done by some of them on the Mexican border. Conceivably a system of inspected government houses and of prophylactic measures might be devised which would eliminate disease altogether, and yet demoralize the young manhood of our nation by a cynical scientific materialism such as we are fighting against in the powers that dragged the world into this war. We are more opposed to immorality than to disease, which is its penalty. We fear not only the impairment of the physical fitness of the men as a fighting force, but much more the menace of the moral degradation of the manhood of the nation, under the unnatural conditions of wartime.

We believe that the hearty cooperation of the medical and moral agencies and of the military and voluntary forces which have to do with the men, can greatly reduce both immorality and disease. We feel sure, moreover, that the solid backing of public opinion in America will support every effort to surround our camps with a zone of safety and to keep the men clean and strong in the multiplied dangers of a foreign land, as well as in the military camps of our own country. It is reassuring to know that our military authorities abroad have taken a strong stand and that in no army in Europe are drunkenness and the contraction of venereal disease more instantly court-martialled or more severely punished.



CHAPTER VII

RELIGION AT THE FRONT

The war, like a great searchlight thrown across our individual and national lives, has revealed men and nations to themselves. It has shown us the nation's manhood suddenly stripped of the conventionalities, the restraints, and the outward respectability of civil life, subjected to the trial and testing of a prodigious strain. It has shown us the real stuff of which men are made. It is like the X-ray photographs now constantly used in all the military hospitals, and placed in the windows of the operating rooms, to guide the surgeon in discovering the hidden pieces of shrapnel or shattered bones which must be removed in order to save the patient.

The war has been a great revelation of things both good and bad. In the light of this terrible conflict, we may well ask what it shows us of the present virtues and vices of the men, and of our past failure or success in dealing with them, and to what future course of action it should summon us? In other words, what lessons has the war to teach us? Large numbers of young clergymen and laymen of the churches of England and Scotland have gone to the war zone with the men as chaplains, Y M C A workers, or in the army itself, and have learned to know men as they never knew them before. We would covet this opportunity for every young minister or Christian worker in America. Mr. Moody once stated that the Civil War was his university. It was there he learned to understand the human heart and to know and win men.

During the summer of 1917 a questionnaire was sent out to representative religious workers throughout the armies in France and Great Britain by a committee under the chairmanship of the Bishop of Winchester and Professor D. S. Cairns, with Mr. E. C. Carter of the Y M C A, and the Rev. Tissington Tatlow of the Student Christian Movement, as secretaries. Although the results and findings of this committee are not yet published, the writer has before him the reports of numbers of workers in France. In the base camp where he was last working, the questions were taken up by more than a hundred of the workers and discussed in conferences with groups of the soldiers and officers of the various regiments. These were summarized in findings and the reports were compared with the returns made from other centers. The writer has had the privilege of talking with hundreds of the soldiers regarding their own religious lives and difficulties. In this chapter he will try to form a composite photograph of all these impressions and to state impartially the results of his own experience and those of others.

We shall confine ourselves to three outstanding questions: I. What are the moral standards and actions of the men in war time? II. What is their attitude to religion and what is their religious life at the front? III. What is their attitude to the churches, and what lessons may the Church learn from the men at the front?

The questionnaire has been answered mainly by men of the British army, but the writer could observe no radical difference between the British and American forces as regards their religious life. As in other things connected with the war, we in America may learn much from the experience of Britain and other nations.

I

What are the moral standards and actions of the men in war time? At the very beginning, we must recognize the difficulty and danger of generalizations. No two men in the army are precisely alike. All sweeping generalizations are likely to be misleading. Regiments differ from one another and workers receive differing impressions of the front. Most of all we must distinguish between the different classes in the army.

It has been repeatedly affirmed that not more than 20 per cent of the men now under arms among the British troops were connected with the churches in any vital way before the war, or were regular in attendance at their services. Of this minority perhaps a half—those who were weak or nominal Christians before the war or have lost the higher standards of peace time or have hidden whatever religion they may have had—would not now be classed as definitely Christian men. But the remaining half, or one-tenth of the total number in the army, would probably be out-and-out Christians, strengthened by the severe discipline of the war and living under distinctly Christian standards.

At the other or lower extreme, there are perhaps one-tenth who are so-called "rotters," the men who set the evil standards of the camp and whose conduct is almost altogether selfish and materialistic. Between these two extremes are the great majority, or four-fifths, whom it is so difficult to classify. It is our conviction that these men "are not saved, but are salvable."

What are the moral standards of this majority? They are not definitely Christian. Rather, they have a military, material standard of the type of a somewhat primitive social group. Their expressions unconsciously reveal their judgments. Their constant demand of one another is "to play the game," that is, to play fair and to do one's part in order to win the game for the good of all. Anything which harms, hinders, or endangers another, which brings suffering to one's fellows or defeat to one's side, is not playing the game. They condemn unmanly actions which bring defeat, and praise the practical and virile virtues. As one chaplain writes: "I believe nearly all live partly by faith in a good God. I have never found men afraid to die, even though they were afraid before battle. As to the standards by which they live, I should say they are the sanctions of group morality. They have very lax ideas about drunkenness and sexual irregularity, but they have very strict ideas about the sacredness of social obligations within the groups to which they belong. I would mention sheer fear of public opinion as one of the great weaknesses of the men. They would rather be in the fashion than be right. And most of them have been hardened—though not necessarily in a bad sense."

As we ask ourselves what are the virtues which the majority admire in others and practice themselves to a greater or lesser degree, we would say that they are chiefly five:

1. Courage or bravery, the first virtue of the ancients and always at a natural premium in war time, is admired by all. In countless instances in the camps or on the battlefield this rises to heroism or self-sacrifice. Cowardice is scathingly condemned, and the man who starts to run away on the battlefield is unhesitatingly shot down by his comrades to preserve the morale of the fighting body.

2. Brotherliness, or comradeship, shows itself in unselfish service and cooperation with others.

3. Generosity and tender-heartedness show themselves in the men's willingness to help a comrade, to share their last rations, and to insist that others be attended to on the battlefield before themselves when they lie wounded. These are among the most beautiful virtues which the war has revealed.

4. Straightforwardness and genuine honesty are demanded; and all cant, hypocrisy, double dealing, shirking, and unreality are scathingly condemned.

5. Persistent cheerfulness in the midst of monotony, drudgery, suffering, danger, or death, is admired and maintained by the majority. This is not incompatible with the "grousing" or grumbling which the Englishman regards as his prerogative. This good cheer shows itself in the inveterate singing and whistling of the men on the march.[1]

Commenting upon the virtues of the soldiers, especially the wounded, a hospital nurse writes: "I was struck by the amount of real goodness among the men—their generosity, kindness, chivalry, patience, and self-sacrifice. The sins which they dislike are those sins of the spirit which Christ denounced most bitterly—hypocrisy, pride, meanness. They love giving, they bear pain patiently, they honor true womanhood, they reverence goodness."

Probably no one in the present war has given a better description of the unconscious virtues of the soldiers than has Donald Hankey, in his chapter on "The Religion of the Inarticulate," fragments of which we here quote:

"We never got a chance to sit down and think things out. Praying was almost an impossibility. . . . Above all, we were not going to turn religious at the last minute because we were afraid. . . . The soldier, and in this case the soldier means the workingman, does not in the least connect the things that he really believes in with Christianity. . . . Here were men who believed absolutely in the Christian virtues of unselfishness, generosity, charity, and humility, without ever connecting them in their minds with Christ; and at the same time what they did associate with Christianity was just on a par with the formalism and smug self-righteousness which Christ spent His whole life in trying to destroy. . . . The men really had deep-seated beliefs in goodness. . . . They never connected the goodness in which they believed with the God in Whom the chaplains said they ought to believe. . . . They have a dim sort of idea that He is misrepresented by Christianity. . . . If the chaplain wants to be understood and to win their sympathy he must begin by showing them that Christianity is the explanation and the justification and the triumph of all that they do now really believe in. He must start by making their religion articulate in a way which they will recognize."

As we turn from the virtues to the vices or moral weaknesses of the soldier in war time, we find that they also fall chiefly under five headings:

1. Impurity must certainly take the first place. Investigation seemed to show that the majority of these men were immoral in peace time, but the war has intensified this evil. This would be accounted for to a large extent by the unnatural conditions under which the men are forced to live, and the policy of the military authorities, who are often concerned merely with the fighting fitness of the men, rather than with the moral issues. However this may be, in nearly every camp or battalion or regiment or body of men questioned, whether among officers or men, the majority were confessedly living in immorality. This in itself is a staggering fact. It could be supported here by numerous statements or authorities and by much evidence.

2. Obscene and profane language is sweeping like an epidemic through the camps. It is infectious, and the worst men, who are the loudest talkers, tend to set the standard, so that evil is rapidly and unconsciously propagated until the very atmosphere becomes saturated. It is some comfort to know that frequently words are used unthinkingly and without a full realization of their original meaning. It is also comforting to be assured that there is not much deliberate telling of obscene stories. As one man puts it, "There are few essentially rotten minds." When, however, the name of our Lord is used not only profanely, but dragged into the most obscene and horrible connections, unheard of in peace times, no possible excuse can be offered and the habit cannot but prove deadening and baneful in its influence. Men who never before thought of swearing find themselves driven to strong language and to reckless, heightened, or intensified expression in the trying and persistent strain of war time.

3. Drunkenness has always proved the danger of the soldier. The discipline of the army has lessened this evil within the camps. Certainly it is being sternly suppressed and severely punished by the authorities among the newly arrived American troops. The rum which is given to the soldiers of the British army before a charge, or in the extreme cold of the trenches, has taught some men to drink who had not contracted the habit before. It is also a fact that the drink bill of England has increased during the war. Lloyd George said: "We are fighting against Germany, Austria, and Drink; but the greatest of these three deadly foes is Drink." The drink trade of England is maintained on the one hand by the powerful vested interests and the respectable moderate drinkers at the top of society, who are not willing to sacrifice their selfish comfort for the weaker brother, and on the other hand by the demand of the laboring classes who will have their beer, and whom the government does not dare oppose in the present crisis. Drink has been a curse to Britain during the war.

4. Gambling is a danger to the soldier. It is strictly forbidden in most of its forms by the military authorities. The game of "House" is tolerated as a mild form of gambling, where the men play for hours for very small stakes in order to kill time. The game of "Crown and Anchor" is also popular.

5. A lack of moral courage, of independence, and of individual initiative are particular evils of the present. All the men have to act together. They are taught to obey under rigid discipline. Individual initiative is crushed or left undeveloped. The sense of personal responsibility and of personal ownership is often weakened. This lack of the sense of private property may partly account for the pilfering which goes on. The men find it exceedingly difficult to take an open stand on moral or religious questions before their comrades. A soldier will ordinarily hide his religion and is afraid to be seen praying or doing anything that makes him peculiar, although the most immoral and obscene man is not ashamed of his actions.