“Boys, I can’t say what I want to, but,” said he, “we have all got to be better men.”

The Gospel was preached in that hut in a different way from what we have it preached at home, but we got it in, and the thing is to get it in.

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I was talking behind the lines to some of your boys.  Every boy in front of me was going up to the trenches that night.  There were five or six hundred of them.  They had got their equipment—­they were going on parade as soon as they left me.  It wasn’t easy to talk.  All I said was accompanied by the roar of the guns and the crack of rifles and the rattle of the machine guns, and once in a while our faces were lit up by the flashes.  It was a weird sight.  I looked at those boys.  I couldn’t preach to them in the ordinary way.  I knew and they knew that for many it was the last service they would attend on earth.  I said,

“Boys, you are going up to the trenches.  Anything may happen there.  I wish I could go with you.  God knows I do.  I would if they would let me, and if any of you fall I would like to hold your hand and say something to you for mother, for wife, and for lover, and for little child.  I’d like to be a link between you and home just for that moment—­God’s messenger for you.  They won’t let me go, but there is Somebody Who will go with you.  You know Who that is.”

You should have heard the boys all over that hut whisper, “Yes, sir—­ Jesus.”

“Well,” I said, “I want every man that is anxious to take Jesus with him into the trench to stand.”

Instantly and quietly every man in that hut stood up.  And we prayed as men can pray only under those conditions.  We sang together, “For ever with the Lord.”  I shall never sing that hymn again without a lump in my throat.  My mind will always go back to those dear boys.

We shook hands and I watched them go, and then on my way to the little cottage where I was billeted I heard feet coming behind me, and presently felt a hand laid upon my shoulder.  Two grand handsome fellows stood beside me.  One of them said,

“We didn’t manage to get into the hut, but we stood at the window to your right.  We heard all you said.  We want you to pray for us.  We are going into the trenches, too.  We can’t go until it is settled.”

We prayed together, and then I shook hands with them and bade them good-bye.  They did not come back.  Some of their comrades came—­those two, with others, were left behind.  But they had settled it—­they had settled it.

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Two or three days after that I was in a hospital when one was brought in who was at that service.  I thought he was unconscious, and I said to the Sister beside me, “Sister, how battered and bruised his poor head is!”

He looked up and said, “Yes, it is battered and bruised; but it will be all right, Gipsy, when I get the crown!”