If I had died in that kind of service, in my dying moments I could have heard the words of John Masefield from “The Everlasting Mercy” singing in my heart: 

  “Whoever gives a child a treat
  Makes joybells ring in Heaven’s street;
  Whoever gives a child a home,
  Builds palaces in Kingdom Come;
  Whoever brings a child to birth,
  Brings Saviour Christ again to earth.”

Or, better, I would have seen the Master blessing little children, taking them up in His arms and saying to the Hebrew mothers that stood about with wondering eyes:  “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”

And perhaps I should have heard the echo of Joaquin Miller’s sweet interpretation of that scene, for when men die, strange, sweet memories, old hymns and verses, old faces, all come back: 

  “Then lifting His hands He said lowly,
  Of such is my Kingdom, and then
  Took the little brown babes in the holy
  White hands of the Savior of men;
  Held them close to His breast and caressed them;
  Put His face down to theirs as in prayer;
  Put His cheek to their cheeks; and so blessed them
  With baby hands hid in His hair.”

And I am certain that last of all I should have heard the voice of the Master himself saying: 

“Insomuch as ye have done it unto the least of one of these little ones, my children, ye have done it unto me.”

Thank God for a death like that.  One could envy such a passing, a passing in the service to little children.

I have seen some of the most magnificent episodes of service on the part of men in France, scenes that have thrilled me to the bone.

I know a Protestant clergyman in France who walked five miles on a rainy February day to find a rosary for a dying Catholic boy.

I know a Y. M. C. A. secretary who in America is the general secretary of one of the largest organizations in one of the largest Eastern cities.  He has always had two hobbies:  one is seeing men made whole, and the other has been fighting cigarettes.  Never bigger fists or more determined fists pounded down the walls that were building themselves up around American youth in the cigarette industry.  He was militant from morning till night in his crusade against cigarettes.  Some of his friends thought he was a fanatic.  He even lost friends because of his uncompromising antagonism to the cigarette.

But the last time I heard of him he was in a front-line dugout.  This was near Chateau-Thierry.  The boys were coming and going from that awful fight.  Men would come in one day and be dead the next.  He had been with them for months, and they had come to love him in spite of his fighting their favorite pastime.  They knew him for his uncompromising antagonism to cigarettes.  They loved him none the less for that because he did not flinch.  Neither was he narrow about selling them.  He sold them because it was his duty, but he hated them.