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.

[Illustration:  Harry Lauder Singing at a Y. M. C. A. Meeting.  The Officer seated at the extreme right is Captain “Peg.”]