,
when the young fellow came running up to me, his face radiant with
smiles, and told me he had been through all the fighting and had gone
over the top with the boys, and that it wasn't half so bad as he had
thought. In the spring of 1919, I was going into the Beaver Hut in the
Strand one day, when a young fellow came up to me and thanked me for
what I had done for him in the war. I did not recognize him and asked
him what I had done for him, and he told me he was the man who had
been at that service in Camblain l'Abbe and had been through all the
fighting ever since and had come out without a scratch. I met similar
instances in which the human will, by the help of God, was able to
master itself and come out victorious. Once at Bracquemont a man came
to my billet and asked me to get him taken out of his battalion, and
sent to some work behind the lines. He told me his mother and sisters
knew his nerves were weak and had always taken special care of him. He
said that up to this time God had been very good to him in answering
his prayer that he might not have to go over the parapet. I asked him
what right he had to pray such a prayer. He was really asking God to
make another man do what he would not do himself. The prayer was
selfish and wrong, and he could not expect God to answer it. The right
prayer to pray was that, if he was called to go over the parapet God
would give him strength to do his duty. He seemed quite surprised at
the new light which was thus thrown upon the performance of what he
considered his religious duties. Then I told him that he had the
chance of his life to make himself a man. If in the past he had been
more or less a weakling, he could now, by the help of God, rise up in
the strength of his manhood and become a hero. His mother and sisters
no doubt had loved him and taken care of him in the past, but they
would love him far more if he did his duty now, "For", I said, "All
women love a brave man." I told him to take as his text, "I can do all
things through Christ which strengtheneth me," and I made him (p. 152)
repeat it after me several times. I saw that the young fellow was
pulling himself together, and he shook hands with me and told me he
would go up to the line and take his chance with the rest--and he did.
Later on, he was invalided to the Base with some organic disease. I do
not know where he is now, but he conquered; and like many another
soldier in the great crusade will be the bett