ifle it--let it
out.

* * * * *

"I am afraid," said a padre to me once, "the boys are sceptical."

"Come with me to-morrow," I answered. "I'll prove to you they are _not_
sceptical."

We were half an hour ahead of time and the hut was crowded with eight
hundred men. They were singing when I got in--something about "an old
rooster--as you used to."

Do you suppose I had no better sense than to go in and say, "Stop this
ungodly music?" You can catch more flies with treacle than with vinegar.

I looked at the boys and said, "That's great, sing it again."

And I turned to the padre and asked, "Isn't that splendid? Isn't that
fine?"

While we were waiting to begin the meeting, I said, "Boys, we must have
another."

"One of the same sort?" they shouted.

"Of course," was my reply. And they sang "Who's your lady friend?" and
when they had sung that, I called out, "Boys, we will have one more. What
shall it be?"

"One of yours, sir."

I had not trusted them in vain.

I said, "Very well, you choose your hymn."

"When I survey the wondrous Cross"--that was the song they chose.

And they sang it all the better because I had sung their songs with them.
Before we had got to the end of the last verse some of those boys were in
tears, and it wasn't hard to pray. It isn't far from rag-time to "When I
survey the wondrous Cross."

When they had finished the hymn I said, "Boys, I am going to tell you the
story of my father's conversion." For I had to convince my padre friend
that they were not sceptical. I took them to the gipsy tent and told them
of my father and five motherless children, and of how Jesus came to that
tent, saving the father and the five children and making preachers of them
all.

I said, "Did my father make a mistake when he brought Christ to those five
motherless children?" And the eight hundred boys shouted, "No, sir."

"Did he do the right thing?"

"Yes, sir."

"What ought you to do?"

"The same, sir."

"Do you want Jesus in your lives?" and every man of the eight hundred
jumped to his feet.

You say they are sceptical where Jesus is concerned. I'll tell you when
they are sceptical--when they see the caricature of Jesus in you and me.

* * * * *

I was, as I have said, under shell fire for a month in one place--night and
day for a month--and never allowed out without a gasbag round my neck. I
slept in a cellar there at