as so cold
that my moustache froze to my blanket and my boots froze to the floor. The
meal which comforted me most was a little sour French bread and some Swiss
milk and hot water, and a pinch of sugar when I could get it.

There are Y.M.C.A. marquees close to the roads down which come the walking
wounded from the trenches. In three of these marquees last summer in three
days over ten thousand cases were provided with hot drinks and
refreshment--free. And that I call Christian work. You and I have been too
much concerned about the preaching and too little about the doing of
things.

A friend of mine was in one of those marquees at the time, and he told me
a beautiful story. Some of the men sat and stood there two and three hours
waiting their turn, and the workers were nearly run off their feet. They
were at it for three nights and three days. There was one fellow, a
handsome chap, sitting huddled up and looking so haggard and cold, that my
friend said to him,

"I am sorry you have had to wait so long, old chap. We're doing our best.
We'll get to you as soon as we can."

"Never mind me," said the man; "carry on!"

As the sun came out he unbuttoned his coat, and when the coat was thrown
back my friend saw that he was wearing a colonel's uniform.

"I am sorry, sir," said my friend. "I did not know. I oughtn't to have
spoken to you in that familiar way."

"You have earned the right to say anything you like to me," said the
Colonel. "Go right on."

And then my friend said, "Well, come with me, sir, to the back, and I will
get you a cup of coffee."

"No, not a minute before the boys. I'll take my turn with them."

That's the spirit. Your boys, I say, are great stuff. They have their
follies. They can go to the devil if they want to, but tens of thousands
of them don't want to, and hundreds of thousands are living straight in
spite of their surroundings. They are the bravest, dearest boys that God
ever gave to the world, and you and I ought to be proud of them. If the
people at home were a tenth as grateful as they ought to be they would
crowd into our churches, if it were for nothing else but to pray for and
give thanks for the boys.

They are just great, your boys. They saved your homes. I was recently in a
city in France which had before the war a population of 55,000 people.
When I was there, there were not 500 people in that city--54,500 were
homeless refugees, if they weren't killed. I walked about that cit