you could read our hearts, you would feel afraid. I cannot
write as I would like. It is in my heart, in my brain, but
the pen won't put in on the paper. It couldn't. But it is
there, a deep love for you, a great admiration for your
bravery, and an earnest prayer that you may be preserved to
live a happy and useful life for many years to come.

"Mummie wishes me to say how her heart goes out to you, and
how she feels for you in your loneliness. Be assured of a
place in a good woman's prayers, and be assured also that
all of us continue constantly in prayer for you. We did not
know how constantly and continually we could petition the
Great Father till you lads went away. We will not cease
because one needs them no more. Rather we will be more
constant, and perhaps that may be one of the results of this
war. Think what a power the prayers of a whole world would
have with God! If only they were for the one thing--that His
Kingdom would come, it would be accomplished at once! May
the knowledge of His all-pervading love dwell more and more
in the hearts of the people of the world, so that wars and
all kindred evils may cease and the hearts of the people be
taken up with the one task of living for God and His
Kingdom.

"May God be ever present with you, watching over and
blessing you, and may He come into your heart more and more,
helping and sustaining you in your hard task, and blessing
you in all your endeavours to be His true son and servant.

"Your loving friend,
G---- B----.

"P.S.--We have not, up to the time of writing this, received
an official notification of our poor laddie's death. I felt
I must write you, however. You will perhaps be able to read
into my letter what I have been unable to say, but all my
thoughts for you are summed up in 'God bless you.' Thank all
the dear lads for their kind sympathy with us."

One Young Man in the Salient

CHAPTER VII

ONE YOUNG MAN IN THE SALIENT

The city of Ypres, which Sydney Baxter had entered some few months
previously, was now a heap of ruins. The whole country was desolate:
the once picturesque roads lined by trees were now but a line of shell
holes, with here and there leafless, branchless stumps, seared
guardians