this book. He evidently knew how to run a Ford camionette, even though
it was not in just the shape in which it left the factory. I remember
that I asked him what he did for a living back in the States--those
service uniforms were great levelers--and he said he was a parson.
"But now you are a chauffeur," I objected. "Well, you see," he said,
"when I first came over they asked me to fill out blanks indicating
what I could do, and in that statement I admitted that I could run a
car. I also said I could preach. They tried me out as a chauffeur and
liked my work so well that they said they would stand pat on that;
they had never heard me preach."

As a matter of fact, I heard Mr. West preach that morning to the boys
suffering from war neurosis, or "shell shock," in Hospital 117. He had
helped them out on former Sundays there, and they sent for him again
and again.

Later, when I was in the Baccarat sector, I met a most interesting and
effective man who was in the Supply Department of the "Y" on week
days, and conducted services in outlying camps every Sunday morning
with great success. He had been a circus acrobat back in the States.
What a revolutionizing influence war is, with preachers chauffeuring
and acrobats preaching! The important point was that they were all
serving whole-heartedly in whatever way they could.

It was in Baccarat that I met West again, running his car,
transporting newspapers or moving-picture machines, or canteen
supplies, or itinerant entertainers such as I, out over any sort of
road toward the front line. His glimpses of the great war were from an
angle of vision that makes what he has to say in this book well worth
reading. His duties took him into every sort of billet, and brought
him into close touch with many branches of the army, as well as with
all sorts of welfare work and workers. I find that he refers, in
passing, to that dramatic moment when we stood on a hilltop and
watched the bombing of Baccarat just below us, while the Boche machine
passed very close overhead. He does not say that he hid behind one
tree and I hid behind another, trying to keep the trunks between us
and the flying shrapnel. Nor does he say that he picked up and carried
home a fragment which landed between us in the road, although it came
just as near to me as it did to him!

This started out to be an introduction to a book. It is really a
personal expression of good will toward one whom I was glad to meet
and t