nd the new interpretation
given by some soldiers to the letters Y. M. C. A.--"You Make
Christianity Attractive."

When the war broke out the Association was ready to enter Africa also.
With the first contingent of 60,000 South African troops a number of Y
M C A secretaries were sent. They erected large marquees in local
training camps, and there prepared the way for the even greater
opportunity which was to follow in the East African campaign under the
Northern Army. The military authorities cabled the Association
headquarters at Calcutta, offering to hand over the army canteens of
East Africa to the Y M C A and to cut out liquor if the Association
would take them over and be responsible for the welfare work among the
troops, looking after their physical, social, and moral needs.
Instantly, Mr. E. C. Carter, the National Secretary of India, cabled
back accepting the offer.

The first score of men were sent over to open up nineteen centers with
the advancing column in the jungles of Africa. The 20,000 troops were
then occupying Swakopmund, a desolate little town surrounded by a sea
of burning sand. There were no trees, not a blade of grass, nor even
the song of a solitary bird to relieve the monotony. The men called it
"the land of sin, sand, sorrow, and sore eyes." Soon, however, the
large hall of the Faber Hotel was procured, with accommodations for a
thousand men. It became the social center of the whole camp. So
popular was the place that the men fairly fought and struggled to get
into the building. Every night at 7:30 the war telegrams were read,
and as it was the only way to hear the news from the front, each tent
appointed one man to be at the Y M C A at that hour. On the occasion
of the opening of the work, one man wrote home: "Two great events have
happened today--the Y M C A has commenced and I have had a bath." The
story will never be written as to what the Association meant in the
hearts of those men who laid down their lives fighting in East Africa.
On the cross at the head of every grave in one section of the dark
continent is the sentence: "Tell England, ye that pass by, that we who
lie here, rest content." Thus, from Cairo in the north, from
Swakopmund in the east, clear to Cape Town in the south, the red
triangle has followed the army to its last outposts. Space will not
permit us to describe the huts which have been opened at Salonica, the
twelve centers at Malta, and others dotted along