I am not swanking--at least, I don't mean to--but that is just my experience, that with Tommy it is actions, and specially actions that imply and symbolize humility, courage, unselfishness, etc., that count ten thousand times more than the best sermons in the world. I am afraid that all this is not much good because you are an officer, and your course of action is very clearly marked out for you by authority. But I do say that if ever you have a chance of showing that you are willing to share the often hard and sometimes humiliating lot of the men it is that which above all things will give you power with them; just as it is the Cross of Christ, and the spitting and the mocking and the scourging, and the degradation of His exposure in dying, that gives Him His power far more than even the Sermon on the Mount. After all, it is always what costs most that is best worth having, and if you only see Tommy in his easiest moments, when he is at the Y.M.C.A. or the club, you see him at the time when he is least impressionable in a permanent manner. Well, I must apologize for writing such an egotistical and intimate sort of letter on so slight a provocation. But this that I have said is all that my experience has taught me about influencing the Tommy. No doubt there are other ways; but I have not been able to strike them. Yours very truly, DONALD HANKEY, 2nd Lieut. P.S.--Of course in becoming a Second Lieutenant I have dished my own influence most effectually. It has often appeared to me that among ordinary working men humility was considered the Christian virtue _par excellence_. Humility combined with love is so rare, I suppose, and that is why it is marvelled at. XII "DON'T WORRY" This is at present the soldier's favourite chorus at the front-- "What's the use of worrying? It never was worth while! Pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag And Smile, Smile, Smile!" Not a bad chorus, either, for the trenches! You can't stop a shell from bursting in your trench, even if Mr. Rawson can! You can't stop the rain, or prevent a light from going up just as you are half-way over the parapet ... so what on earth is the use of worrying? If you can't alter things, you must accept them, and make the best of them.