On no day in France did I look in vain for Christian Endeavorers, and
no group that I met there was so small that it did not contain them. My
visit with Patterson that night was only the beginning, or rather it
was a high point, in a day of continuous Christian Endeavor fellowship.
In every Y. M. C. A. hut I was greeted by Christian Endeavorers under
helmets and with gas-masks, at attention. What a fine little group that
was from Maine! And then there was the brother of a president of the
Oklahoma union.
In one "hut," after the gas-warning which came while I was speaking had
been recalled, a Christian Endeavorer took me to the rise from which an
exceptional view of the flares from the guns could be seen. The night
was crowded with great trucks bearing supplies and ammunition along the
midnight roads. Without lights, and forbidden to use their horns, those
unsung, unseen heroes crept along, passing files of soldiers, soldiers
marching in and soldiers marching out, facing the risk of the shells
that death drops suddenly from the sky to open chasms in the way or to
strew horses and men in wide windrows under the ghostly trees. And on
many a high seat and behind many a truck-wheel I found my brethren that
night.
In another hut I was greeted by William E. Sweet, former president of
the Colorado union. He sat on a cracker-box, and told me that Christian
Endeavor made him, that he is president of the Young Men's Christian
Association in Denver, that he is in France, that he is all that he is
trying to be as a Christian, under God, because of Christian Endeavor.
At ten o'clock that night we turned off the main road, and in a dense
growth came upon the last hut within the zone of constant shell-fire.
It was strangely quiet. After heavy knocking the door was cautiously
opened, and a familiar face peered out at us above a flickering candle.
[Illustration: AMERICAN INFANTRY RESTING, APPROACHING THE FRONT IN
FRANCE
From a photograph copyrighted by the Committee on Public Information.
From Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.]
"Early to bed and early to rise?" questioned Barnes.
"No," a big voice replied. "Nothing doing here to-night. The boys are
all up on the line. Looks like a 'party.' They were ordered away early
and in a hurry."
While he spoke, the chap with the candle had been inspecting me, and
introductions were hardly begun before we knew each other; it was Rev.
Mr. Sykes, formerly president of the Minnesota Christian Endeavor
union, and as vigorous a Christian as ever demonstrated the manhood of
the Master. There in the woods I left him under a sky whose paths are
crowded with iron messengers of death, making a little bit of heaven
for hundreds of men who tread daily the places of a man-made hell.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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