"I've just had a good hour with a lieutenant from S----," he continued. "He came to me in trouble. The story is the old one, one God knows we'll hear many times in the next few months. The chap is paying the price of his sin, rather the price of his ignorance, for he is just an overgrown country boy. He never saw the ocean until this ship carried him out upon it, and New York was too big and bad and attractive for him. Well, things might be worse. I helped him, and started him in the right direction; and then I said: 'Say, lad, you've got a stiff battle before you in France, stiffer than any the Germans can give you, stiffer than New York; and I know what you need. Do you want it?' and the chap looked me in the eye, and said, 'I do.' Well," the secretary continued, "we were on our knees presently, and God helped me first, and then helped him, to pray. Now Jesus Christ has another follower on this transport." There was silence between us for a moment, and then the secretary concluded: "Last night I slept with my clothes on; I suppose we all did. I listened to the steady pound of the engines, and waited, tense and anxious, for the crash of the torpedo I knew might come; and then I got a grip on myself. I said: 'What are you here for? Who sent you? Whose are you?' and I promised God to stop being a coward. I asked Him to give me a chance to make amends for the time I had lost on this voyage looking for a submarine that is not likely to come. I asked God to give me a man out of these hundreds in uniform, to give me a man for Christ. "And how quickly God has answered my prayer! Now I know why I'm here, and I have the first-fruit of my ministry." A great thing it is to know why you are _here_! The man who has a reason for his journey, and the evidence of his decision in his own heart, has the peace that passeth understanding, and that not even U-boats can take away. CHAPTER II _WAR CAPITALS OF THE ALLIES_ The war capitals of the Allies, Paris and London, have much in common. Soldiers in many-colored uniforms, from the brilliant red and black and blue of the French headquarters to the faded, mud-caked khaki of the helmeted "Tommy" just back from the trenches; Y. M. C. A. secretaries and nurses; wounded--streets filled with battle-marked and cheerful men; women in black, who turn neither to the right nor to the left as they hurry along with eyes that search for that which they will never see again; and shouting boys. Of course London and Paris have many other things in common, but these are at once apparent. I suppose that I mentioned the boys because there are so many of them, the little fellows, and they are so shrill of voice. They are doing so many things that the "elders" used to do and with which we have never before associated them that they are quite impressive. But London and Paris do not have a monopoly of them.