"Folks do; Presbyterians," he replied. "Like the old hymns?" I asked. "Yes, it seems like home to sing 'em." I didn't get to talk with him for a few minutes, for he had to stop another truck. Then he came back. "Folks at home, Sis and Bill and the kid, mother and father, used to gather around the piano every Sunday evening and sing 'em. Didn't think much of them then, but liked to sing. But they mean a lot to me over here, especially when I'm on guard at nights on this 'Dead Man's Curve.' Seems like they make me stronger." As I walked away I still heard him humming "Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me." One of the most vivid song silhouettes that I remember is that of a great crowd of negroes singing in a Y. M. C. A. hut. There must have been a thousand of them. I was to speak to them on "Lincoln Day." I remember how their white teeth shone through the semidarkness of that candle-lighted hut, and how their eyes gleamed, and how their bodies swayed as they sang the old plantation melodies. The first song startled me with the universality of its simple expression. It was an adaptation of that old melody which the negroes have sung for years, "It's the Old-Time Religion." A boy down front led the singing. A curt "Sam, set up a tune," from the Tuskegee colored secretary started it. This boy sat with his back to the audience. He didn't even turn around to face them. Low and sweetly he started singing. You could hardly hear him at first. Then a few boys near him took up the music. Then a few more. Then it gradually swept back over that crowd of men until every single negro was swaying to that simple music, and then it was that I caught the almost startlingly appropriate words: "It is good for a world in trouble; It is good for a world in trouble; It is good for a world in trouble; And it's good enough for me. It's the old-time religion; It's the old-time religion; It's the old-time religion; And it's good enough for me. It was good for my old mother; It was good for my old mother; It was good for my old mother; And it's good enough for me." Then much to my astonishment they did something that I have since learned is the very way that these songs grew from the beginning. They extemporized a verse for the day, and they did it on the spot. I made absolutely certain of that by careful investigation. They sang this extra verse: "It was good for ole Abe Lincoln; It was good for ole Abe Lincoln; It was good for ole Abe Lincoln; And it's good enough for me." "That first verse, 'It is good for a world in trouble,' is certainly a most appropriate one for these times in France," I said aside to the secretary. "Yes," he replied; "if ever this pore ole worl' needed the sustainin' power of the religion of the Christ, it does now; an' if ever this pore ole worl' was in trouble, that time suttinly is right now," he added with fervor.