When I think of England-where almost every man you meet is but a piece of a man! France—one great graveyard! Its towns and cities a wilderness of waste! The allied countries—Italy, and deathless little Belgium, and Serbia—well-nigh exterminated in the desperate, gory struggle! When I think upon it—the price America has paid! The price her heroic sons have paid! They that come down the gangways of the returning boats on crutches! They that are carried down on stretchers! They that sail into New York Harbor, young and fair, but never again to see the Statue of Liberty! The price that dear mothers and fathers have paid! The price that the tens of thousands of little children have paid! The price they that sleep in the lands they made free have paid! When I think upon all this, it is with no little reluctance that I now write of the small part taken by the Salvation Army in the world’s titanic sacrifice for liberty, but which part we shall ever regard as our life’s crowning honor. Expressions of surprise from officers of all ranks as well as the private soldier have vied with those of gratitude concerning the efficiency of this service, but no thought of having accomplished any achievement higher than their simplest duty is entertained by the Salvationists themselves; for uniformly they feel that they have but striven to measure up to the high standards of service maintained by the Salvation Army, which standards ask of its officers all over the world that no effort shall be left unprosecuted, no sacrifice unrendered, which will help to meet the _need at their door_. And it is such high standards of devoted service to our fellow, linked with the practical nature of the movement’s operations, the deeply religious character of its members, its intelligent system of government, uniting, and thus augmenting, all its activities; with the immense advantage of the military training provided by the organization, that give to its officers a potency and adaptability that have for the greater period of our brief lifetime made us an influential factor in seasons of civic and national disaster. When that beautiful city of the Golden Gate, San Francisco, was laid low by earthquake and fire, the Salvationists were the first upon the ground with blankets, and clothes, and food, gathering frightened little children, looking after old age, and rescuing many from the burning and falling buildings. At the time of the wild rush to the Klondike, the Salvation Army was, with its sweet, pure women—the only women amidst tens of thousands of men— upon the mountain-side of the Chilcoot Pass saving the lives of the gold- seekers, and telling those shattered by disappointment of treasure that “doth not perish.” At the time of the Jamestown, the Galveston, and the Dayton floods the Salvation Army officer, with his boat laden with sandwiches and warm wraps, was the first upon the rising waters, ministering to marooned and starving families gathered upon the housetops.