The War Romance of the Salvation ArmyHill, Grace Livingston
History
The War Romance of the Salvation Army
Hill, Grace Livingston
World War, 1914-1918 -- War work -- Salvation Army
“We want you to get out! We don’t want you nor your meetings! We are
here to teach men to fight and your religion says you must not kill.
Look out there!” pointing through the doorway, “we have set up dummies
and teach our men to run their bayonets through them. You teach them
the opposite of that. You will unfit my men for warfare!”
The Salvationist looked through the door at the line of straw dummies
hanging in a row, and then he looked back and faced the Major-General
for a full minute before he said anything.
Tall and strong, with soldierly bearing, with ruddy health in the glow
of his cheeks, and fire in his keen blue eyes, the Salvationist looked
steadily at the Major-General and his indignation grew. Then the good
old Scotch burr on his tongue rolled broadly out in protest:
“On my way up here in your automobile”—every word was slow and calm and
deliberate, tinged with a fine righteous sarcasm—“I saw three men
entering your Guard House who were not capable of directing their own
steps. They had been off on leave down to the town and had come home
drunk. They were going into the Guard House to sleep it off. When they
come out to-morrow or the next day with their limbs trembling, and
their eyes bloodshot and their heads aching, do you think they will be
fit for warfare?
“You have men down there in your Guard House who are loathsome with
vile diseases, who are shaken with self-indulgence, and weakened with
all kinds of excesses. Are they fit for warfare?
“Now, look at me!”
He drew himself up in all the strength of his six feet, broad
shoulders, expanded chest, complexion like a baby, muscles like iron,
and compelled the gaze of the officer.
“Can you find any man—” The Salvationist said “mon” and the soft Scotch
sound of it sent a thrill down the Major-General’s back in spite of his
opposition. “Can you find any mon at fifty-five years who can follow
these in your regiment, who can beat me at any game whatever?”
The officer looked, and listened, and was ashamed.
The Major rose in his righteous wrath and spoke mighty truths clothed
in simple words, and as he talked the tears unbidden rolled down the
Major-General’s face and dropped upon his table.
“And do you know,” said the Salvationist, afterward telling a friend in
earnest confidence, “do you _know_, before I left we _had prayer
together!_ And he became one of the best friends we have!”
Before he left, also, the Major-General signed the authority which gave
him charge of the Guard Houses, so that he might talk to the men or
hold meetings with them whenever he liked. This was the means of
opening up a new avenue of work among the men.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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