Not long was it before the hospitals already in use were all too small for the numbers of wounded drafted from the front, and hospitals sprang up in all the great centres of population. For weeks preparations had been made. Red Cross amateur nurses and St. John's Ambulance nurses had been completing their training. Medical men had volunteered their services, and ministers of religion of all denominations were ready to do what they could for the spiritual needs of the men. The opportunity was golden. Never had there been one like it before. These men had come through the Valley of Death. They were ready to think and pray. Says one chaplain: "Again and again, while going through the wards, men have said, 'I shall be a different man after this, sir.' They have told us of their life in the trenches and of the prayers they have made while the bullets have been flying about them. Said one: 'I know this--on the field I prayed hard, more than ever I prayed before.' Another man speaks of the peace he had when facing death. 'I remembered those words in one of the Psalms--"A thousand shall fall at thy side and ten thousand at thy right hand, but it shall not come nigh thee"--and God brought me through.'" Multiply this story a thousandfold and we shall see what the war has done for men, and also realise how easy it has been to lead soldiers thus impressed into fellowship with our Lord. A loving work is this, requiring ministry tender and true, but it has been done and done right nobly. Men who had learnt not to be afraid of death have learnt also how to live. In Denmark Hill Hospital a wounded man told this story to the Rev. A. Bingham. A young soldier was mortally wounded in one of the great battles. When he realised that he was dying he began to sing. Faintly but clearly he sang: Abide with me; fast falls the eventide; The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide; . . . . . . Hold Thou Thy Cross before my closing eyes; Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies; Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee; In Life, in death, O Lord, abide with me. Far away from loved ones--far from home--wounded to the death, the soldier found in the love and presence of Jesus his Saviour and friend, rest and peace. And his comrade in the hospital remembered his dying song and passed it on that it might become a message to many another when they too came to die-- In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me. One more hospital story will suffice. It is of a different order from the last, but it reveals Thomas Atkins as he really is. The wife of the local colonel was making the round of a hospital and paused at the bedside of a wounded soldier, who evidently hailed from the North of England. He was toying with a helmet, apparently a trophy of war. "Well," said the lady, "I suppose you killed your man?"