Glass _rB_^_A^_ 
 Rook ~~F\ 4- S % 5 
 CopyrightN 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 GIANT HOURS WITH POET PREACHERS 
 
 12mo. NET, $1.00 
 
"I've read it by moonlight' 
 
STAR DUST FROM 
 THE DUGOUTS 
 
 A RECONSTRUCTION BOOK 
 
 BY 
 WILLIAM L. STIDGER 
 
 INTRODUCTION BY 
 PETER CLARK MACFARLANE 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY 
 
 JESSIE GILLESPIE 
 
 map 
 
 THE ABINGDON PRESS 
 NEW YORK CINCINNATI 
 

 Copyright, 1919, by 
 WILLIAM L. STIDGER 
 
 uu: 
 
 ©C1.A535149 
 
To 
 My Two Girls 
 Iva and Betty 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Chapter Page 
 
 Introduction 11 
 
 Foreword 13 
 
 I. What is Coming Out of It? — The Soldier and a 
 
 Sermon 23 
 
 II. The Dominie "Down the Line" — The Soldier 
 
 — His Attitude toward the Chaplain 45 
 
 III. The Morning Watch— The Soldier— His Attitude 
 
 toward Prayer 74 
 
 IV. "When a Man's Alone"— The Soldier— What 
 
 He Prayed 90 
 
 V. The Angelus in War Time — The Soldier — When 
 
 He Prayed 106 
 
 VI. The Brewery Gang— The Soldier— His Attitude 
 
 toward the Preacher Who Served 128 
 
 VII. The Big Brother of the Khaki — The Soldier 
 
 —His Attitude toward the Y. M. C. A 144 
 
 VIII. The Book and the Boy— The Soldier— His 
 
 Attitude toward the Bible 161 
 
 IX. "I'm For Him!"— The Soldier— His Attitude to- 
 ward the Christ 177 
 
 X. The New Calvary— The Soldier— His Attitude 
 
 toward the Cross 187 
 
 XL The Union Sacred — The Soldier — His Attitude 
 
 toward Church Unity 209 
 
 XII. Linking the Boy Up with the Church 223 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 "I've read it by moonlight" Frontispiece 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The soldier in France was a good listener 23 
 
 "We lifted the stretcher with the colonel in it to the top 
 
 of the parapet" 45 
 
 "Another minute and my boys would be going over" . . 74 
 
 "And grant me grace through the fleeting hours to be 
 
 A MAN — and unashamed" 90 
 
 "You two — you two — are all I have — " 106 
 
 "You'll have known what it is to do hard physical labor 
 
 for somebody else" 128 
 
 "I am going to town, Doc. . . . But I'm only going to 
 
 get my pants pressed" 144 
 
 "You bet your life they read it" 161 
 
 "I knew you'd come, Tom!" 177 
 
 "On a tree such as this Jesus was crucified" 187 
 
 "This is no time for formalities" 209 
 
 Every mother's son of them will want to talk over 
 
 their experiences 224 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 The author of this book is himself a speck 
 of Star Dust. He is a big, husky fellow with a 
 big heart. His warm, impulsive nature sent 
 him to France, leaving a wife and baby behind 
 him. There that same nature sent him into 
 the line of duty at the far front. He drove a 
 truck that carried "Y" supplies to the farther- 
 most ditch. Night after night he took his load 
 out through the darkness over the shell-torn 
 roads and through the hail of shells themselves. 
 He was sometimes frightened, he was frequently 
 in danger, but he always delivered the load. 
 Between whiles he helped to bring in the 
 wounded and did a Christian shepherd's duty in 
 the hospitals. There were strains, excitements, 
 tragedies. But the whole big business of war, 
 the vast enginery of battle, never distracted this 
 lovable man a moment from his supreme in- 
 terest in what was interesting the khaki cogs in 
 this great machine. He saw them not as cogs 
 but as men, and he saw into them. I used to 
 think the deepest thing I saw in France was 
 
 11 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 mud, but Stidger was always seeing the deeps 
 in hearts. He has touched this war with his 
 human hands; he has measured the current of 
 its emotions through his heart, and some of 
 that touch, of that measure, is here in the book, 
 told with a simple sincerity that is power. 
 
 Peter Clark MacFarlane. 
 
 12 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 This is a reconstruction book. It is not 
 intended to be a storybook, although great 
 human emotions, soul crises, and triumphant 
 spiritual victories must necessarily be illus- 
 trated with human-interest experiences. It is 
 intended for a particular audience. 
 
 This particular audience is the preacher and 
 the church worker, together with the parents 
 in the American home who wish to understand 
 the kind of men who are coming back to them 
 from France; those folks who have a tremendous 
 desire to do the highest and best thing for the 
 soldier. 
 
 The spiritual world in America — and that 
 includes the home, the school, and the church 
 — has facing it and clamoring for attention 
 the supreme opportunity of all the ages. It 
 is an opportunity made to hand. It is the 
 opportunity of two million boys who have 
 been in France and who have had either a 
 conscious or an unconscious change of heart 
 because of all the eventful things that have 
 
 13 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 happened in their lives during the past two 
 years; a change of heart in relation to several 
 of the most vital things of life and eternity; 
 a change of heart toward religion, the Bible, the 
 church, the minister who represents the church, 
 God the Father, and the Christ. 
 
 One tries to catch a figure of speech that 
 will burn the thing that he is trying to say 
 into the hearts of those who are responsible 
 for the spiritual welfare of the world. One 
 thinks of the trite figure of the "fields ripe 
 unto the harvest," but that is a hackneyed 
 figure, and it is not strong enough. He wants 
 something that will shake the world awake 
 to the consciousness of the fact which even 
 this trite figure partly expresses. Then one 
 turns to the figure of heated white metal 
 — white with new experiences, white with great 
 resolves, white with new ideals; white with 
 the heat of a new passion for democracy and 
 brotherhood, ready to be molded. But he 
 dismisses that figure, for it does not seem to 
 one who has come to know the boys "over 
 there" that they are going to be molded. They 
 are, rather, going to mold! They are the 
 
 14 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 leaven that will leaven the life of America 
 during the next fifty years. 
 
 Therefore since they are not going to be 
 molded, but are going to mold, pray God that 
 the church of America will have the "high look" 
 in its eyes; pray God that when these boys 
 step into the churches, their souls on fire with 
 a high, deep, broad and abiding faith, 
 there may be no cold, narrow, prejudiced 
 atmosphere to dampen their passion or drive 
 them away from its altars to do their work 
 and live their lives elsewhere. 
 
 So one is forced to the figure which suggests the 
 title of this book, "Star Dust from the Dugouts." 
 It is borrowed from Sam Walter Foss, he who 
 wrote "The House by the Side of the Road." 
 Somehow this great, virile man's poet expresses 
 the very thing that one wants to say in a 
 reconstruction book: that there is an army of 
 men coming back from France: American 
 men; men, with possibilities in their souls of 
 becoming the "Large Heroic Fellows Yet to 
 Be"; an army of men, coming back and to 
 come back, who are verily the "Star Dust" out 
 of which the stars of the future are to be made. 
 
 15 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 "There are large, heroic fellows 
 
 Making music hereabouts 
 And large, heroic men are yet to be; 
 And long shall be the long, long years 
 
 Before the breed runs out; 
 Strong as iron in the mountains, 
 Clean as saltness in the sea! 
 
 "There was workmanship put in it 
 
 And the world was made to last; 
 And it wears as well to-day as hitherto; 
 And the large heroic fellows 
 That it made there in the past 
 It shall match them and o'er top them with the 
 new. 
 
 "From the star dust of wide spaces 
 Did the mighty worlds cohere 
 And there's star dust for a million worlds to be; 
 There are many things that happen in the long 
 platonic year. 
 There are new stars, yet unmolded, that the com- 
 ing days will see. 
 
 "The cosmic stuff of men and stars the years will 
 
 not debase, 
 
 And greater stars than throng the skies shall newly 
 
 loom in space; 
 
 16 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 And greater men than e'er have been shall yet re- 
 deem the race; 
 There are large, heroic fellows yet to be!" 
 
 These are "the large, heroic fellows yet to 
 be"; these are the men with the dreams; these 
 are the men who "Will yet redeem the race" 
 if we, the church, we, the preachers, we, the 
 men and women of the homes of America, do 
 not, with our bickerings and our quarrels, our 
 little dreams and our little souls, our inter- 
 pretation of the gospel of Christ as a selfish 
 saving of our own souls, to the exclusion of 
 its power to redeem social and industrial life, 
 dampen the passion of their dreams as they 
 step into our homes and our churches. 
 
 One evening in our prayer meeting, since I 
 have returned from France, I was speaking 
 on the "high look" in the eyes of the boys — 
 that "high look" of which Poet Oxenham 
 speaks. A young and yet very thoughtful 
 girl, whose brother is "over there," arose in 
 the meeting and said, "The thing that I am 
 worrying about is not whether the 'high look' 
 will be in the eyes of our boys who are in 
 
 17 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 France, but whether we, the churches, we, the 
 wives, we, the sisters, we, the mothers, we, the 
 fathers, we, the sweethearts, will have the 
 'high look' in our own eyes to meet the 'high 
 look' in their eyes when they come home." 
 
 One finds this thought expressed everywhere 
 by writers who are now returned from France; 
 men and women who have carefully, thought- 
 fully and sympathetically studied this boy of 
 ours over there all during the war. One has 
 hardly been able to pick up a secular magazine 
 during the past year that he has not found such 
 titles as "What Our Boys Will Be Like When 
 They Come Home," and always the words that 
 follow have been spiritual words and spiritual 
 prophecies. That is a singularly striking thing 
 to find in our secular magazines, but it is 
 there. 
 
 Perhaps the whole matter is summed up by 
 
 Mrs. Grace Richmond in a recent number of 
 
 The Ladies' Home Journal, in a verse which 
 
 expresses a challenge to the American heart 
 
 to have the "high look" worthy to meet the 
 
 "high look" in the eyes of our boys who are 
 
 coming back home. 
 
 18 
 
FOREWORD 
 WHEN OUR BOYS COME BACK 
 
 "Somehow they'll all be different — 
 
 O God, we know it well! 
 They're not the same who went away 
 
 To fight the fires of hell. 
 Their boyish eyes — now eyes of men — 
 
 Will look us through and through, 
 To see if what has come to us 
 
 Has made us different too. 
 
 "O, they will have new standards then, 
 
 These changed, new boys of ours, 
 And by them they will measure us, 
 
 With all their strange, new powers; 
 They'll find if we are petty still, 
 
 And narrow, and unfair, 
 And in that searching gaze of theirs 
 
 We'll feel our souls laid bare. 
 
 "Against that Day of Judgment Days 
 We must make ready fast, 
 
 Lest they shall be ashamed of us 
 When they come home at last; 
 
 For we should drink of sorrow, 
 Yes, the very deepest cup, 
 
 If in that Day, in their clear eyes, 
 
 We could not measure up!" 
 19 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 Out of the boy in France the future of the 
 nations is to be made. He is the force with 
 which the future of the church must reckon. 
 No narrow selfish interpretation of the gospel 
 of Christ will make any appeal to him. 
 
 The author of this book desires to thank The 
 Outlook for permission to use "The Morning 
 Watch"; The Independent for permission to 
 use "The Dominie Down The Line," "The 
 Brewery Gang," and "The Angelus"; The 
 Christian Advocate for permission to use the 
 sermon included in the first chapter of this 
 book. 
 
 He further wishes to acknowledge the per- 
 mission to quote from John Oxenham, which 
 has been granted by The George H. Doran 
 Company, of New York; publishers of The 
 Fiery Cross, The Vision Splendid, and All's 
 Well; from Private Peat, which is granted by 
 The American Magazine; from Coningsby 
 Dawson, which is granted by the publisher of 
 Carry On, The John Lane Company of New 
 York; the beautiful poem in the introduction 
 by Grace Richmond which appeared first in 
 
 The Ladies' Home Journal. 
 
 20 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 He also desires to express appreciation for 
 permission to use that portion of the chapter 
 on the Y. M. C. A. which first appeared in The 
 Epworth Herald, and that portion of the chap- 
 ter on "The New Calvary" which was printed 
 by The Methodist Review. 
 
 21 
 
The soldier in France 
 was a good listener 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 WHAT IS COMING OUT OF IT? 
 
 The Soldier and a Sermon 
 
 The soldier in France was a good listener. 
 He seemed hungry for anything that had the 
 slightest suggestion of spiritual value in it. 
 He usually wanted what he called a real "hon- 
 est-to-God sermon." If he went to a religious 
 service and did not get a sermon, he was dis- 
 appointed. "Let's stick to the religious stuff," 
 is a phrase that Dean Birney, of the Boston 
 Theological School, brings back to us, and 
 that phrase expresses the common and yet the 
 
 23 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 uncommon experience of all of us who at- 
 tempted to preach to the boys. They preferred 
 straight preaching. They didn't want silly, 
 sentimental talk about their souls. They 
 wanted man-to-man talk about Christ, and 
 decent living, and home, and brotherhood, and 
 justice, and God — the things for which they 
 were fighting. 
 
 One great preacher, who had been misled 
 in Paris through wrong advice, got the idea 
 that religion was taboo on all days except 
 Sunday, and therefore he gave a secular lec- 
 ture. He soon found out that he had been 
 misled when a boy said to one of the Y. M. 
 C. A. secretaries: "Gosh! I went to hear that 
 preacher because I had known of him at home, 
 and I had a right to hear something about 
 religion, but he gave us a lecture. I wanted 
 to hear him preach. Certainly, if we needed 
 good, old-fashioned preaching at home, we 
 need it a darned sight more here!" 
 
 I include in this book, as its first chapter, 
 a sermon. It is the humble effort of a humble 
 Methodist minister who went to France to 
 serve rather than to preach. But out of his 
 
 24 
 
WHAT IS COMING OUT OF IT? 
 
 serving he found this sermon and then when 
 he was called upon to do so he preached it 
 to the boys. He had only one sermon. He 
 took a good many with him but tore them up. 
 This one he found in the trenches and trucks, 
 troubles and temptations of the front line. 
 He gives it, not because of any special merit 
 in it, but more because of the lack of any dis- 
 tinctive claim to its being a great sermon. 
 It may serve to show the attitude of the soldier 
 in France toward a rather ordinary, average 
 sermon. 
 
 A Sermon to American Soldiers 
 Overseas 
 
 You men who are fighting this war in France 
 have a right to ask whether or not God caused 
 the war; and if he did not cause the war, 
 you have a right to ask what he is going to 
 do about it, now that man has caused it. I 
 am going to try to answer those questions 
 for you this night. 
 
 Some time before we get through I am going 
 to give you the text of my sermon. I may 
 give it to you in the middle of the sermon and 
 
 25 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 I may wait until the end. In either case it will 
 stay longer with you for my not having started 
 off with it. But there is one thing that I 
 want to warn you of at the beginning, and 
 that is that I do not share the opinion of some 
 folks that you do not want to hear a straight, 
 honest-to-goodness, regular man-to-man ser- 
 mon, just like you used to want back home, 
 with a man's Christ in it; a man's Christ, 
 who is a man's Friend wherever he is, at 
 home or across the seas; Lincoln's Christ, 
 Cromwell's Christ, General Foch's Christ, Gen- 
 eral Pershing's Christ. I am going to talk 
 about him before I am through; and since I 
 know that you fellows are the same lads that 
 you were back home I am proud to bring to 
 you the Christ of your boyhood, the Christ 
 of your mother's love and your mother's 
 prayers, and just now the Christ of your 
 mother's loneliness. 
 
 Was This War God's Fault? Was this war 
 God's fault? Thomas Tiplady answers that 
 question with a beautiful figure that you will 
 never forget. Tiplady is up there now, some- 
 where in the Somme battle line, with his Tom- 
 
 26 
 
WHAT IS COMING OUT OF IT? 
 
 mies. He is a Methodist chaplain, and he 
 has been in it all for three years. 
 
 It was evening. The chaplain had been 
 down in a communication trench with some 
 of the boys holding a little communion service. 
 They were returning home about sunset. 
 Suddenly over their heads a big Jack Johnson 
 whined its hating way, and burst not far from 
 them on their front. It was a dirty black 
 cloud of smoke that it sent into the evening 
 
 sky. 
 
 To Chaplain Tiplady this was symbolic of 
 the war. War is dirty. War is full of hate 
 and littleness and pettiness and hurt and 
 harm and pain and cruelty and dearth and 
 death. We are men here in this hut and we 
 are not afraid to speak the truth, and we know 
 that that is the truth. War is mud and cold, 
 and snow, and rain, and pneumonia, and 
 wounds. Nobody can tell us that it isn't, 
 for we have been there and we know. That 
 black cloud well symbolized war. 
 
 God did not make that black cloud. Man 
 made it. Man's selfish ambitions; his greed; 
 the Kaiser's desire to rule the world; the 
 
 27 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 Kaiser's inordinate, ridiculous, insane egotism 
 made the war. God had nothing to do with 
 it. Man made it. Man set it there. 
 
 But God does have something to do with 
 what is daily coming out of the war. 
 
 As the chaplain and his group of boys 
 watched that cloud, suddenly the red sun, 
 which was blood red, a war sun, slowly turned 
 that unfolding black cloud which man had 
 made, into a beautiful pink. As the winds of 
 evening blew, that cloud of smoke unfolded 
 in the shape of a great Rose and then turned 
 from pink to a deep red under the war sun. 
 Man had made that black cloud, but God 
 turned it into a beautiful rose. 
 
 Man makes war. God has nothing to do 
 with it, but he is going to turn the war into 
 something great, something high and heroic. 
 
 We are going now to see what God is making 
 out of this war. 
 
 When I came to France I came "to speak 
 in the camps." But when I got here I asked 
 to be sent to the front lines to work. I didn't 
 feel qualified to speak to you fellows who are 
 bearing the brunt of the battle until I had 
 
 28 
 
WHAT IS COMING OUT OF IT? 
 
 lived with you in the trenches. I spent six 
 weeks driving a truck down on the Toul line 
 with our American boys, and out of that expe- 
 rience I speak. 
 
 I brought some carefully written sermons 
 over with me on the boat to preach to you, 
 but I tore them up down there on the front 
 lines one evening, and I said to myself, "If 
 I ever speak to the boys it will be out of the 
 white fire of my own experience here in France." 
 I come to you in that spirit to-night. 
 
 Lesson the First: Respect for the Things 
 Back Home. First, out of this war God is 
 teaching us a new respect for the things and 
 the folks back home. 
 
 I read in the Stars and Stripes a few weeks 
 ago the confession of a soldier who said: "Well, 
 I've got more respect for my wife than I ever 
 had before in all my life. How in the world 
 a woman will live a lifetime with a man and 
 wash dishes three times a day without re- 
 belling I don't know. I never knew what a 
 slave's task washing dishes was until I got 
 to France and had to wash my own mess kit." 
 
 That is a humorous expression of something 
 29 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 that you fellows feel every day of your lives 
 as you take the westward, homeward look. 
 You are beginning to see that those folks back 
 home are about the finest people in this old 
 world. You are beginning to see that little 
 things which you thought were disagreeable in 
 them have all disappeared and only the lov- 
 able things, only the heroic things, only the 
 sweetest things stand out in your memories. 
 
 Out of this experience you are beginning 
 to have a new respect for the social customs, 
 for the sanitary laws, for the ways of your 
 nation and your home. You are beginning 
 to know that, after all, the good old United 
 States of America has some laws of sanitation 
 that you had not noticed until you came to 
 France and slept in a French barn above a 
 manure pile. You are beginning to love as 
 never before your America: its green hills, its 
 white peaks, its crystal rivers, its blooming or- 
 chards, its white sea sands; its folks, its ways, 
 its homes. 
 
 Lesson the Second: A Great New World 
 Brotherhood. You fellows have found out that 
 there are other fine men in the world in addi- 
 
 30 
 
WHAT IS COMING OUT OF IT? 
 
 tion to Americans. You have learned to re- 
 spect the Tommy and the French soldier. 
 You have seen him fight. You have known 
 that he has no such thing as cowardice in his 
 make-up. You have come to find out that 
 the English Tommy is one of the finest fel- 
 lows on earth. Some of you young officers 
 trained with him up there on the British front, 
 and you came back with a wholesome respect 
 for him and he for you. 
 
 One night I was in a Young's Men's Chris- 
 tian Association hut. There was an English 
 Tommy there in Young Men's Christian Asso- 
 ciation uniform. He had been invalided from 
 the English army, after having been in it for 
 three years. He was gassed in the early part 
 of the war, when they didn't know much about 
 gas and only had those rag respirators. He 
 couldn't keep out of it, so he came to the 
 Young Men's Christian Association. I slept 
 with him that night down at General Pershing's 
 headquarters at Chaumont. He was only 
 twenty-eight years of age, but, as he said to 
 me before we slept, "Yank, I'm an old man, 
 and I have a wife and three babies." And 
 
 31 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 he was an old man — an old man because the 
 gas had gotten him. He coughed all night 
 long. I think there was not a minute when 
 he was not coughing. I thought he would 
 tear his lungs out the way he coughed. My 
 heart ached for him. It was terrifically cold 
 there in that room, for it was February and 
 a blizzard was blowing outside. I went to 
 sleep, aching for that fine lad. In the middle 
 of the night I awoke, shivering with the cold 
 and with his cough rasping my ears and 
 my heart. I carelessly said: "I never was so 
 cold, Tommy. I never knew in my life before 
 that a fellow can shiver inside as well as out- 
 side." He laughed between his coughs and we 
 went to sleep again. I woke about three 
 o'clock in the morning and felt much warmer. 
 I wondered why that was when the English 
 lad's coughing started again. Then I dis- 
 covered that that rascal had gotten up in the 
 night and had thrown two of his meager 
 blankets over me. I got up and put them 
 back arid said, "You're crazy, man! You, 
 a sick man, coughing your lungs out, and still 
 you would get up in the cold night and put 
 
 32 
 
WHAT IS COMING OUT OF IT? 
 
 your blankets over me. I'll beat you if you 
 do that again!" 
 
 "Yes, Yank, but I'm used to the cold and 
 you're not." 
 
 Yes, the more that we see of this British 
 Tommy the more we respect him. This great 
 new brotherhood is coming out of the great 
 war. 
 
 And there is a new brotherhood with the 
 French. At first you did not understand him. 
 Of course you knew that a million of the 
 finest young men of France had paid the last 
 penalty, had made the great sacrifice. You 
 knew of the Marne and you knew of Verdun, 
 but it took seeing them in real action to clinch 
 that brotherhood. You fellows remember the 
 night that you went into the trenches to take 
 their place down at Toul. You remember in 
 the darkness, where you dared not speak, the 
 pressures of French hand clasps, and, some- 
 times, much to your embarrassment, those 
 twin kisses that you got on both cheeks. 
 
 Then one day you saw these same French 
 soldiers drilling. You had thought up to that 
 time that you were pretty well trained your- 
 
 33 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 self, but you had the experience that a young 
 soldier friend of mine had when he saw a 
 French regiment drilling for the first time. 
 He said: "I used to think that I was some 
 soldier, but after seeing them guys I'm nothing 
 but a Kansas farmer after this." You have 
 come to respect these men. 
 
 You remember that day down on the Toul 
 line, when you were having your first hard 
 scrap with the Boche, that day when Archie 
 Roosevelt was wounded. When you runners 
 came back to report to headquarters you 
 know what they saw back there in the grass, 
 for those same runners told you when they 
 returned to the trenches, and the report of 
 what they had seen flashed down along your 
 line like an electric wave, and it sent a thrill 
 of brotherhood through you. That runner 
 told you that a whole regiment of Frenchmen 
 were back there in the grass, lying on their 
 bellies, their shrewd, well-trained war eyes 
 peering out over you. If you needed them, 
 they were there. That was all. Those expe- 
 rienced fighters were there to back you up. 
 Thank God you didn't need them. You 
 
 34 
 
WHAT IS COMING OUT OF IT? 
 
 fought that scrap through to a finish, and I 
 saw you do it; and you licked the Boche at 
 his own game. You didn't need those waiting, 
 watching Frenchmen, but the fact that they 
 were there, that they lay there all day, back- 
 ing you up, was the thing that thrilled you 
 that day and thrills you now as you think of 
 it. And those Frenchmen were just as proud 
 as you were over your victory. The officers 
 sent communications saying so to your officers. 
 Since that day you have had a new love, a 
 new comradeship for the French. You have 
 heard that word "Comrade" on the French 
 soldier's lips everywhere since you came over, 
 and now it is beginning to mean much to you. 
 That is one of the finest things that is coming 
 out of this war, for God's laws are shaping a 
 new world brotherhood. 
 
 Lesson the Third: A Great New Respect for 
 Your Officers and for Yourselves. You have 
 become men overnight, some of you who- have 
 been down there in the trenches, for I have 
 seen you. One lives a year in a month in this 
 war; a month in a week; a week in a day; 
 
 a day in an hour; an hour in a minute, and 
 
 35 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 sometimes an eternity in a second. And so 
 overnight you lads have become men. You 
 are learning a new respect for yourselves as you 
 conquer in this war; as you conquer your- 
 selves; as you conquer temptations, with which 
 France is full; as you conquer fear. That is 
 a tremendous thing that God is bringing out of 
 this war for you. 
 
 You are learning to love and serve and re- 
 spect each other. I picked a boy up in my 
 truck down on the front lines a while ago. 
 I was going down front myself with a load of 
 provisions for our front-line hut. I said to 
 the boy, "When do you have to get back to 
 the trenches? Is there any special time?" 
 
 He replied: "Not until seven o'clock, but 
 if I get there a little earlier the other guy can 
 get out a little quicker." 
 
 You are learning to think of the other 
 fellow. You know how long that last hour 
 is in the trenches, waiting for relief. Yes, 
 you are beginning to have more respect for 
 each other. And that is not confined to en- 
 listed men. You have more respect for your 
 officers. 
 
WHAT IS COMING OUT OF IT? 
 
 Down in the trenches one day there was 
 a terrific scrap. Two of our Young Men's 
 Christian Association secretaries were in the 
 trenches when it began. They were sent back 
 by the captain. They went through the com- 
 munication trenches through the woods back 
 toward the village. When they got to the 
 edge of the woods they found two stretcher 
 bearers with a wounded German, all done out. 
 The stretcher bearers were going to leave the 
 prisoner there. The secretaries said that they 
 would help carry him. They all started, taking 
 turns as they walked along the trench with 
 backs bent. Then, midway in the field through 
 which the communication trench ran they 
 came to a place where the German shells had 
 caved the trench in. They had a discussion 
 as to what to do and decided to carry the 
 prisoner out on the parapet. "The Germans 
 won't fire on us when they see us carrying a 
 wounded man above our heads," they agreed. 
 But they had hardly gotten started when a 
 terrific barrage of German shells fell around 
 them. They dropped their wounded prisoner 
 and ran. One Young Men's Christian Asso- 
 
 37 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 ciation secretary was an old man, but he says 
 that when he got his second wind he beat the 
 stretcher bearers across the field. They re- 
 ported to headquarters. The major in charge 
 asked, "But where is your prisoner?'' 
 
 "He's out there on the parapet, sir, where 
 we dropped him." 
 
 The major turned to these men and said 
 something that ought to go down in history: 
 "Well, he may only be a Boche, men, but we're 
 Americans, and he'll have to be brought in 
 if I go for him myself." 
 
 So out the secretaries went again under that 
 shell fire. They were an hour getting him, 
 but at last they brought that wounded German 
 to safety. When you hear your American 
 officers talking like that a new respect wells 
 in your heart for them. 
 
 Then there was that funeral scene at the 
 evacuation hospital at Sebastapol. Our secre- 
 taries had had the detail of digging the five 
 graves that morning. The first American pri- 
 vate was buried and the military salute fired 
 over his grave; then "taps." Then the second 
 American private, with the military salute and 
 
 38 
 
WHAT IS COMING OUT OF IT? 
 
 taps. Then the third. Then a captain, with the 
 military salute and taps. Then came the Hun 
 boy. His grave was dug beside that of the 
 American captain. The sergeant in charge of 
 the firing squad seemed uncertain as to what 
 to do about giving the Hun military honors. 
 He looked at his officer chaplain and said, 
 "Shall we fire a salute for the Hun, sir?" 
 
 I shall never cease to feel proud of that 
 chaplain's answer. He made it short, but he 
 said something. He said: "Men, we are not 
 fighting this poor boy. We are fighting the 
 German nation and the military powers. This 
 is just some German mother's boy. Yes, fire 
 a salute over the Boche." 
 
 The salute was fired and taps blown for the 
 
 Boche boy, and I know that firing squad of 
 
 American lads went away, as I did, with a 
 
 new respect for their officers. 
 
 And out of this war there is coming a new 
 
 respect for yourselves, for your officers, and 
 
 that, too, is a tremendously wonderful thing 
 
 that God is doing. 
 
 Finally, Out of This War There Is to Come 
 
 in Your Hearts a New Respect for, and Under- 
 
 39 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 standing of, the Christ Man. You are learning 
 that Christ died on Calvary for the same 
 things that you are fighting for: liberty, 
 brotherhood in the world, the principle that 
 all men are created equal, the inviolability of 
 personality and the destruction of that em- 
 pire which would enslave the whole world. 
 
 You are seeing that Jesus the Christ Man 
 had much in common with your experiences. 
 Gethsemane was the trench of Christ's life; 
 Calvary was "over the top." When he con- 
 quered his fear, his natural human fear, his 
 dread of pain and death, and faced Calvary, 
 because he knew that that was the thing to 
 do, he went "over the top." 
 
 A boy down front talked in this way to me 
 
 one day as we sat in a Young Men's Christian 
 
 Association hut. He said: "Sir, I've been 
 
 a-readin' this story of the garden. It seems 
 
 to me, if I read it right, that this here Guy 
 
 Christ" (I winced at his way of putting it, 
 
 fellows, but his sincerity made me calm again), 
 
 "he didn't want to go 'over the top.' He was 
 
 a bit afraid of it, just like us, and just like 
 
 the Tommies and all of 'em. They admit it. 
 
 40 
 
WHAT IS COMING OUT OF IT? 
 
 They are afraid, but they go anyhow. They 
 hate it, but when the time comes and the 
 whistle blows, over they go to a man, forgetting 
 their fear." 
 
 And, fellows, that lad was right. I've read 
 a good many books and I've talked to a good 
 many men — English, French, and Americans — ■ 
 who have gone "over the top," from the Marne 
 to Gallipoli; from Jerusalem to the Somme; 
 from Verdun to the big drive, and I never 
 .yet have met a man who wasn't big enough 
 to admit that he was afraid when he knew 
 that in a few minutes he was to go over. But 
 the man who is afraid and who conquers fear, 
 has won one of the greatest battles in war. 
 Then the boy continued: 
 
 "Yes, this Christ Man was a bit afraid, as 
 I see it. He even went so far, as I read it, as 
 to say, Tf it's just as good with you, let me 
 out of it, Father,' or words that meant the 
 same — I ain't quotin' them exactly, I know. 
 Then suddenly he seemed to realize that it 
 was orders from back of the lines; orders from 
 a Great Commander back of the lines some- 
 where who knew more about it all than he 
 
 41 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 did; a Commander who had a bigger view of 
 the battle than he did. Suddenly he seemed 
 to realize that orders was orders, and he said: 
 Tt's all right now. Let's go!' or as that Book 
 puts it, 'Nevertheless, not my will, but thine 
 be done' — and over he went!" 
 
 Yes, men, the lad was right. He had fig- 
 ured it all out. He had read that story of 
 Gethsemane and Calvary. He had seen that 
 Jesus Christ had about the same human fears 
 of death and pain as you boys have. Some- 
 how Christ seems more of a soldier's Christ 
 than ever before when we understand that 
 story. Somehow he seems more your Christ 
 than anybody's else in all this world. Some- 
 how he seems to have come just for you and 
 just for these hard days. And down there 
 in the trenches — no wonder they find him 
 there. He has been there before. He was 
 there in the garden. And when he went to 
 Calvary's cross he went "over the top" for 
 humanity. You too will do that, and some 
 of you (for I am talking to some wounded 
 men here, I see) have already done it. Now 
 Christ will mean more to you than ever. He 
 
 42 
 
WHAT IS COMING OUT OF IT? 
 
 will be a closer Friend; he will be more precious. 
 You will take him with you now, for he is 
 strangely and silently and surely yours. 
 
 Donald Hankey, that Oxford athlete, was 
 not ashamed to pray to this Christ. Before 
 the charge in which he lost his life while lead- 
 ing his men, down there in the trench, he 
 asked them to kneel with him in prayer. 
 They arose and Hankey said: "Over the top! 
 If wounded, 'Blighty'; if killed, the resurrec- 
 tion !" 
 
 Yes, out of this war there is coming into 
 your lives a new understanding and a new 
 love for your home folks, for your nation, and 
 there is coming a new respect for and under- 
 standing of yourselves, your comrades, your 
 officers; a new world-wide brotherhood and a 
 new understanding of and love for that Christ 
 who is distinctly these days your Comrade and 
 your Friend. 
 
 No, God didn't make the war. That ques- 
 tion is answered, but he is taking the black 
 cloud of this war and he is turning it into a 
 great unfolding rose of beauty and wonder- 
 ment. 
 
 43 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 My text? You are waiting for that, lads? 
 Well, my text is the story of Christ in Geth- 
 semane. Go home and read it before you 
 sleep. You will know Christ better then. 
 
 44 
 
"We lifted the 
 stretcher with the 
 colonel in it to the top 
 of the parapet" 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE DOMINIE "DOWN THE LINE" 
 
 The Soldier — His Attitude Toward 
 The Chaplain 
 
 One gets a little clearer insight into the 
 
 attitude of the American soldier in France 
 
 toward religious things, and into the supreme 
 
 possibilities of his attitude toward religion and 
 
 the church after the war, by knowing his 
 
 attitude toward the "Padre," or the "Parson," 
 
 or the "Doc," or "the Chaplain," or the "Sky 
 
 Pilot," or the "Dominie," as the preacher is 
 
 variously called by the boys. We have seen in 
 
 45 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 the preceding chapter what his attitude toward 
 a certain type of sermon is. Now we shall see 
 what his attitude is toward the one outstand- 
 ing representative of the church, the chaplain. 
 
 The Senior G. H. Q. chaplain on the staff 
 of General Pershing, Bishop Brent, says among 
 other things: 
 
 "The opportunity of the chaplain in the 
 American Expeditionary Forces is unprece- 
 dented in military history. The best manhood 
 of America is his to guide, inspire, and mold. 
 It has been a common complaint in parochial 
 life that men do not form a prominent element 
 in the average congregation. No such com- 
 plaint can be made in the army. Again, our 
 men are in such a temper of mind as to wel- 
 come greedily the truth of God from the hearts 
 of true men. They are at the most receptive 
 moment of their lives. They are quick to de- 
 tect and spurn unreality and sham. They 
 are in search of and responsive to what is real. 
 
 "The chaplain comes with two commissions 
 
 — that of the church, which provides him with 
 
 power from on high; that from the nation, 
 
 which indicates his sphere of duty. He is 
 
 46 
 
THE DOMINIE "DOWN THE LINE" 
 
 simply a minister of God working in military 
 conditions. He is always and everywhere the 
 spiritual general of the army, and his insignia 
 perpetually proclaims it." 
 
 One who has read more than two hundred 
 war books during the last three years tells 
 me that he has yet to find one that "knocks" 
 the "Dominie." On the other hand, he says, 
 "I could fill an entire chapter with pages of 
 genuine tributes to these men of God who 
 'go about doing good' from the ports of entry 
 out even into No Man's Land in France. From 
 Donald Hankey to Private Peat, thoughtful 
 soldiers have poured out their eloquent tributes 
 to the 'Padre.' " 
 
 Of course, it is always the question of the 
 man himself rather than the office. This was 
 true in war as it is always true in peace. It 
 is especially true, however, in war because the 
 littleness and the weakness of the man who 
 is supposed to represent the church and the 
 Christ come out in war as they will never 
 do in peace. If he is a man through and 
 through, he wins everlasting friendship from 
 his men for himself and for his Christ. 
 
 47 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 I can best illustrate this by telling the story 
 of old Scotch Dominie Clifford. His story is 
 but typical of hundreds of chaplains. Prac- 
 tically the entire ministerial personnel of the 
 Protestant Church in France enlisted and lived 
 and died with their men. Innumerable stories 
 of the courage and bravery of English and 
 Canadian clergymen who had enlisted as chap- 
 lains have come to us. I know of one chap- 
 lain, the Rev. Olin Clarke Jones, a Methodist 
 preacher, who so won the admiration of men 
 and officers for his executive ability that he 
 was urged to give up his chaplaincy and go 
 into the war as a "line officer," which he did, 
 afterward going through the St. Mihiel and 
 Argonne battles. He was known by his men 
 as a "line officer," but they came to him as 
 their chaplain iust the same. 
 
 I know of one Canadian minister who en- 
 listed as a Y. M. C. A. secretary who went 
 to France for six months. When he was six 
 months on the task and his time to go home 
 had come, the captain of the company came 
 to his pup tent, one rainy Sunday morning, and 
 called on him. The captain's visit came as a 
 
 48 
 
THE DOMINIE "DOWN THE LINE" 
 
 surprise to the preacher, for the captain had 
 not heretofore seemed to be very friendly 
 to him. 
 
 "What's this I hear about your going back 
 home soon?" the captain thundered at him. 
 
 "Yes, that is my plan. My church only 
 released me for six months, you know, captain." 
 
 "I don't give a d how long your church 
 
 released you for. We need you here. I can see 
 a difference in the discipline, in the morale, 
 and in the whole attitude of these boys since 
 you came with us, and you let that church 
 back in Toronto go — . They don't need you 
 as much as my boys need you!" 
 
 It was rough language, but it was sincere 
 language, and the preacher knew it. He sent 
 a cable back to his church. He didn't word 
 it in exactly the language that the captain 
 had adopted, but he did tell his people that 
 he thought that as long as the war lasted he 
 was needed more in France than he was at 
 home. He went into the service as an army 
 chaplain, and was killed six months later on 
 the Somme. 
 
 But perhaps of all the stories that I found 
 
 49 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 in France the one of Dominie Clifford illus- 
 trated more clearly all of the things that I 
 want to show in this chapter: the way a chap- 
 lain won out over the prejudice of a crowd of 
 marines until they annexed him as one of their 
 military outfit; the kind of a chaplain that 
 wins and the spirit that wins, which, I take 
 it, is the same spirit that will win for the 
 preacher at home as well as in war. 
 
 Dominie Clifford in the battle of Chateau- 
 Thierry had become a hero in the eyes of the 
 marines over night and he didn't know it. 
 
 The news swept over Paris like wildfire. 
 The enemy was not far from the great city, 
 and every detail of the battle that was raging 
 only a few miles away was eagerly devoured. 
 Hundreds of French, English, and Americans 
 invalided to Paris surrounded the bulletin 
 boards. Every state document had been taken 
 away from Paris. One conservative French 
 paper which I read said: "Our armies are so 
 close to Paris that there is no longer any 
 room to maneuver. This is the most serious 
 situation we have yet faced in the war." 
 
 Every truck in Paris was numbered and every 
 
 50 
 
THE DOMINIE "DOWN THE LINE" 
 
 plan made for an evacuation if necessary. 
 News had been pouring in to Paris of heroic 
 stands that were being made by the Amer- 
 ican troops, especially the marines. Men had 
 been mentioned by name. War honors were 
 imminent for many. But of all the stories that 
 came out of his eventful week's righting that 
 of Dominie Clifford's winning of the Croix 
 du Guerre by dragging his wounded colonel 
 through a stubble wheatfield, for four hundred 
 yards to safety, crawling with shells bursting 
 around him, with the necessity of using a gas 
 mask most of the time, with rifle bullets whining 
 so close that several went through his clothes 
 and a piece of shrapnel into his shoulder, 
 thrilled us most. 
 
 I was told to see him and have an interview 
 with him. I went to his hotel and asked if 
 "Dr. Clifford" was there, and just at that 
 minute he stepped into the lobby. It was the 
 Hotel Pavilion. 
 
 "Here I am," he said with a grin. 
 
 And there he was; a little, gray-haired man 
 
 about fifty-five years old /with a Scotch twinkle 
 
 in his eyes and a weary look about his face. 
 
 51 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 I learned later that the day he had rescued 
 the colonel two bullets had gone through his 
 cane while he was walking along a camouflaged 
 road attending to his duties. Yet he did not 
 think that this little matter of two bullets 
 going through his cane was worth mentioning 
 to me. I found that out later from a soldier. 
 
 He blushed when I told him what I wanted. 
 "Interview me? What for, my boy?" 
 
 And the way he asked it made me feel that 
 perhaps, after all, I had made a mistake in 
 the man; that perhaps I had gotten the name 
 wrong; for, to be frank, he didn't look much 
 like a hero to me. And evidently he himself 
 didn't think that he had done anything worth 
 talking about. 
 
 "Yes, I was sent here to interview you." 
 
 "They must have made a mistake. I haven't 
 done anything," he said with perfect sin- 
 cerity. 
 
 But just then a representative of the Asso- 
 ciated Press came up to the desk and said to 
 the clerk: "Is there a man registered here by 
 the name of Clifford? I have been sent to get 
 
 an interview from him." 
 
 52 
 
THE DOMINIE "DOWN THE LINE" 
 
 "There, old fellow. That settles it. We've 
 got you cornered and you can't get out of it," 
 I said to him. 
 
 He still seemed confused about it all, but 
 when I said, "Why, we want you to tell us 
 how you dragged your colonel off the field to 
 safety," he consented to have dinner with us. 
 
 We had no sooner gotten seated than he 
 started in on his boys, the marines. He had 
 been with them on the front lines for six months. 
 He used to know them back in the West 
 Indies, where he was a missionary, and, in 
 fact, had found one of them right down in 
 his outfit near Verdun whom he had known in 
 the West Indies. He wanted to talk about 
 his boys, but it was a stevedore job to get 
 him to talk about himself. He just naturally 
 and simply and yet with great subtlety evaded 
 that. 
 
 "Why, those marines," he said, "they are 
 just naturally the finest fighting men in the 
 world. That boy from the West Indies — I 
 must tell you about him." 
 
 Then he went on to tell of about how ten 
 years ago, one evening he was walking down 
 
 53 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 the streets of a little town in the West Indies 
 where he was a missionary. He had on white 
 duck clothes. On the way to the post office 
 he bumped into three drunken marines and 
 just as he came up an officer sighted them 
 and was about to arrest them. The good 
 Scotch missionary knew that that would mean 
 a severe punishment, so he said to the officer, 
 "I will take care of these boys." So, with the 
 boys hanging on to him, dirtying his white 
 ducks, he took them to their boat and put 
 them to bed. Then he kept in touch with 
 them, especially with one of them. This fellow 
 was one who needed him badly, for he was a 
 hard drinker. 
 
 The boy braced up while he was under the 
 missionaries' care down in the islands, and then 
 he left, and for ten years the good Doctor had 
 not heard of him. Then came Verdun in June, 
 1918. The Doctor, according to his own 
 story, which he was more eager to tell than 
 how he had dragged the colonel off, was stand- 
 ing behind his canteen one evening when up 
 staggered a marine. 
 
 Between hiccoughs, with bleary eyes staring 
 
 54 
 
THE DOMINIE "DOWN THE LINE" 
 
 up at the good Doctor, he said, "Hello, oP 
 fren'! Y' don't know me, do you?" 
 
 The Doctor admitted that he didn't remem- 
 ber him. 
 
 "So thash way you forget yer ol' frens, 
 ish it?" the drunken marine said, half humor- 
 ously, but with real affection in his voice. 
 
 Then he continued as the Doctor looked 
 mystified, "Shay, don't you r 'member that guy 
 you got to shign the pledge back in ol' Wes' 
 Indies ten years ago?" 
 
 Then the Doctor remembered, and once 
 again began his patient effort to save the soul 
 of a common marine in whom he saw something 
 worth fighting for even in those perilous days 
 when a man might be in eternity any hour, 
 and in a month's time, under the good Doctor's 
 eye, that marine had won two stripes and bid 
 fair to win another. 
 
 And it was this type of experiences that the 
 good Scotch missionary preacher- Y. M. C. A. 
 secretary wanted to talk about rather than his 
 own heroism, in spite of our efforts to drag 
 the story for which we had come out of him. 
 
 "Then there was Van," the Doctor said. 
 
 55 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 "Day before yesterday at Luzy I met Van. 
 I have been trying to help him quit cigarettes 
 for months, but the poor kid just couldn't 
 do it. I come on him lying in the corner of 
 a fence, wounded seriously. He wanted a 
 cigarette. I knew it wouldn't hurt him, so 
 I lit the first cigarette I've lit in forty years 
 and put it in his mouth. I don't know as I 
 had ought to have done it, but I just naturally 
 couldn't go by and let that kid o' mine hunger 
 for a cigarette while he was a waiting for the 
 ambulance. Do you think I did right?" 
 
 "It would have been a crime if you hadn't 
 done it," I said to him. 
 
 "Put her there, old man; I'm for a preacher 
 guy that can buck up to an emergency like 
 that, even if he doesn't believe in the weed," 
 said the young, impulsive newspaper reporter, 
 reaching his hand across the table with gen- 
 uine admiration for the old preacher. 
 
 "Van looked up," said the Doctor, slowly 
 
 and with tears in his eyes, "Van looked up at 
 
 me and said: 'Doc, I know how you hate 'em, 
 
 and yet you are big enough to light a cigarette 
 
 for me. God bless you, Doc, and if I ever 
 
 56 
 
THE DOMINIE "DOWN THE LINE" 
 
 get well and get my strength I'll quit 'em, 
 so help me God!' ' 
 
 "Do you think he will?" I asked, not know- 
 ing the grief I was uncovering. 
 
 "No, he never got well. I buried him the 
 next day." 
 
 Then the young, impulsive reporter broke 
 in with "What's that verse that you guys 
 preach about? It seems to me it applies to 
 what you did for that kid, Doctor; begging 
 your pardon for quoting it in this reference: 
 Tnsomuch as ye have done it unto the least 
 of one of these,' and then there's some- 
 thing about 'giving a cup of cold water 
 in my name,' isn't there? Well, all I got 
 to say is that being just a common news- 
 paper reporter, and not knowing much about 
 the church, or the Bible, and all that, still 
 I got to hand it to you; you were doing Chris- 
 tian work then when you lit the fag for that 
 dying kid." 
 
 "Of course that wasn't all I did," the Doctor 
 said. 
 
 "What else did you do?" I asked him. 
 
 "I prayed with him. The cigarette opened 
 
 57 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 the way. Then I asked him to pray for him- 
 self. He spit the cigarette out and prayed. 
 I think he found comfort. He died that 
 afternoon." 
 
 Then we tried again tactfully to lead him 
 back to his heroism, but he evaded that part 
 and said, "I must tell you about the trick the 
 boys played on me." 
 
 "One afternoon when I was out they stole 
 my coat and my cap and took off all of my 
 Y. M. C. A. buttons and put marine buttons 
 in their place. I knew it was against the rules 
 to wear them, but when I came in I didn't 
 notice it and went to the officers' mess with 
 them on. The colonel calls me 'Padre,' the 
 major calls me 'Chaplain,' and the boys call 
 me 'Doc,' you know," he said, smiling. 
 
 "Well, the colonel looked at me funny like 
 and said, 'Well, Padre, I see you've joined the 
 marines for sure now, and have the buttons 
 and all right with you?' 
 
 "I was embarrassed and said, 'I'll go home, 
 sir, and take them off. I didn't know they 
 were on.' " 
 
 "Who put them on, Padre?" 
 
THE DOMINIE "DOWN THE LINE" 
 
 "The boys, sir." 
 
 "Well, if the boys put them on they want 
 them on, so on they stay!" the colonel said 
 to him, with military finality. 
 
 Then he told us about the last communion 
 service. "The boys themselves asked for it. 
 They knew the big fight was on the next 
 day, and they asked if we might not have a 
 communion service. I went and got some of 
 that 'Van Rubbish,' as I call it— the French 
 call it Vin Rouge — and, it being the best we 
 could get, we had our communion with it. 
 I told the boys what we were going to do 
 and said that any who did not want to par- 
 take of the Lord's Supper could leave. Not a 
 single soldier left. 
 
 "I took note of them and nine Catholics 
 partook, thirteen Methodists, three Christian 
 Scientists, nine Baptists, three Lutherans, three 
 Congregationalists, two Episcopalians, one He- 
 brew, and twenty-three who did not profess 
 any religion. Five of these took a definite 
 stand for the Christ in that meeting. The 
 next day most of them were dead." Then 
 
 he was subdued for a few minutes, and we 
 
 59 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 couldn't get him to talk. He was thinking 
 of those dead boys of his. Then he reached into 
 his pocket and pulled out an envelope, from 
 which he took a bright five-dollar gold piece. 
 
 I took it and waited for the story, for the 
 moment forgetting even myself that the old 
 fellow was still evading his own heroic deed. 
 
 "The boy that gave me that I saw just 
 before the big fight. I passed him as he went 
 down under the camouflage into a communica- 
 tion trench. He said, 'Doc, have you any 
 cigarettes?' 
 
 "I had tried to get him to stop smoking, 
 but couldn't resist the desire to give him a 
 whole package. It might be my last chance 
 to serve him. I pitched him a whole package. 
 
 " 'Thanks, Doc; you're a good scout.' Then 
 he came back, handed me that five-dollar gold 
 piece and said: 'Doc, take that. If anything 
 happens to me, send it to mother.' ' 
 
 "Did he get out all right?" I queried, anx- 
 iously, for I knew that only a few of the boys 
 who had taken that strategic village had 
 gotten out. 
 
 "I am sending the gold piece to his mother 
 
 60 
 
THE DOMINIE "DOWN THE LINE" 
 
 this afternoon, along with a letter telling her 
 of his heroic death." 
 
 "How did he die?" we both shot at him. 
 
 "He died in a strange way. He had been 
 in the thick of it all morning, right down in 
 the front lines, where the shell fire, gas, and 
 rifle bullets poured continuously and machine 
 guns swept the parapets. Then there was 
 an 'over the top* order. He happened to be 
 near his major when they went over. Half 
 way across a field his major was shot down 
 and dropped in an open field wounded. For 
 an hour the boy lay there between his major 
 and the machine-gun fire, protecting the officer 
 with his young body, unscathed. The major, 
 appreciating his service, but knowing that he 
 was bleeding to death, sent the boy back for 
 stretcher bearers." 
 
 "Why, the boy will get the medal for that," 
 I said. 
 
 "He would have, but he was killed on the 
 way back," came the answer. "It was this way: 
 
 "The lad made his way through a barrage 
 
 back across the field, through the little village. 
 
 Just as he was skirting the edge of the village 
 
 61 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 he heard the whine of a shell. He jumped 
 for a nearby dugout. He made it, but a frag- 
 ment of the shell struck his cartridge belt and 
 a dozen of his own bullets penetrated his body. 
 
 "Yes, he would have gotten a decoration; 
 the major would have seen to that, for he 
 was rescued later, and almost the first thing 
 he asked about was the welfare of the lad who 
 had lain between him and the machine-gun 
 fire, and when we told him what had happened 
 to the lad he sat down and cried." 
 
 "But what about your own story?" the 
 reporter asked a bit impatiently, I thought. 
 
 The old preacher paid no attention to him, 
 but went on to tell us about an experience he 
 had had in going into the trenches the night 
 before he had dragged the colonel off. 
 
 "It's no fun for an American boy to be on 
 
 patrol duty down close to the lines," he said. 
 
 "Last night I was there. I went down to 
 
 say 'hello' to the boys. I was feeling my way 
 
 along the sides of the communication trenches. 
 
 It was pitch dark, and misty. Every sound 
 
 cracked like a gun. Suddenly I heard a 'Halt, 
 
 who goes there?' 
 
 62 
 
THE DOMINIE "DOWN THE LINE" 
 
 "I replied, 'Friend!' " Then the old Doctor 
 chuckled. "That boy was so relieved to know 
 that it was not a Boche and to recognize my 
 voice that he whispered: 'O, come on, Doc. 
 I'm glad it's you,' instead of making me ad- 
 vance and give the countersign." 
 
 The preacher seemed determined not to talk 
 about his own bravery, and I could see that 
 here was a type of man that the reporter had 
 never been up against before, and he was 
 fidgeting in his seat. We had long since 
 finished dessert and he wanted the old man's 
 story. These other things couldn't be put 
 over the cable for a story. Dragging the 
 wounded colonel off was the news story. That 
 was worth a cable. That other stuff in his 
 eyes wasn't big news. I was beginning to 
 think, as the Doctor evidently believed, that, 
 after all, he was giving us the real story; that 
 of how he had gotten into the hearts of those 
 marines, and had served them until they had 
 taken him in turn into their hearts. 
 
 "One Catholic boy took a definite stand 
 for Christ in that communion service," the 
 nonchalant Doctor said, jumping back a half 
 
 63 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 an hour to a story we thought he had fin- 
 ished. 
 
 "He took a stand for Christ, and then came 
 up and told me that he was a Catholic and that 
 he wanted me to go with him to Father Ryan 
 to hear him make his confession. I didn't 
 want to go, but he insisted upon my going. 
 I went, and a more horrible confession of sins 
 I never expect to hear. But he was in dead 
 earnest, and it was a good thing that he got it 
 all off his soul, for he was dead the next day." 
 
 Then the dear old modest fellow bowed his 
 head in thought. The strain of the past week 
 had told on him. He looked weary. I wanted 
 to put my arms around his bent shoulders. 
 I thought of my own father being here, down 
 in the front line trenches, sleeping out in the 
 fields, as the Doctor told us he had done for 
 weeks, with only a helmet for a pillow. "They 
 make right good pillows," he had said a min- 
 ute before. I thought of my own father en- 
 during those dangers and hardships at the age 
 of fifty or fifty-five; sleeping out without 
 taking his clothes off for twenty days; the 
 Doctor had told us of that also, and had 
 
 64 
 
THE DOMINIE "DOWN THE LINE" 
 
 added with a chuckle, "Then I had to get 
 rid of them, for the cooties had arranged for 
 a convention there." I wanted to reach out 
 and let him lean on me. I thought he would 
 drop off to sleep, but he was only thinking of 
 his marines, so many of whom had "gone 
 west" in the week preceding our interview. 
 The burden of their loss was heavy on his 
 sympathetic soul. 
 
 "But, Doctor, won't you please tell us about 
 your own stunt, for I have to go in ten minutes." 
 
 "Well, we still have more than enough time 
 to tell about what little I have done, but I 
 won't tell it if you don't promise me that you 
 won't spread on the taffy." 
 
 It was an expression I had heard my own 
 Scotch mother use, and I knew all that he 
 meant by it. 
 
 "All right; you go on with the story." 
 
 Then followed as simple a statement as a 
 Scotch dominie (chary with anything, especially 
 words) could tell: of how he and the news- 
 paper reporter whom the press later eulo- 
 gized for having gone over the top with the 
 
 marines, were waiting in the major's tent. 
 
 65 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 They were to go down front. The major went 
 off with the reporter and told the Doctor to 
 follow with his orderly, a young lieutenant. 
 The major and the reporter had barely gotten 
 out of sight when a runner came in with the 
 news that the colonel was wounded seriously 
 and was lying in an abandoned trench on the 
 other side of the town, about four miles away 
 at the far end of a wheatfield. 
 
 The young lieutenant and the old "Y" 
 secretary (whose colonel was the apple of his 
 Scotch dominie's eye) started off for him. 
 There were no stretcher-bearers in sight, but 
 there was a stretcher. They carried that with 
 them. Amid a constant hail of machine-gun 
 bullets they went through the town. Nobody 
 knew which house was occupied by Boches 
 and which by Americans. Machine-gun bullets 
 were flying every direction. They had to get 
 through this village somehow to get to the wheat- 
 field. Finally they reached the field. Then they 
 had to crawl for four hundred yards on their 
 stomachs along a low hedge across this field, 
 in full view of the Germans, the field swept 
 by rifle and machine-gun bullets, with now 
 
 66 
 
THE DOMINIE "DOWN THE LINE" 
 
 and then a shell falling perilously near. One 
 fragment from a shell tore a hole in the old 
 secretary's coat and shoulder as he crawled 
 and tore the hedge to his left into bits. 
 
 The young lieutenant kept yelling back, 
 "Keep your head down, Doc!" 
 
 The old Scotch missionary chuckled as he 
 told us this, pointing down to his rather prom- 
 inent waist: "I was keeping down as close 
 as I could get to the ground. I never did real- 
 ize what a bother a stomach was before. I 
 got to wishing I had dieted all my life as we 
 crawled along that hedge. As it was I was 
 so close to the earth that I scratched my nose." 
 
 Then we all laughed, and it was a good 
 
 thing, for, as simply as that old man narrated 
 
 his heroic story, it was the most intensely 
 
 dramatic telling I have ever listened to. I 
 
 was crawling with him myself along that 
 
 hedge, pressing my body to the ground with 
 
 him, hearing the bullets whistling through the 
 
 hedge near me, hearing the lieutenant yell, 
 
 "Keep your head down, Doc, or they'll get you!" 
 
 After crawling four hundred yards in this 
 
 manner they finally dropped into the aban- 
 
 67 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 doned trench, and there the colonel was lying. 
 His first question was, "I wonder how Bare is?" 
 referring to his major. Then he handed over 
 his maps to the young lieutenant and fainted. 
 
 For two hours the three of them lay in that 
 low, abandoned trench waiting for the fire 
 to die down enough to let them crawl back 
 again. As they lay there two gas shells fell 
 near and they had to don gas helmets. 
 
 At this point the old Preacher interrupted 
 his own story, much to the disgust of the 
 newspaper ' reporter, to tell about how one 
 evening he had been preaching to the marines 
 when a "gas alert" sounded. The boys quickly 
 donned their masks, and then one boy yelled 
 out, "You know, you can still keep on talking 
 with the French mask, but you have to breathe 
 through your mouth with the English mask, 
 and you can't talk." We both knew this, 
 for we had had some uncomfortable expe- 
 riences breathing through English masks our- 
 selves, but it was interesting to hear the old 
 man chuckle as he told about that evening 
 when the boys wanted him to "put on a French 
 
 mask and go right on talking." 
 
 68 
 
THE DOMINIE "DOWN THE LINE" 
 
 Finally we got him back to his story. 
 
 "The colonel had a hard time getting his 
 mask on, so I tried to help him, but he wouldn't 
 let me move. The trench was so small that 
 when I moved, my body was exposed. I felt 
 so sorry seeing him try to put that mask on 
 with his left shoulder shot through, that I 
 rolled over and helped him. That's where I 
 twisted my back, and why they had to send 
 me to the hospital." He added these last 
 words in disgust that he had been invalided 
 for such a slight pretext. It was not accord- 
 ing to his wishes; we could see that in his 
 whole attitude. Then he went on with his 
 story: 
 
 "After awhile we decided to make a try 
 
 for it. The machine guns were still sweeping 
 
 the field and shells were falling now and then. 
 
 But we got the colonel on the stretcher. The 
 
 lieutenant went in front and I behind. We 
 
 lifted the stretcher with the colonel in it to 
 
 the top of the parapet. Then we shoved it 
 
 out as far as we could in front of us. Then 
 
 we pulled and pushed and lifted and crawled 
 
 and rolled over and over, and kept our bodies 
 
 69 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 close to the ground, and scraped and edged 
 and squirmed and grunted and finally we got 
 the colonel across that stubbled wheatfield. 
 It took us an hour and a half to get across 
 that field. Then we had the village to go 
 through, but about dark we got him to the 
 woods, where it was comparatively safe. That's 
 all there was to it. Not much of a story. 
 Hardly worth telling. Others would have done 
 the same and are doing it every day up there. 
 Better men than this old missionary are risk- 
 ing and giving their lives every day without 
 a thought of being a hero. I don't want you 
 to make a lot of what I did. Please don't! 
 I feel so humble in the face of what the boys 
 are doing. Bless them every one! I often 
 feel like applying to them the sentiment of 
 Kipling's last line of 'Gunga Din' when I think 
 of my boys, even some of them who smoke 
 and drink, and whom I scold often." 
 
 "We all feel that way," I added, for it is 
 one of my deepest convictions, after having 
 been over there half a year, that those of us 
 who serve as secretaries have nothing but 
 
 the deepest of reverence and humility in the 
 
 70 
 
THE DOMINIE "DOWN THE LINE" 
 
 face of the heroism and sacrifice and nobility 
 of the boys in the trenches. Not one of us who 
 has seen them in the front lines who would 
 not get down in humility and wash their feet. 
 I heard one "Y" secretary say, using the 
 term "dog" which the boys themselves use to 
 designate the orderly who acts as valet to 
 an officer, "Whenever any of that gang o' 
 'doughboys' wants a 'dog,' I'm right here to 
 say that he can call on me." 
 
 And so Dominie Clifford felt about his boys. 
 One feels in this spirit of service to the lads, 
 something of that thing which caused Jesus 
 to get down on his knees to wash the feet of 
 his disciples. This spirit cannot be imitated. 
 It cannot be assumed. It cannot be put on 
 and off as a garment. It must be a part of 
 the fiber of the human soul. One saw much 
 of it in France among the war workers; the 
 willingness to be a "dog" for a boy. 
 
 There are those who will speak of the dig- 
 nity of the church and the ministry. There 
 are those who will scorn the idea of the church 
 stooping or changing its ways for the boy. 
 
 Indeed, I have heard these little ministers of 
 
 71 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 God talk already. I have heard them say, "But 
 why should the church change? Why shouldn't 
 the boys change? Why should the church 
 change its ways to reach three million boys?" 
 
 I say in answer to that, that the man who 
 feels that way will be a stumbling-block not 
 only in the way of Christ trying to reach the 
 boy, but he will be a stumbling-block in the 
 way of the boy trying to reach the Christ. 
 I say in answer to that, that the minister of 
 the church who talks like that has forgotten 
 the very genius of the Master, whose way 
 was to "Go out into the highways and byways 
 and compel them to come in"; a willingness 
 to go out after them, to search for them, to 
 humble oneself to win them to himself. 
 
 In reconstruction work I believe that the 
 minister of God who has the attitude toward 
 the boys that Dominie Clifford had in France 
 will win them a thousand times quicker than 
 the minister who is so jealous of the dignity 
 of the church that he sacrifices his chance of 
 winning the boy. This must also apply to 
 every man, young or old, capitalist or laborer 
 
 in civilian life. 
 
 72 
 
THE DOMINIE "DOWN THE LINE" 
 
 Is it any wonder that a man like dear Dr. 
 Clifford would win the hearts of men any- 
 where, at home or at war? Humility, John 
 Ruskin says, is "the first test of a truly great 
 man." And real humility is self-sacrifice, the 
 willingness to serve even unto death; the 
 willingness to forget prejudices in the face of 
 emergencies, remembering that men are more 
 valuable than creeds or dogmas. 
 
 The boys "over there" took to such a chap- 
 lain or such a secretary with a great, hungry 
 eagerness and welcomed him into their rough 
 comradeship, even to the buttons on his uni- 
 form. Perhaps the picture of this man of 
 God will help us to understand the type of 
 approach that will win the boys as they come 
 home to us. 
 
 73 
 
"Another minute and my 
 ,^ _J^ boys would be going over" 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE MORNING WATCH 
 
 The Soldier — His Attitude Toward 
 Prayer 
 
 The next three chapters of this book are 
 devoted to the attitude of the soldier toward 
 prayer, because one feels that this is vital to 
 an understanding of the true religious life of 
 the soldier in France; and, in turn, it is neces- 
 sary to a complete understanding of the boy 
 who is so rapidly coming back to us. 
 
 The church at home must realize that the 
 men are not indifferent, are not scornful, are 
 
 74 
 
THE MORNING WATCH 
 
 not averse, are not unbelievers in prayer. 
 Such a realization will help the church to 
 know that the fault is with ourselves if the 
 men who are now in France come home only 
 to find themselves ill at ease in our houses 
 of worship. What is to come out of this atti- 
 tude of the men toward prayer will depend 
 upon what we do to keep fresh this fervent, 
 simple, natural and real belief in intercession. 
 God pity us if we fail! 
 
 We have an expression relating to prayer at 
 home that has always had about it an atmos- 
 phere of sacredness, and that expression is the 
 heading of this chapter, "The Morning Watch." 
 Most of us who have used the expression 
 have not really known what it means. There 
 are those of us in civil life who seldom see the 
 sun rise, but the soldier hears the call of the 
 reveille usually before daylight, and no man, 
 morning after morning, can see the sun rise 
 out of the ocean or from the hills without 
 somehow feeling nearer to the God of all 
 nature. And so, whether or no, the soldiers 
 in the American army kept the Morning 
 Watch. True enough, they threatened "to kill 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 the bugler" who called them to this Morning 
 Watch, and one of their favorite songs carries 
 this dire suggestion, but that is the way of 
 the soldier. 
 
 And not only did he keep a Morning Watch 
 physically, but he kept it in his prayer life 
 also, both figuratively and literally. I have 
 had hundreds of boys, in their finer moments, 
 confess to the fact that morning and evening 
 was their prayer time; and it was hard to tell 
 which was the favorite hour. 
 
 It was the four-to-eight lookout. Seamen 
 call it the "Morning Watch." We had climbed 
 sixty -five feet in the darkness into the crow's 
 nest, with the great transport swinging in the 
 waves and on its zigzag course, and the wind 
 blowing such a terrific gale that I thought I 
 would fall to the deck every time the ship 
 swung. For a pure landlubber the feat of 
 climbing a mast is no easy before-breakfast 
 exercise. When I started up that pole, it looked 
 a good mile and a half to the top. When I 
 got half-way up, the rungs took a dizzy no- 
 tion to travel clear around the mast. As 
 
 one of my fellow sufferers who was following 
 
 76 
 
THE MORNING WATCH 
 
 me up the mast said, "I would have gone 
 back, but that would have been doing the 
 impossible twice." But at last, by sheer will 
 power, we reached the top, crowded through 
 the little hole in the floor of the crow's nest, 
 and took the next half hour of the four-hour 
 watch recovering from the climb. The Ledge 
 Trail at Yosemite looks easy compared with 
 that climb into the crow's nest. But, like the 
 Ledge Trail, this climb was well worth the 
 effort when you reached the top. 
 
 Morning was breaking, and it was to be an 
 eventful morning, we soon found. A crimson 
 splash along the eastern sky told us that it 
 was to be a beautiful morning at least. This 
 crimson promise was soon fulfilled when the 
 great sun itself shot its way up out of the 
 ocean as though it had been fired from a big 
 gun over there somewhere on the German 
 lines, away from which we were steaming as 
 fast as one of Uncle Sam's big transports could 
 plow the waves. 
 
 Then suddenly that world-old biblical phrase, 
 "The morning watch," came flashing into my 
 mind, and for the first time I knew the mean- 
 
 77 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 ing of it all. I had conducted Morning Watch 
 hours in my church work many times, but I 
 never knew the wonder, the beauty, the mean- 
 ing of that sweet hour just before, during, and 
 following the dawning of a new day as I learned 
 it from the crow's nest while sailing out of 
 the east into the west, homeward bound from 
 France. 
 
 Then suddenly, floating in the water, we 
 saw several life preservers. 
 
 "Report them to the bridge," shouted the 
 head watch. 
 
 "Number One," I called through the tele- 
 phone. 
 
 "Number One?" was the response. 
 
 "Two life preservers floating on the port 
 side of the ship about fifty feet away." 
 
 "O. K., Number One," was the report from 
 the bridge. 
 
 Then in rapid succession we had to report 
 ten, fifteen, twenty boxes floating in the water. 
 
 "There's a bale of cotton floating by," 
 said the man on the "Morning Watch" with me. 
 
 "And there's another," I cried, "on the 
 starboard side." 
 
 78 
 
THE MORNING WATCH 
 
 "Number One, two bales of cotton floating, 
 one on the port and one on the starboard side 
 of the ship, about one hundred yards distant," 
 I reported. 
 
 "O. K, Number One." 
 
 And so it went for four hours of that beau- 
 tiful morning. Later, when we had climbed 
 down from our lofty perch, we learned that 
 we had been reporting the debris of a torpedoed 
 French merchant vessel, which had been sunk 
 the night before with all on board. 
 
 Then suddenly off in the distance we saw 
 a strange ship. It looked neither like a battle- 
 ship nor like a merchant vessel, but somewhat 
 like both. We watched it for several seconds, 
 and then reported it to the bridge as looking 
 suspiciously like a cruiser type of submarine. 
 The bridge confirmed our surmises and ordered 
 the big guns both fore and aft trained on it. 
 But evidently the German U-boat had seen 
 us about the time that we had sighted her, 
 for she submerged before the eager gunmen 
 had the chance to adjust the heavy shells and 
 pull the levers of the big guns. 
 
 We reported sighting the cruiser submarine 
 
 79 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 to the ships within reach of our wireless, and 
 during the next three days received reports 
 from several ships that they too had sighted the 
 ^'cruiser U-boat" on her way back to Germany. 
 
 The Morning Watch hour was significant in 
 the great war, for it was at that hour that 
 "over the top" signals came frequently. It 
 was at this hour that more men passed "over 
 the top" on their way "west" than at any 
 other hour of the day or night, and many are 
 the lads who have "gone west" during the 
 Morning Watch along the edge of No Man's 
 Land. 
 
 The word had passed through the regiment. 
 To-morrow at "zero" the whole regiment 
 would "go over." 
 
 It was the first time for most of the Amer- 
 ican boys, and few of those who crawled into 
 their dugouts slept that night. "Zero" was 
 at dawn the next morning. They were to go 
 over under cover of the gray, foggy dawn and 
 surprise the Boche. There was to be no artil- 
 lery preparation. 
 
 The kid himself told me the story three 
 
 days later as we sat in a hut: 
 
 80 
 
THE MORNING WATCH 
 
 "I was always a timid kid, even at home. 
 Any kid in town could lick me. I just naturally 
 didn't seem cut out for fighting, and I always 
 believed that I had a yellow streak in me. 
 
 "You know, sir, that's the thing us guys 
 are most afraid of. We're not afraid to die, 
 and we're not afraid of the Hun, but we're 
 afraid of fear. We're afraid that when the 
 time comes we'll not have the nerve. 
 
 "I told everybody that I was afraid. I 
 thought that it might just as well be known, 
 for I knew that when the time came to 'go 
 over' I'd just naturally drop in my tracks. I 
 knew that my legs would tremble so that I 
 couldn't lift them, much less climb up the 
 step that I had shoveled out and march out 
 across No Man's Land, as we had been told 
 to do, 'at a leisurely pace.' " 
 
 "Why, boy, they're all afraid," I told him. 
 Then, for his comfort, I told him the story 
 that I had heard in Paris: 
 
 A crowd of officers were sitting in the officers' 
 club talking among themselves. A young 
 lieutenant stood up, paced the floor dramat- 
 ically, and said to the crowd: "I'm perfectly 
 
 81 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 willing to admit that there's one thing that 
 I'm afraid of. There's one thing that 'gets 
 my goat,' and gets it good and proper." 
 
 "What's that?" the others asked him. 
 
 "Why, these Gothas. They come over in 
 the night and they come over in the day, and 
 you never know when or where they're going 
 to drop their bombs. If you had a fighting 
 chance — if you could dodge them — I wouldn't be 
 afraid. Yes, there's one thing that I'm afraid of." 
 
 Then a gray-haired old war horse, a major 
 in the regular army, arose. Everybody knew 
 him. He had served through the entire Span- 
 ish-American War. He had seen some stub- 
 born bush fighting in the Philippines. He had 
 been on the border for a year. He spoke 
 quietly and sincerely: 
 
 "Well, men, I've got just one thing to say 
 in answer to the lieutenant, and that is that 
 there are just about five hundred things in 
 this war that I'm afraid of, and afraid good 
 and proper." 
 
 "Gee, that's comforting!" the boy said to 
 me as we sat talking. "I thought I was the 
 only guy in our 'outfit' that was afraid." 
 
 82 
 
THE MORNING WATCH 
 
 Then he went on with his story. 
 
 "It was at dawn that we were to go over. 
 I was afraid that I would be afraid. Every- 
 body in my company knew it. My officers 
 knew it. They said it was because I am so 
 young. I'm only seventeen, sir. God, how 
 I prayed!" 
 
 "So you prayed, did you, lad?" I asked. 
 
 "Yes, I prayed as we stood there in the 
 trenches waiting for the whistle. I had on 
 my luminous watch. It was still dark, and 
 'zero' was four. It was ten minutes to four 
 by the watch. In some ways it looked like a 
 century to me, those ten minutes, and in other 
 ways the seconds seemed to shoot past like the 
 German machine-gun bullets do — so fast you 
 can't see them. 
 
 "Yes, I prayed this prayer: God, make 
 me brave! Don't let me be afraid! Don't let 
 me be afraid! I'd rather die than be afraid, 
 God! I'd rather die than be afraid!' 
 
 "Then I looked at my watch again. We 
 
 just had five minutes to wait and the whistle 
 
 would go. I think I got to be fifty years old 
 
 in those five minutes. I looked out across 
 
 83 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 No Man's Land and I imagined that I could 
 see myself hanging to the wires out there, 
 dead. I knew just how I would look. I saw 
 a man hanging to a telegraph wire one day at 
 home. He had got hold of a live wire, and 
 there he hung, like a dead rabbit, on the wire. 
 I knew I would look like that man. 
 
 "Then I prayed again there in the dawn, 
 'O God, don't let me be afraid!' 
 
 "Then the old 'top sergeant' answered my 
 prayer for God. I guess, sir, that that's a way 
 God has of doing, isn't it? Getting human 
 beings to answer prayers for him, doesn't he?" 
 
 "I'm sure that he does," I responded. 
 
 "Well, he did that time, anyhow. I looked 
 at my watch. We had just two minutes. 
 Then I began to shake all over. I was sure 
 that everybody in the company could see my 
 knees shakin'. 
 
 "Just then the old 'top' comes along, slaps 
 me on the back, and says: 'Go to it, kid, old 
 boy! You've got the goods! Buck up! You 
 can do it!' 
 
 "And when that whistle blew all sense of 
 fear left me, and over I went with the rest of 
 
 84 
 
THE MORNING WATCH 
 
 them. My knees quit trembling, and I was 
 so crazy to get up over that parapet that I 
 didn't even use the step. I just jumped." 
 
 Then he stopped and blushed becomingly. 
 I knew what he was coming to now, for that 
 was the very thing that I had hunted him out 
 to hear. "Maybe you saw it in the paper, 
 sir — about — that big six-foot Boche I brought 
 in. Honest, I don't know where I got him. 
 All I can remember is that old 'top' slapping 
 me on the back, and then the whistle blowing 
 and then going over, and then the next thing 
 I knew I had a big, six-foot Boche in front of 
 me, and I was marching him in to divisional 
 headquarters. The boys kidded me a lot and 
 wanted to know where I'd found him, and if 
 he'd captured me, and a lot of that stuff; but 
 I got him, all right." 
 
 "Yes, you got him, boy, and that was a 
 mighty fine job too." 
 
 "Yes, that was fine, but that isn't what I'm 
 happiest about." 
 
 "What are you happiest about?" 
 
 "I'm happiest because it turned out that I 
 wasn't afraid. I owe that to the old 'top.' 
 
 85 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 Good old 'top'! I guess God must have heard 
 my prayers all right and sent the old 'top' 
 to answer them." 
 
 Morning Watch experiences are varied in 
 war times, as the above story indicates. 
 
 There was another Morning Watch hour. It 
 was before one of the big battles on the western 
 front. The old chaplain had got up with his 
 boys, for he knew that they were to go over 
 at dawning. It was a misty morning. He 
 would have given all that he had to have gone 
 with them, he loved them so. He said to me 
 as he told me his story: "It didn't just seem 
 right for my boys to be going over and me 
 not with them. But those were my orders; 
 to stay back and help guide the 'walking 
 wounded' in, and to help in the dressing sta- 
 tion when it was all over, so there I had to 
 stick. 
 
 "But as the boys were silently filing into 
 the front-line trenches I had the pleasure of 
 taking every boy by the hand as he ducked 
 under the camouflage at the edge of the road 
 and went into the communication trench that 
 led to the front. They were to go over that 
 
 86 
 
THE MORNING WATCH 
 
 morning without artillery support. The plan 
 was to surprise the Boche. Up to that time 
 we had always prepared the way for going 
 over with a heavy artillery curtain. I knew 
 just when they were to go over, so I walked 
 up to a little hill. This hill commanded a 
 good view of the lines. I climbed up into a 
 tree where there was an observation post. 
 I kept an eye on my watch. The time was 
 near. Another minute and my boys would be 
 going over, some of them 'going west.' 
 
 "The thought broke my heart. Then up 
 there in that tree I held a little Morning 
 Watch service for them. I watched them go 
 over. I couldn't distinguish their forms for 
 the fog in the valley, but I said, 'Right down 
 there, God — there in the fog — my boys and 
 your boys are "going over the top." Take 
 care of them, God. Go with them. Bless 
 them! Keep them! And if they have to die, 
 take them to thine arms of love, for Jesus' 
 sake. Amen !' 
 
 "That was the strangest Morning Watch I 
 ever kept. At home I make it a habit to keep 
 the Morning Watch every day, but somehow 
 
 87 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 God seemed nearer to me up there in that 
 tree in the observation post than he ever 
 seemed back in my study or in my home. 
 And never did I pray with more intense ear- 
 nestness than I did at that hour." 
 
 And so it is, fathers and mothers, that the 
 chaplains, the secretaries, and even many 
 officers, have kept guard over your boys; and 
 so it is that men who love them, even over 
 there in the cold, hard business of war, some 
 spiritually visioned men, have not forgotten the 
 Morning Watch. And always hovering back in 
 the shadow was the Father "keeping watch 
 above his own." 
 
 And so it is seen that our boys in France 
 have not been ashamed to keep the Morning 
 Watch. Indeed, that was a sacred hour to 
 them in more ways than one. Often at that 
 hour they were looking into the face of eter- 
 nity. Men pray in a simple, natural and yet 
 impassioned earnestness at such times. God 
 hears. They know that. Face to face with 
 death has taught them that. 
 
 When they come back, as they are now do- 
 ing, will they find a naturalness in prayer in 
 
 88 
 
THE MORNING WATCH 
 
 the pulpit, in the pews, in the prayer rooms, 
 in the life of the church? Will they find this 
 simplicity in prayer, this confidence in prayer, 
 this burning belief that God hears and answers 
 prayer; that He is ever near? that He sustains 
 and gives courage to a man meeting death so 
 that he may die without fear in his soul? 
 
 S9 
 
"And grant me grace through 
 the fleeting hours to be A 
 MAN — and unashamed" 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 WHEN A MAN'S ALONE" 
 
 The Soldier — What He Prayed 
 
 I believe that the attitude of the American 
 soldier in France toward every phase of prayer 
 is vital to an understanding of this same 
 soldier as he returns from France. If he be- 
 lieved in prayer in France, he ought to be- 
 lieve in it at home; and I lay down the chal- 
 lenge to myself and to the church that we 
 must keep alive this simple "talking to God" 
 that the soldier has either learned in France 
 
 for the first time, or that has been brought 
 
 90 
 
"WHEN A MANS ALONE" 
 
 forth, from his innermost heart during these 
 stressful days. In any case it is there. Nothing 
 can show this attitude toward prayer any 
 better than what he prayed. Most of the 
 prayers which are quoted in this chapter are 
 taken from a beautiful little booklet issued by 
 the Y. M. C. A. under the direction of Dr. 
 Robert Freeman, pastor of the First Pres- 
 byterian Church of Pasadena, California, who 
 was the Pioneer Religious Work director of the 
 Y. M. C. A. in France. More than five hundred 
 thousand of these were issued and two months 
 after they were printed it was impossible to 
 get a copy in France. The boys eagerly grabbed 
 them up. 
 
 I have seen them posted on hut walls, 
 pinned to tent flaps, tacked up in a cook- 
 house in a Negro camp, pasted in Bibles, and 
 song books and in pocket Testaments next to 
 the pictures of mothers, wives, sisters, and 
 sweethearts. I have seen them in hotel rooms, 
 from Bordeaux to Paris, from Brest to Verdun. 
 In some wonderful fashion these prayers struck 
 the right chord in the lyric hearts of our great 
 
 crusaders, and they treasured these expressions 
 
 91 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 for their great, sacred moments. Can such 
 taste in literature, can such delight in prayer- 
 ful, religious expression mean anything but 
 gigantic possibilities for the church, now that 
 the war is over, if we understand and believe? 
 
 The boy went thronging into a camp in 
 America, with thousands of others as yet in 
 civilian clothes. He was not even a "rookie." 
 But he was not alone in this respect, for there 
 were hundreds on the same train with him 
 and none of them had uniforms. They were 
 a joking, laughing crowd starting out on the 
 first lap of "The Great Adventure." 
 
 Boys may live in a great cantonment, train- 
 ing for months, and an individual is so much 
 a part of the great throng that he never had 
 a minute to himself. In fact, he hungered to 
 get away from the everlasting, constant pres- 
 ence of the crowd of men. 
 
 Men went marching down the streets of Amer- 
 ica in platoons, in companies, in regiments, in 
 whole divisions, and they looked so much alike 
 that only the eye of love can pick out an 
 individual as they marched by. Men went on 
 board the great transports in masses; sometimes 
 
 92 
 
"WHEN A MAN'S ALONE" 
 
 as many as ten thousand to a ship. But when 
 the submarine struck, each man died alone. 
 
 We who have seen the American soldier 
 in France have seen him in masses. As he 
 marched into the trench he seldom marched 
 alone. He might not at night even be able 
 to see the man ahead of him, but he was con- 
 scious of the presence of men of his own na- 
 tion all about him, within touching distance. 
 Even in midnight darkness, down in the 
 trenches, he knew that off there to his left 
 and to his right there was another American 
 soldier keeping watch through the long night 
 hours. But when the order came to go "over 
 the top" each man went alone in his own heart; 
 alone in his own courage, alone in his own 
 bigness or littleness; and when death came, 
 out there in No Man's Land each man died 
 alone. 
 
 When a group of aviators went up to patrol 
 
 and met another group of enemy planes they 
 
 fought in groups. Through given signals 
 
 men may fight even in the air in formation 
 
 and have a feeling of union, but when the 
 
 deadly bullet finds its way home the aviator 
 
 93 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 starts spinning earthward; and though there 
 may be a thousand eyes turned on him from 
 the earth, he dies alone. 
 
 Though whole divisions and army corps; 
 indeed, entire armies stretching along a battle 
 front for fifty miles may go into a given great 
 drive, as was the case in the line stretching 
 from Noyon to Rheims, but when it came 
 time for a man to die, in the corner of a French 
 field, or in a trench, each man died alone. 
 
 Night after night, while driving along the 
 lines I have seen sentinels standing at the 
 crossroads, or deep in the woods, or on little 
 knolls, or in little boxes built to protect them 
 from the rain and cold, or standing watch over 
 an ammunition dump along a lonely field at 
 two in the morning — each man alone. 
 
 A man may be sleeping in a billet in an old 
 stable with hundreds of his comrades lying 
 about him, and a sense of security comes over 
 him as he hears their breathing and sees their 
 forms on every hand, but when the great shell 
 comes tearing through the stone walls of that 
 billet on its death-dealing mission, each man 
 died alone. 
 
 94 
 
"WHEN A MAN'S ALONE" 
 
 When the seaplane went out on its patrol 
 over the waters of the Bay of Biscay it carried 
 three men, the pilot, the mechanic, and the 
 observer. There was a sense of security in 
 the fact that three were there. I know this 
 because I have been on such a trip, but when 
 suddenly something goes wrong with the en- 
 gine; when the ship falls into the ocean fifty 
 miles from shore, begins to sink, and forty- 
 eight hours have passed and it looks as though 
 there were no hope, and death faces those 
 three lads, the fact suddenly comes home to 
 them that they do not face death as a trio 
 but each man faces it alone. The boys of the 
 army have learned that when they "go west" 
 they go alone. Not even the best "pal" can 
 go with them. 
 
 Then there were lonely night watches, when, 
 even though surrounded by a hundred friends, 
 a man fights out his own sorrows, his own 
 loneliness, his own heartache — alone. 
 
 It was because wise men knew this, wise 
 men who had love in their hearts and who 
 knew that there is just one Being and that 
 Being is God who can go with a man into 
 
 95 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 these "Alone" places, that the Y. M. C. A., 
 through its great-hearted religious director, got 
 out a little pamphlet, full of prayers for just 
 such emergencies that came to the lad in 
 the army. 
 
 One night in a Paris hotel an American lad 
 had fought a great battle for purity. It was 
 the first time that he had ever been in a large 
 city, and duty had sent him there. There 
 had been a tremendous temptation the night 
 before. It had come to him out on the Boule- 
 vard. He had not as yet conquered, although 
 he had won the first skirmish. But she was 
 still out there in the darkness, waiting for 
 him. He knew that, just as she was there 
 waiting for any American lad. To him she 
 would speak softly the few American phrases 
 that she had learned, and the very childish- 
 ness with which she spoke them made them 
 seem harmless. 
 
 "Bon Americaine!" 
 
 "Mon Cherie Americaine." 
 
 "Have a kiss for me, my Americaine?" 
 
 "Come wiz me, Americaine." 
 
 Then he saw on the wall of his hotel room 
 
 96 
 
"WHEN A MAN'S ALONE" 
 
 a neatly printed card, with a red triangle at 
 its top. The red attracted his attention and 
 he walked over to the wall above his bed and 
 read the "Prayer for Morning" which Dr. 
 Freeman had written for him: 
 
 "Strong Son of God; 
 I dare not go into this day without asking Thy 
 
 blessing. 
 The memory of other days spent without Thee is 
 
 too vividly before me, 
 Days when I have been weak and ignoble, 
 Days when I have lived only to please myself, 
 Caring neither for right, nor honor, nor the high 
 
 welfare of others, 
 In the sanity of the early morning, I humbly come 
 
 to Thee, 
 Who alone canst make me strong, 
 And pledge myself to seek to do Thy Will, 
 I, who would wage war to make a good world, 
 Want to win the first battle in my own life. 
 Make me then victor for to-day, over the sins 
 
 which so easily beset me, 
 And grant me grace through the fleeting hours to be 
 A Man — and unashamed. Amen." 
 
 And somehow when he had read that prayer 
 97 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 from the card entitled "When a Man's Alone" 
 the thing outside seemed a little thing and not 
 at all beautiful and high and holy; and he 
 was strong again and went to his bed clean 
 of soul and clean of body, with the song of a 
 great victory ringing in his heart. 
 
 The evening prayer too, in this little folder 
 was especially beautiful when you get the 
 picture of the lad up front in the trenches. 
 The evening shadows are falling and with the 
 falling of night the real work of war begins. 
 The restless Germans, almost before the sun- 
 light has disappeared, have started their star 
 shells, and these are beginning to light up 
 No Man's Land as our boys peer out anxiously 
 across this desolate stretch of death and 
 desolation with the barbed wires massed in 
 the dim shadows. Every night brought its 
 uncertainties. There were raids to be carried 
 out and certain boys were designated for this 
 raiding party. There was always patrol work 
 to do. There may be a German attack. Each 
 night comes on apace, many of them glori- 
 ously beautiful nights, some of them full 
 moonlight nights; some of them ushered in 
 
 98 
 
"WHEN A MAN'S ALONE" 
 
 with mist and rain; but all of them full of the 
 unknown, full of possibilities of death; and 
 each boy knew that as each night fell he might 
 never see another morning break. He reached 
 into his pocket, pulled out "When a Man is 
 Alone" and found that Dr. Freeman has thought 
 of this hour for him. The lonely sentinel on 
 his lonesome watch found that he too had 
 been thought of; and each in his own place, 
 read "The Prayer at Night": 
 
 "Lord of my life, the shadows fall; 
 
 And, in the shadows, what surprises lurk 
 
 I cannot tell; 
 
 What blaze of death shall through the night en- 
 circle me, 
 
 What subtle foe steal o'er the land-unclaimed, 
 
 What pain, or more, awaits for us who tensely 
 watch, 
 
 All this I may not know. But still I hold 
 
 God's in His heaven; aye, nearer to me than 
 heaven, 
 
 Thou, Christ, art here, here by my side, here in my 
 heart; 
 
 No man need face the shadows all alone. 
 
 Give ear then to my prayer; 
 99 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 Forgive my sins that rise in accusation now; 
 
 And let that sweet forgiveness melt my heart 
 
 In tender thoughts toward one-time friends across 
 
 the sea. 
 Send me Thy peace to keep me, come what will, 
 And mark my vow made in the silences with 
 
 Thee— 
 Whatever years now lie ahead for me, 
 I live for God. Amen." 
 
 And what boy has not felt his heart melt 
 as he has read, somewhere in a hotel room, or 
 in a billet lying in mid-afternoon at rest from 
 the night's work, or down in the trenches, 
 that beautifully sweet "Prayer For the Folks 
 at Home"? How magically the author had 
 caught the universal hunger of the men! 
 
 One boy said to me as we read that prayer 
 together with tear- wet eyes: "We wouldn't 
 be consistent fighters if we didn't think enough 
 of the very homes and the very country for 
 which we are fighting to get homesick for it. 
 It doesn't make the American army any less 
 a fighting army that it gets homesick. That 
 kind of army will fight to the death just be- 
 cause it is big enough to have such a love for 
 
 100 
 
"WHEN A MAN'S ALONE" 
 
 its home that it hungers for it." So Dr. Free- 
 man caught and put into words the heart 
 throb of all in his prayer for the folks back 
 home, and we wept as we read it over, and 
 nothing that we read or thought on so stirred 
 our souls to the real spirit of prayer like these 
 words, wherein he had voiced for us all that 
 we had felt and could not say as we wished 
 to say it: 
 
 "Father above, and Best Friend of us all, 
 Remember in Thy tender mercy 
 The hearts that beat for me. 
 I thank Thee for their prayers; 
 But more; I thank Thee for the love that prompts 
 
 their prayers; 
 The love that makes them fancy me as of heroic 
 
 mold. 
 They are but human souls, those parents, kinsmen, 
 
 friends, 
 And that one woman Thou didst send to teach me 
 
 love indeed, 
 Whose kindly hearts will dread each coming day, 
 And dream of danger through the night, 
 Send them Thy peace, Lord. 
 
 Bid them to know their cries are not in vain. 
 
 101 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 Suffer no crushing circumstances to lay them low. 
 Let Thy best gifts be theirs, health and their daily 
 
 bread. 
 The love of friend and neighbor, 
 The joy that follows work well done, 
 And the calm confidence that, though I am far 
 
 away, 
 I will not fail their hope, or bruise their pride. 
 Gather us all under Thy wings; 
 And in the night watches set our spirits free 
 To meet where sea nor land can intervene; 
 Until at length we win 'Back Home,' 
 Or in Thy mercy meet within Our Father's house. 
 
 Amen." 
 
 I had occasion to say once on Mother's Day 
 to a crowd of officers and men who were gath- 
 ered in a banquet: "Imagine, men, if you 
 can, the sneers that are passing over the faces 
 of the Kaiser and his staff as he knows that 
 in this day the American army is stopping in 
 the midst of war to remember mother. They 
 must surely be laughing in derision at such 
 a thing, for the tender things do not come 
 within the scope of the German military mind. 
 It cannot grasp the fact that the man who can 
 
 102 
 
"WHEN A MAN'S ALONE" 
 
 stop in the midst of battle to remember mother; 
 to be tender, to pray, to be kindly, and humane, 
 will, in the end, make the warrior that fights 
 until death for the very things that he stops 
 to worship and to love." 
 
 No we did not forget mother, and Dr. 
 Freeman did not forget her when he wrote 
 and dreamed and wept and sobbed out this 
 great prayer for the sometime inarticulate 
 mother to pray when alone: 
 
 "Good God, who, through my life has been my 
 stay, 
 By whose ordaining joy and sorrow sought me out, 
 Whose chiefest earthly gift to me has been my son, 
 I turn to Thee in this, my anguish hour. 
 No longer may I guide his steps, 
 No longer does he come at eventide 
 To give in his pure eyes the mirror of his soul. 
 My baby gone; gone is my little lad; 
 And now a man stands in his place, 
 Stands where I cannot be, or see, or shield. 
 God guard Thou him. 
 
 Make him to know the Lord is still his Shepherd. 
 Endow him with courage and good sense. 
 
 Put Thy spirit in his heart, 
 
 103 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 That he may be the man I hope to see 
 When guns are still and strife is overpast. 
 Whisper to him, where'er he lies this night, 
 The words I fain would speak could I be near; 
 For, though he is no more a child, 
 I always am his mother. Amen." 
 
 And finally this tender, sympathetic interpreta- 
 tion of the prayers of a soldier lad in his 
 threefold struggle to be brave, to be pure, and 
 to be true. This little gem of a "Soldier's 
 Prayer" has already found its way into Asso- 
 ciation Men, numerous religious papers, and it 
 has been distributed literally by millions 
 throughout the American army in France on 
 a neat little yellow stiff card, printed in red 
 and black ink with a red triangle at the top. 
 I have found them stuck up on the walls in 
 Y. M. C. A. huts, in hotel rooms, in billets, 
 on trunks, in warehouses, in automobiles, where 
 boys have pasted, or tacked, or nailed them. 
 
 "White Captain of my soul, lead on; 
 I follow Thee come dark or dawn. 
 Only vouchsafe three things I crave: 
 When terror stalks, help me be brave. 
 
 104 
 
"WHEN A MAN'S ALONE" 
 
 Where righteous ones can scarce endure 
 The siren call, help me be pure. 
 Where vows grow dim, and men dare do 
 What once they scorned, help me be true." 
 
 105 
 
CHAPTER V 
 THE ANGELUS IN WAR TIME 
 
 The Soldier — When He Prayed 
 
 Not only did the boy pray when he was 
 alone, but he prayed when he passed through 
 that grueling sorrow of parting from his loved 
 ones at the train and the pier. I have seen boys 
 grit their teeth, set their jaws, grip their fists 
 until the blood came, the meanwhile mutter- 
 ing fiercely, and earnestly between their teeth, 
 "God help me now to be strong!" When 
 the shells fall, and the "over the top" whistle 
 blows at "zero" just as he shoots over he prays, 
 
 106 
 
THE ANGELUS IN WAR TIME 
 
 "God help me now!" It was as natural with 
 him as breathing. 
 
 Somehow France is the land of "The 
 Angelus." Millet has made it such for us. 
 But if we who love God in America will seize 
 the opportunity that is coming, will seize with 
 love and fearlessness, with a strong faith and 
 a great belief, America too shall be the land 
 of an evening prayer, an "Angelus," as it 
 shall be the land of a "Morning Watch." 
 
 The great, burning red war-sun was setting 
 behind the Golden Gate, for this chapter begins 
 at home; finds its way to France, and then 
 comes home again; for, after all, most of the 
 thought, the longings, the heart-hunger, the 
 loneliness and the prayers of America begin 
 at home and end in France and then come 
 home again, as the boys are coming, like birds 
 at eventide. 
 
 Out they go, these prayers, on wings of 
 
 love; wings of mother love, wings of father 
 
 love; wings of baby love, wings of girlish love; 
 
 and back again to nestle in the heart from 
 
 whence they flew. 
 
 Prayer never meant more to millions of 
 107 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 human beings than it has meant during the 
 last four years. Never more fervent prayers, 
 never prayers more drenched with the dew of 
 tears; never more desperate, needy prayers 
 found their way to the Father heart than in 
 these days in American life. 
 
 The great train was pulling out on the first 
 lap of its trans-continental journey. A gray- 
 haired woman stood looking into a boy's eyes 
 and a slender girl stood beside her. The boy 
 in khaki had a hungry look in his face, but 
 that hungry look was buried in a quiet reserve 
 that bespoke the first battle in a soldier's life; 
 that first battle which came to millions of them 
 at the parting of the ways. Evidently, the 
 girl was his sweetheart. 
 
 The sun was just sinking. One calls that 
 kind of a sun a "war-sun" because it is blood- 
 red. There were no clouds to be made glori- 
 ous with rose and gold; none to take away 
 the significance of that blood-red ball sinking 
 behind the Golden Gate. I have seen many 
 such since in France. I have seen them where 
 the smoke of bursting shells rolled against the 
 horizon. I saw a "war-sun" one evening be- 
 
 108 
 
THE ANGELUS IN WAR TIME 
 
 hind the Arc de Triomphe looking down the 
 great Champs-Ely sees from the Louvre and 
 that night a great Boche raid came over Paris 
 and left its toll of dead. I saw a blood-red 
 war sun another night in a port of entry down 
 in Brittany. 
 
 "Good-by, George; be good; remember that 
 mother loves you. And, George — George, dear 
 — don't forget to pray!" 
 
 It was the mother who spoke. The girl 
 seemed timid about saying anything. She was 
 his sweetheart. She had a quiet respect for 
 the mother's place in that scene. She didn't 
 want to intrude her more recent claim to love 
 in the mother's lifelong claim. But the boy 
 turned to her as the train came in. 
 
 "Good-by, dear heart. And you two girls 
 of mine — ," then he smiled as he gently pulled 
 them together, as if he would have each 
 strengthen the other, the mother and the 
 sweetheart. It was a wonderful thing that he 
 did there. In a mere gesture he linked together 
 for all the uncertainties of the coming months 
 and years his sweetheart and his mother. 
 
 He seemed to sense the fact that these two 
 
 109 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 women who both loved him, and who both 
 had a right to love him — each differently, each 
 fervently — must give strength to each other 
 during his absence. He seemed to know that 
 each would watch the mails eagerly for his 
 letters, that each would scan with the same 
 trembling anxiety the casualty lists. 
 
 "You two — you two — are all I have — " 
 Then he stopped, but not to weep. There 
 was a suggestion of tears, but he kept them 
 back. It was hard enough without that to 
 add to the parting. The women were being 
 brave. So must he be. Then the war-sun 
 sank. It left behind it no glory of color. It 
 just sank quietly into the sea behind the 
 Golden Gate, but the memory of that parting 
 between the khaki-clad soldier and his two 
 "girls," his mother and his sweetheart, shall 
 remain forever, an evening benediction. 
 
 Before I witnessed that scene the blood-red 
 
 "war-sun" was an ominous thing to me. Since 
 
 then I have never seen such a sun sink that 
 
 it has not seemed to be a benediction at the 
 
 close of the day — a "God bless and keep you" 
 
 to the poor, troubled world. I have had a 
 
 no 
 
THE ANGELUS IN WAR TIME 
 
 "war-sun" turned into an Angelus for me be- 
 cause of that quiet, reserved, brave parting. 
 I never think of those two women that I do 
 not see them together in the quiet of the 
 evening sharing their letters from "him," 
 sharing their grief, and perhaps their heart- 
 aches. I never think of that group that I do 
 not see the girl running in at the close of her 
 day's work, or her school to nestle in the arms 
 of "his" mother, for thereby the world be- 
 comes stronger in war-time and peace-time, by 
 sharing its grief with others. And all over the 
 world, especially all over America, this scene was 
 universal. One could see this trio at the boats 
 in New York and Newport News. One could 
 see it in the great railroad centers as the trains 
 pulled out for the camps and on their first lap 
 in the journey to France. It was a great Angelus 
 of lonely hearts. 
 
 Those who have been in France during the 
 war have learned to understand the great 
 painter Millet. It was a no uncommon thing 
 to see in the fields of France just such peasants 
 as Millet painted. I have seen "The Gleaners" 
 
 in many fields of France during the past year, 
 ill 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 For if ever in its history France has had to 
 "glean" the last straw from her fields and the 
 last man from her homes, it is now. The 
 gleaning has been going on for more than four 
 years, and France made this gleaning with 
 a heroic willingness that thrilled the world, 
 going down into the family life and into her 
 homes until the youngest boys themselves, 
 decorated with the colors of their "Class/' went 
 marching along the village streets with drums 
 beating and radiant faces. 
 
 One of the most pathetic things that I saw 
 in France was the visible tokens of this "glean- 
 ing" of France. Everywhere, last spring, one 
 could hear down the crooked streets of France 
 the sound of a drum corps. Then presently 
 there would flash into view a crowd of march- 
 ing boys who looked as if they ought still to 
 be in high school. It was the Class of 19 — . 
 As they marched by, one's heart sank at first 
 to see their youth and to know that they too 
 were soon to be "cannon-fodder"; but a second 
 look at their faces and one's heart leaped 
 with a thrill of elation, for there was a look 
 there that said, "As long as France, even in 
 
 112 
 
THE ANGELUS IN WAR TIME 
 
 its gleaning, has boys that can go to war with 
 that high look in their eyes, the safety of the 
 Allied cause cannot be endangered." 
 
 But the real gleaners were in the fields every- 
 where in France. I have seen them, the 
 bent old peasants, almost exact prototypes of 
 Millet's "The Gleaners," with bended backs 
 gathering up the last wisps of straw, with shells 
 bursting in the fields about them and the roar 
 and rumble of battle not far away, and the 
 white roads of France that skirted the very 
 fields in which they were working, heavy 
 with war traffic. Yet "The Gleaners" worked 
 on in spite of the war. There was something 
 heroic in this sight. It linked itself with the 
 scene back at home in some strange way. 
 
 And one may see "The Angelus" group 
 these war days anywhere in France. It is as 
 though a great Millet were still painting his 
 peasant folk bowing in prayer at the ringing 
 of the Angelus. 
 
 I shall never forget one beautiful evening, 
 when a great "war-sun" was sinking in the 
 west, without a single cloud, without a touch 
 of color other than the blood-red of the great 
 
 113 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 round disk itself, which seemed on this evening 
 to be as large as a great truck. 
 
 We were going "down the line" with some 
 provisions for the furthest hut. A message had 
 come in, carried by a "runner" sent from the 
 major's office about supper time. It said, "My 
 boys are going into the trenches at midnight 
 and the secretary at Beaumont says that 
 he is out of supplies. I hope that it will be 
 possible for you to send some down." 
 
 It was a perilous trip. Every man had been 
 working from daylight, and no man there 
 cared to take that trip down the line. It meant 
 that whoever went would have to drive over 
 the old shell-pocked road without lights after 
 darkness fell. It meant that the truck would 
 have to run underneath the regular evening 
 "Hate" of the Boche, for every evening just 
 after sunset while the smoke was curling from 
 the supper fires the German batteries on the 
 hill to the east strafed the American bat- 
 teries on the hill to the west. Then the Amer- 
 ican batteries sent back their replies. Under 
 this great, double parabola of shell fire the 
 trucks had to be driven night after night. 
 
 114 
 
THE ANGELUS IN WAR TIME 
 
 Sometimes the shells fell short and pocked the 
 road. More often they found their marks 
 four miles beyond, but it was no pleasant 
 sensation to be driving a truck under a great 
 arch of shells going both directions. What if 
 two of them should meet in mid air and have 
 a collision? Personally I always expected this. 
 I had seen two locomotives do this very thing 
 once and I never did like the memory of that 
 scene. 
 
 But the work had to be done. This was a 
 desperate call. A major who was interested 
 enough in his boys to send a "runner" to 
 headquarters to ask that an extra truckload 
 of supplies be sent down so that his boys 
 "going in" that night might have their last 
 "Good-by, and Good luck" put into some 
 practical form, was not to be denied. Be- 
 sides, that was what we were there for. 
 
 I'll confess frankly that I for one didn't 
 
 want to go. I didn't like that barrage of 
 
 shells in the slightest. Norton, always said: 
 
 "Ah, they're up there so high they'll never 
 
 fall short. Don't pay any attention to 
 
 them." 
 
 115 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 But I couldn't help remembering that night 
 that Norton stopped the truck near "Dead 
 Man's Curve" while the Roche was shelling 
 the road; stopped to go back with his flash 
 light and hunt for a cigar that he had dropped 
 out of his mouth when the truck shot into a 
 shell hole. I couldn't help remembering that 
 he had said that night, "You don't mind 
 if I stop, do you, Doc? That's the first good 
 cigar I've had for three months, and I'll be 
 blamed if I want to lose it!" I did mind, 
 but I didn't say so. 
 
 Nor did I on the night of this story say 
 anything when he volunteered for the both of 
 us to take the load down. 
 
 "Doc and I'll go; we don't mind, do we, 
 Doc, old boy?" 
 
 I did mind, but I hadn't the nerve to admit 
 it in the face of the fact that I had known 
 that this big, brave fellow himself had been 
 "down the line" already three times that 
 day; that he had been working since daylight, 
 and that he was now willing to make another 
 trip, the hardest trip of the day, down under 
 
 that canopy of shell fire, on a trip that meant 
 
 116 
 
THE ANGELUS IN WAR TIME 
 
 two o'clock in the morning before he could 
 possibly get back. In the face of this kind of 
 sacrifice who was I, just a common helper on 
 a truck, to say "No"? So I volunteered to 
 go along. 
 
 And that trip shall stand out forever in my 
 memory; not because of the unusually heavy 
 "strafing" that we drove under that night; 
 not because of the fact that we helped to hand 
 the stuff out to the boys as they marched 
 through our furthest hut down under the 
 camouflaged road into the communication 
 trench to the front trenches, but because of 
 something we saw just as we left Toul that 
 wonderful evening. 
 
 There it was, that great red "war-sun" 
 sinking into the west. Even Norton was 
 impressed by it. He said, "Some beautiful 
 night anyway, Doc, even if one of the Boche 
 shells does fall short?" 
 
 He had a most comforting fashion of start- 
 ing off like that, with some such expression 
 as "Fine night for an air raid, Doc"; or, "I'll 
 bet the wind's just right for a gas attack to- 
 night"; or, "A couple of 'Y' drivers killed 
 117 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 right over there just before you came, Doc!" 
 He was a cheerful man to work with. But 
 somehow the sunset to-night had touched the 
 deeper things, which I always knew were 
 hidden behind his rough exterior, and before 
 we had gone far in the face of that great red 
 sun he was talking about his wife and his 
 kiddies at home. Then he showed me their 
 pictures as we rumbled along. 
 
 Then we saw a sight that subdued us both 
 and made him stop the machine for a minute 
 in reverence. Suddenly, off in a little village, 
 partly destroyed by shell fire a cathedral bell 
 began to ring. It was a beautiful sound, com- 
 ing across the bare, lonely fields of France 
 in the face of that "war-sunset." 
 
 But just in the foreground, two old women 
 and a man were walking along bearing heavy 
 baskets on their shoulders. They had just 
 started to cross a field. When the cathedral 
 bell began to ring they laid their baskets down 
 and all three of them bowed in prayer and 
 remained so until the Angelus ceased. 
 
 Norton had already stopped the truck. I 
 looked at him, and, much to my astonishment, 
 
 118 
 
THE ANGELUS IN WAR TIME 
 
 his hat was off and his gray curls played in 
 the breeze. His head too was bowed. 
 
 "I always respect anybody's religion," he 
 said by way of explanation to me. 
 
 "Do you pray much?" I asked him, as we 
 started on when the Angelus had ceased. 
 
 "I pray all the time. I never start out with 
 this old bus down the line that I don't pray. 
 That wife of mine and that kid made me 
 promise. Besides, it gives me a sense of se- 
 curity anyhow when those shells are whining 
 overhead and one of 'em is liable to fall short 
 any minute." 
 
 We were silent for a mile or two and then 
 I said to him, "Well, I didn't want to come 
 down again to-night, but that was worth it; 
 not only to see that Angelus in real life, but 
 to hear you say that." 
 
 And it was, a thousand times over. 
 
 "A man's a fool that doesn't pray — that's 
 all I got to say," was his laconic reply. 
 
 We heard a good deal here at home from a 
 certain type of writer about the boys singing 
 "Where Do We Go from Here?" and "There'll 
 Be a Hot Time In the Old Town." They did 
 
 119 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 sing such songs at times. Of course they did, 
 but they also sang with just as much fervor 
 "Sweet Hour of Prayer," "Rock of Ages, 
 Cleft for Me"; "Nearer, My God, to Thee"; 
 "Jesus, Saviour, Pilot Me"; "O God, Our 
 Help in Ages Past"; "Softly Now the Light 
 of Day," and others of this class. Somehow 
 they seemed to select, if they were given a choice, 
 the hymns with prayer in them. I have no 
 doubt but that it was because, down deep in 
 their hearts, they liked to sing their prayers to 
 God. Especially did one observe this down 
 on the front lines. 
 
 I remember a young lieutenant who said one 
 day, "We don't have any chaplain, nor any 
 Y. M. C. A. secretary, and I notice that my 
 boys miss it, so I'm going to have a religious 
 service for them myself." He was in the 
 Chateau-Thierry fight, and his boys were hun- 
 gry to give expression to their prayer spirit. 
 They were facing death every hour of the day 
 and night. This lieutenant was never known 
 especially for his religious activities at home, 
 but he loved his "boys," and, if there was 
 no chaplain at hand he was going to see to it 
 
 120 
 
THE ANGELUS IN WAR TIME 
 
 that they had "prayers," as he called a re- 
 ligious service, "If I have to conduct them 
 myself," were his words. And conduct them 
 he did, much to the joy of the boys of his 
 platoon. 
 
 "We feel better going into the line after that 
 meeting," was the way one boy expressed his 
 appreciation. 
 
 "You don't have to have a preacher to 
 pray, do you?" another said. 
 
 The boys prayed, whatever some men may 
 say. I have heard them praying all over 
 France. I have prayed with them in the 
 hospitals. I have never been in a crowd where 
 there was anything but the finest kind of 
 appreciation at the suggestion of prayer. I 
 have prayed with "shell-shocked" boys in their 
 own wards; boys made up of Catholics, Jews, 
 non-believers, and when I have said, "Boys, 
 may I have a word of prayer before I go?" 
 there has always been instantaneous, respectful, 
 and even hearty assent. 
 
 I shall never forget the vesper services that 
 were so popular in France in the camps and 
 hospitals, usually out of doors, where the boys 
 
 121 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 liked to gather for their devotions. One scene 
 is that of an Angelus, where a thousand colored 
 men stood under the setting sun, with bowed 
 heads praying, just after they had sung, in 
 their sweetly harmonious voices, "The Old 
 Time Religion." Another scene was that of 
 an aviation group who stood in a vesper service 
 with bowed heads praying. I had just read 
 them that beautiful hymn for aviators, "Lord, 
 Guard and Guide the Men Who Fly": 
 
 "Lord, guard and guide the men who fly 
 Through the great spaces of the sky. 
 Be with them traversing the air 
 In darkening storm or sunshine fair. 
 
 "Thou who dost keep with tender might 
 The balanced birds in all their flight, 
 Thou of the tempered winds, be near, 
 That, having thee, they know no fear. 
 
 "Control their minds with instinct fit 
 What time, adventuring, they quit 
 The firm security of land: 
 Grant steadfast eyes and skillful hand. 
 
 122 
 
THE ANGELUS IN WAR TIME 
 
 "Aloft in solitudes of space 
 Uphold them with thy saving grace. 
 God, protect the men who fly 
 Through lonely ways beneath the sky." 
 
 I had been up with one of the boys that 
 afternoon, "Through lonely ways beneath the 
 skies," and the whole theme of my talk to 
 them had been saturated with my new expe- 
 rience in the air under the guiding hand of a 
 skilled pilot in whom I had complete confi- 
 dence. And so when I came to the end of 
 that vesper hour with them and evening was 
 falling, I said: "Now, boys, we'll all stand 
 and have a little prayer together. I have just 
 read you the prayer that the folks back home 
 are praying and singing for you as you fly; 
 now I want you to pray for them." 
 
 During the next five minutes at least twenty 
 boys offered brief— some of them very awk- 
 ward but sincere— prayers for the folks back 
 home. I wish I could reproduce some of them, 
 but that wouldn't be fair. But it was a won- 
 derfully sweet hour, and the Christ was very 
 near to us. 
 
 When I got home and was telling this story 
 
 123 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 to a great crowd of people in a certain Eastern 
 city in a big open-air meeting, an old man 
 came up to me with a sweet little six-year-old 
 girl. I took her into my arms and gave her a 
 kiss on each cheek; one on her nose and one 
 on her eyes. I'm always afraid to venture at 
 kissing other folks' babies on their lips these 
 days of bugs, and germs, and influenza, but 
 I'll venture that their mothers won't care if 
 you confine it to cheeks and nose and eyes. 
 
 The grandfather said as he brought her up, 
 "I want you to have another Angel us story to 
 tell." 
 
 Then he told me one of the sweetest stories 
 I have heard, of how in that particular neigh- 
 borhood one of the churches rings its chimes 
 every evening at eight o'clock. As the chimes 
 play some beautiful hymn, such as "Day Is 
 Dying in the West," or "Sweet Hour of Prayer," 
 all the people bow in prayer for the "boys 
 over there." 
 
 The little girl whom he brought to me has 
 a daddy in France, and she takes this hour 
 of prayer very seriously. It means much to 
 her dear child's heart. 
 
 124 
 
THE ANGELUS IN WAR TIME 
 
 The very night that I spoke in that city 
 when the chimes rang, according to the grand- 
 father's story, the little girl noticed that her 
 grandfather was not bowing his head in prayer, 
 for, as grown folks often do, he had become 
 engrossed in his evening paper and had for- 
 gotten. 
 
 Suddenly the little tot tugged at his paper 
 and said, "Gran-daddy, let's pray for my daddy 
 now like the preacher said when the bell rings." 
 
 Then the two of them, the gray-haired father 
 of the boy over there and the little baby of 
 the boy over there, got down on their knees, 
 and this was the dear childish prayer of her: 
 "Dear God, take care of my dear, sweet daddy, 
 and bring him back to mother and me and 
 Gran-daddy safe. Amen." 
 
 Since then, no sun sets, no Angelus hour ever 
 comes, no church chimes ring, that I do not 
 offer my own silent prayer for the boys "over 
 there," and for those who are coming home 
 to us; a prayer that we may be big enough 
 to understand, and close enough to God in our 
 own prayer life to be in tune with the spirit 
 of the Angelus that is buried in their souls. 
 
 125 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 It may never find utterance, save we bring 
 it forth with our understanding and our sym- 
 pathy, but — before God — it is there. 
 
 One last prayer story: It was a "Y" hut, 
 winter, and night. There had been a "movie." 
 Then followed the "Good-night vesper service" 
 that the Canadian "Y" always held. In spite 
 of certain criticisms because the Y. M. C. A. 
 has mixed up movies and religion, this is the 
 way it worked. 
 
 The hut was crowded with men, and out- 
 side several hundred had been standing, listen- 
 ing through the open windows. The secretary 
 who told me this story, when the prayer time 
 came, went out to stop some noisy French 
 boys so that there would be quiet during the 
 prayers. As he stepped out into the winter 
 night, much to his surprise, he found that the 
 more than a hundred boys out there in the 
 cold had lifted their hats and were standing 
 there in the snow with bared heads during 
 the prayer that was being lifted by the secre- 
 tary inside the hut. Does this sound much 
 like irreverence? Does this sound as if "movies" 
 and religion do not mix? 
 
 126 
 
THE ANGELUS IN WAR TIME 
 
 And so let the church remember that in the 
 heart of the boy who is coming home to us 
 these days there is a deep and an ever-abiding 
 reverence for the things of God; and among 
 the highest of these things is prayer. 
 
 127 
 
known what 
 
 hard physical 
 
 somebody else" 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE BREWERY GANG 
 
 The Soldier — His Attitude Toward 
 The Preacher Who Served 
 
 There are few preachers who went to 
 France who did not win out. And proud I 
 am to say that most of them won their way 
 not by preaching but by serving. They got 
 down on their knees not only to pray, but 
 to lift trucks out of mud and shell holes, 
 trucks loaded with supplies for the soldiers; 
 they slept on the ground, in the woods; they 
 asked for no luxuries, and went without the 
 
 128 
 
THE BREWERY GANG 
 
 necessities often, sharing the common suffer- 
 ings of the soldier; and in so doing they won 
 his heart forever. 
 
 I was never so proud of the men of my 
 profession as I was when 1 saw them in action 
 in France. Men gray with years, some of 
 them past fifty, carried their end of the physi- 
 cal load with young men half their age. It 
 was a daily miracle to me how they did it. 
 I take my shoes off in retrospect because I 
 am on sacred ground when I think of them, 
 lifting heavy loads of chocolate, emptying cars 
 of tent poles, out in the snow and rain, with- 
 out a whimper; working all night, losing sleep, 
 that they might do the thing that the Master 
 counted most worth while of all things — 
 serving humanity. It was a glorious thing to see. 
 
 One of the leading directors of the Y. M. 
 C. A. work in France, said one evening to me 
 in Paris: "Well, I take my hat off to your 
 preachers. After what I saw down in the 
 woods to-night [he referred to the Bois du 
 Belleau], I'm for your preachers. They're a 
 game lot of men." 
 
 These preachers will understand what it 
 
 129 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 means to serve, now that they are back. They 
 will understand, as never before, the mean- 
 ing of that text, "Come unto me, all ye that 
 are weary and heavy laden, and I will give 
 you rest." They will understand something of 
 the thing that was in the heart of Christ 
 when he got down on his knees in humility; 
 and, donning the garb of a slave, washed his 
 disciples' feet. 
 
 American soldiers responded to this kind 
 of service, even more than they did to the 
 preaching-kind of a preacher. The serving- 
 kind of a servant won their hearts. The most 
 loved men in France were the preachers who 
 got down on their stomachs in the mud to 
 build huts; who got down on their backs in the 
 snow to fix the trucks that were to carry 
 supplies up to the boys in the front lines; 
 the kind of preachers (some of them occupants 
 of the largest pulpits at home) who were will- 
 ing to sweep out the floors of huts, to carry 
 packs, to tramp through the mud, to get down 
 on their knees to mend a tent flap as well as 
 to pray. I do not think that this willingness 
 to serve will lose any of its appeal at home. 
 
 130 
 
THE BREWERY GANG 
 
 I do not know how individuals will be able 
 to carry it out at home. Some may want 
 to go into a factory to work during a vaca- 
 tion, and some may feel impelled to interest 
 themselves vitally in the problems of the toilers 
 of their cities so that they may know first hand 
 what it all means. All I do know is that that 
 kind of service won the hearts of the men in 
 France. And I know that the spirit which 
 prompted that kind of service is the spirit 
 of the Master and that it will win the hearts 
 of men in peace or war. 
 
 The old "Count" was just an average busi- 
 ness man in Washington, D. C. He had never 
 had much to do with the church or with preach- 
 ers, because, rightly or not, he had gotten the 
 impression that they were men with easy 
 berths, not very productive, and not very 
 willing to share the hard, everyday facts and 
 labor of life. He learned differently in France, 
 as hundreds of men did, and they are coming 
 back, expecting to find that kind of men in 
 the churches, and when they do find them 
 they will bind these Christian leaders to their 
 
 hearts with hoops of steel. 
 131 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 The "Count" and the "Major" illustrate 
 what I am trying to say, although both were 
 rough men outside; rough outside, but with 
 hearts as tender as a mother's touch of love, 
 inside. 
 
 "What kind of stuff are you Y. M. C. A. 
 guys selling here anyhow?" the Major asked, 
 as he stepped down into the dugout. 
 
 It was the "Count" of the Y. M. C. A. 
 Brewery Gang who answered him, as quick 
 as a flash: 
 
 "We're selling joy, sir — just joy. Of course 
 we handle a little chocolate, and soap, and a 
 few cigarettes and chewing gum, but joy's 
 our best commodity. The other things are 
 side issues." 
 
 And from that day on the Major and the 
 "Count" were warm friends. 
 
 "A guy that sells joy to my boys is the kind 
 of a fellow I want around." 
 
 And thus it was that whenever the "Count" 
 wanted a detail of men to help erect a hut, 
 or a detail of men to help bury a dead soldier, 
 or a detail of men to unload a car, or an extra 
 automobile to handle some freight for the 
 
 132 
 
THE BREWERY GANG 
 
 boys, it was always coming from the Major. 
 It was known everywhere along the line that 
 the Major believed in that "Brewery Gang" 
 down at Toul. "They've got the stuff to work 
 with this man's army," the Major said one 
 day to a group of soldiers. 
 
 If you had asked the "old timers" in the 
 "Brewery Gang," those who had gone in with 
 the first division of American troops, what 
 requirement you had to have to be a member 
 of the "Brewery Gang," they would have told 
 you that you had to have a "weak mind and 
 a strong back," but if they ever caught you 
 saying that yourself, you might have had your 
 head stuck in a snow bank. It was all right 
 for the gang itself to say this about itself and 
 its members, but no outsider dare slander 
 it thus. 
 
 This was because the "Brewery Gang" was 
 a select organization of Y. M. C. A. truck 
 drivers which made its home in an old, aban- 
 doned French brewery, the upper story of which 
 was utilized for a warehouse. 
 
 It was made up of a personnel of chauffeurs, 
 
 college professors, preachers, teachers, and busi- 
 133 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 ness men. Most of them had never driven 
 anything but touring cars in their lives, and 
 two thirds of them never had had a look inside 
 of the machinery of their own cars at home. 
 
 "I sent mine around to the garage about 
 once a month for an overhauling, and I never 
 turned a nut before I joined this gang; but 
 every Tuesday here in France, mud or rain 
 or snow, I get down on my back under the 
 truck and fill the grease cups, oil her up, and 
 get her in condition for the next week's work. 
 I've learned more about an automobile since 
 I joined this gang than I ever knew in my 
 life before, and when I go home I'm going to 
 show those garage guys a thing or two." 
 
 The "Count," known from one end of the 
 division to the other, was the philosopher of 
 the "Brewery Gang." When the war first 
 broke out he was, as already explained, just 
 an ordinary business man in Washington, 
 D. C. The Chamber of Commerce sent him 
 over in Y. M/fC. A. work. One thing he 
 hated above all other things, and that was a 
 preacher. It was as much as one's life was 
 worth on applying for admission to the "Brew- 
 
 134 
 
THE BREWERY GANG 
 
 ery Gang" to let it be known that one was a 
 parson. After that it was the work of a month 
 or so to overcome this initial handicap. But 
 at last, after having seen eight or ten preachers 
 in action, the "Count," who was above all 
 things fair and just, began to change his 
 mind about the average parson. 
 
 One day he said, "All I got to say right now 
 is that, after seeing you preacher guys work 
 to-day, I'd go hear any of you preach if I 
 happened to be in your towns. I never did 
 go to church much before the war, although 
 I read the Bible every day, but when I see 
 you fellows get down on your knees in the 
 mud to help build a hut to shelter the boys 
 out there who are giving their lives for us, 
 I say that it would sound good back home 
 some day to see you down on your knees 
 praying. Got to hand it to you!" 
 
 The "Brewery Gang" was no respecter of 
 
 persons or of days. Sunday was just the 
 
 same as any other day to them; not because 
 
 they wanted to work on Sunday, but because 
 
 either they worked or the boys "down the 
 
 line" went without their supplies. There were 
 135 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 always two or three cars to unload on Sunday. 
 At first this went a bit hard for the parsons 
 of the gang, even though they knew the ne- 
 cessity of the times. But the "Count" com- 
 forted them one Sunday evening after they 
 had worked all day in the snow and rain un- 
 loading a car load of lumber for huts. The 
 car had previously been used for coal and 
 had never been cleaned, so in addition to the 
 mud and snow each parson had a thick layer 
 of coal dust all over his face and his clothes. 
 
 "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it 
 holy" — with this sentence the "Count" started 
 off that evening as the gang sat around an 
 open fireplace drying their feet. 
 
 "Well, you fellows may think that unloading 
 that car to-day was not keeping the Sabbath 
 day very holy. Maybe some of you even 
 forgot that it was Sunday. I wonder what 
 your congregations would have thought if 
 they had seen you to-day, weary of body and 
 soul, coming home from your work? Well, 
 when I think of my own nineteen-year-old 
 kid somewhere in the line; and when I think 
 of what these warm huts mean to them in 
 
 136 
 
THE BREWERY GANG 
 
 these cold winter days, with no floors on their 
 own tents, and the mud three inches deep 
 where they sleep, and the Y. M. C. A. hut 
 the only decently warm and lighted place they 
 have to go to; when I think of the light I saw 
 yesterday in the eyes of an 'outfit' of engineers 
 who have been five miles away from a hut, 
 out there in the woods, when we started to 
 build them a hut; I don't think that any of 
 you ever kept the Sabbath in a holier way 
 than you did to-day unloading those tents. 
 That was keeping the Sabbath holy if ever you 
 guys did it." 
 
 Somehow the "Count's" way of looking at 
 it gave our day's work new dignity and put it 
 on a high and holy plane. 
 
 "Why, last week when we drove into Gerards 
 Sais with a truckload of stuff to put in a 
 hut, a gang of fellows, about fifty of them, 
 came running out of the woods and offered 
 to help unload the stuff and build the hut 
 for me," the "Count" continued. "I never 
 saw a crowd so willing to help. 'Why,' they 
 said, 'we haven't had a hut for nearly a year 
 now and we've been here in this mudhole 
 
 137 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 with nowhere to write and nowhere to sit 
 down and nowhere to get together. Some of 
 us have been walking five miles every evening 
 just to get somewhere and see a light and a 
 warm stove. That's how much we think of 
 the "Y." ' One boy yelled, 'O go on away from 
 here; I haven't got any money to buy pea- 
 nuts!' The rest of that gang nearly killed him 
 before I could tell them that we hadn't come 
 to sell peanuts but to sell joy," the "Count" 
 continued. 
 
 As we sat around the fire drying our clothes 
 and oiling our boots for the next day's work, 
 and some of us greasing our sore hands, the 
 "Count" continued his evening discourse: 
 
 "And doesn't the book that you guys preach 
 
 out of say something about giving 'a cup of 
 
 cold water in my name'? Well, handing out 
 
 a cup of hot chocolate or a cup of hot coffee 
 
 to a lad going down into the trenches may 
 
 not be just the right wording to fit that text, 
 
 but I guess it's got pretty much the same 
 
 spirit in it. It might just as well have read, 
 
 'Giving a cup of hot chocolate in my name.' 
 
 That's what you fellows are doing every day 
 
 138 
 
THE BREWERY GANG 
 
 of your lives as you boost those big, back- 
 breaking boxes of chocolates from the car into 
 the truck, and then from the truck into the 
 warehouse, and then back into the truck, 
 and then 'down the line,' and then into the 
 huts; that's what you're doing every living 
 day of your life here, giving a cup of hot choco- 
 late in his name; the Lord bless you every one. 
 When you guys go home you'll speak as you 
 never spoke before, and the people will wonder 
 what in thunder has come over you. What 
 is it that your book says? — 'As one having 
 authority.' That's the way you'll speak. 
 You'll be like the old colored fellow who ex- 
 plained what near beer was not; and since 
 this is the 'Brewery Gang' to which I am 
 speaking, I guess you'll all understand a story 
 about beer." 
 
 We all laughed and waited, for whatever 
 the "Count" said was worth listening to. 
 He was a Lincoln in his sincere and homely 
 philosophy; and reverent with it all. 
 
 "Well, somebody down in Virginia, after 
 
 that State went dry, asked Rastus what the 
 
 difference was between near beer and the real 
 139 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 stuff. Rastus replied: 'Well, sah, its 'bout 
 like dis. Dat dar near beer it look lak beer, 
 it taste lak beer, it sparkle lak beer, but it 
 jes' natu'lly don't have de authority, sah; 
 it jes' don't have de authority.' 
 
 "But when you fellows go back you'll have 
 the punch, the pep, and snap; you'll speak as 
 'one having authority.' There'll be a differ- 
 ence. You'll have known what it is to do 
 hard physical labor for somebody else. You've 
 known that it means to have your hands bleed 
 and your body weary, and your eyes heavy 
 with sleep; you've known what it means to 
 suffer in your body and soul for somebody else 
 — for those boys down there in the mud and 
 snow of the trenches. I call that a man's 
 work. I call that God's work too. And a lot 
 of us guys who never went near a church 
 before the war, when it's all over, we're going 
 to go to hear you fellows preach. 
 
 "When you're preaching on that text, 'Come 
 unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, 
 and I will give you rest,' you'll know what 
 it means to have been weary and to have had 
 need of rest; you'll know what it means to be 
 
 140 
 
THE BREWERY GANG 
 
 weary until you feel that you can't last the 
 day out, and your limbs yearn for rest. We 
 who hear you preach will know then, when 
 we hear you use that text, that you are not 
 camouflaging. Then, when you preach us a 
 labor sermon, like so many of you do — thank 
 God, when we hear you, we'll know that you 
 know what you're talking about. Then when 
 you preach about 'service' we'll know that 
 it's not all hot air; we'll know that you have 
 actually suffered over here to serve other 
 people. And, after all, aren't you at last 
 doing just what your Christ did when he was 
 alive? Sometimes maybe you fellows think 
 that you don't get a chance to preach much 
 over here in this work. Maybe you thought 
 that was all that you were to do, and maybe 
 you are disappointed down deep in your hearts 
 that you are doing nothing but driving trucks 
 or unloading freight or building huts here in 
 the pioneer division. Well, from my reading 
 of the Book, as I remember it — if I'm mis- 
 taken tell me, you guys — as I remember it, 
 Christ spent more time serving people, making 
 them comfortable in their bodies, healing their 
 
 141 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 wounds, giving them food to eat, curing their 
 blind eyes, and healing leprous bodies, than 
 he did in preaching, didn't he?" 
 
 There was a nod of assent from that crowd 
 of preacher truck-drivers. New light was be- 
 ginning to dawn in their souls as they remem- 
 bered the Christ, and somehow felt, in the face 
 of the "Count's" homely religious philosophy, 
 that, after all, they were having a chance to 
 serve as the Christ had served with bleeding 
 hands and feet. 
 
 "You fellows handled a lot of 'duck boards' 
 to-day in unloading that car. Did you ever 
 stop to think that over those 'duck boards,' 
 over those floorings for the huts, thousands of 
 American boys will walk to the only light and 
 heat and comfort that they will know down 
 front; that thousands of American boys will 
 walk over those boards going down into the 
 trenches, and hundreds of them into eternity?" 
 
 Then he was subdued a moment as the 
 face of his own boy came before him: "And 
 I tell you, men, when you have a boy of your 
 own down the line, and you think that maybe 
 he will walk over those 'duck boards' that you 
 
 142 
 
THE BREWERY GANG 
 
 guys handled to-day, it makes you want to 
 thank God for the opportunity of working, 
 working until your hands bleed, and you are 
 weary with exhaustion, in their service. I 
 know what war means," he continued. "Any- 
 body who has a boy in it knows. It means 
 loneliness, homesickness, heartbreak, heartache, 
 hatred, hurt, rain, pain, wounds, suffering, 
 death, fatherless children, childless fathers and 
 mothers, sad eyes, murder, and death. But 
 it means something else, men — it means that 
 some of us are having the first opportunity 
 of our lives to live as Christ lived and to do 
 his work in a very real and vital manner. 
 That's a man's job. That's God's job too." 
 
 And I add that the thing that won the 
 hearts of the boys in France, the willingness 
 to serve, will win their hearts for the church 
 and for the Master over here as they come home. 
 
 143 
 
•I 
 
 rng. 
 
 "7 am 001/10 £o fowm, Z)oc. . . . 
 But I'm only going to get 
 my -pants pressed'' 
 
 %^> 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE BIG BROTHER OF THE KHAKI 
 
 The Soldier — His Real Attitude Toward 
 The Y. M. C. A. During The War 
 
 I have tried in this book up to this time to 
 show the soldier in his attitude toward the 
 preacher, the personal representative of the 
 church in France; in his attitude toward the 
 sermon, an institution of the church service; 
 in his attitude toward prayer; in his attitude 
 toward the social service spirit of the church. 
 Now I shall introduce a chapter showing his 
 attitude toward the Y. M. C. A., the one out- 
 
 144 
 
THE BIG BROTHER OF THE KHAKI 
 
 standing organized representative of the 
 Church of the Christ in France. 
 
 For be it remembered that this organization 
 has the very name of "Christian" in it. It 
 makes no attempt to camouflage that connec- 
 tion. The leaders of the Y. M. C. A. have, 
 from the beginning of its war work, insisted 
 upon the fact that the organization was nothing 
 other than a branch of the church. They have 
 taught the soldiers that it was born in an 
 evangelistic service, and that it has always 
 been an arm of the church. 
 
 And be it also remembered that the boys 
 in France have accepted, with all their hearts, 
 this religious organization; and have entered 
 its doors and made it their home. They have 
 said in word, act, and letter, "We believe in 
 this arm of the church." 
 
 To understand this and to use this new 
 attitude toward this arm of the church is our 
 task and our great privilege and our tremendous 
 hope. 
 
 In spite of the unjust criticisms, after the war 
 the big brother of the khakis was the Y. M. C. A. 
 secretary. Thoughtful officers and men will 
 
 145 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 admit it. He has been crowned in the new 
 democracy by the English Tommy, the Amer- 
 ican Yank, the French Poilu, and the Canadian 
 and Australian from over the seas. He has not 
 sought the crown. In fact, he has avoided it. 
 He has gone out of his way to dodge it. But 
 it has been forced upon him. 
 
 He had been given permission to eat with 
 the officers' mess, but he deliberately chose, 
 nine times out of ten, to mess with the com- 
 mon soldier. He turned down the shoulder 
 straps, the commission and the Sam Brown 
 belt for the same reason when it was offered 
 to him. He wanted no barrier between himself 
 and the man he went to serve. The officers 
 understood this, and respected him for it. The 
 soldier who understood it, loved him for it. 
 
 I have heard of one college president who 
 went into a little outpost for work in the Y. M. 
 C. A. The secretary who had charge there 
 did not know that the new man was a college 
 president back home, and the new man did 
 not advertise the fact. When it came dinner 
 time the first day the new man asked where 
 he should eat. The secretary in charge said, 
 
 146 
 
THE BIG BROTHER OF THE KHAKI 
 
 "O, just follow some of the men in, and 
 mess with them. Make arrangements with 
 them." 
 
 So the college president followed the first 
 crowd he saw, and ate with them. He admits 
 now that he didn't exactly like the food. In 
 fact, it was pretty hard on him, but he was 
 game. The men were dressed a little differ- 
 ently from what he had expected soldiers to 
 be. They had on white suits, and some of 
 them ate in their shirt sleeves. They ap- 
 peared to be a sullen gang. Neither fellow on 
 either side of him spoke a word to him for 
 three days. 
 
 On the evening of the third day he dis- 
 covered that he had been eating at the prison- 
 ers' mess. On that first day he had followed 
 instructions, and had fallen in with the first 
 crowd he saw. That crowd was a gang of 
 German prisoners. 
 
 Then the secretary who told me this story 
 
 added, "But it made him with that camp; 
 
 the very fact that he, a college president, had 
 
 been game enough to do this and stick it out 
 
 without a word of complaint." Such democracy 
 147 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 as this is what made the soldier "dub" the 
 "Y" secretary the "Big Brother of the Khaki." 
 
 Then there was the New York business man 
 who came over from his easy life, with its 
 limousines, secretaries, stenographers, and a 
 luxurious home on Riverside Drive, who set- 
 tled down in the mud under a leaky roof, en- 
 during the hardships with his own men, work- 
 ing in a three-by-four room, his only equipment 
 a store box for a table, a smaller store box 
 for a seat, a candle for light, and not one 
 single thing besides. 
 
 He so entertained, and so brothered, and so 
 loved his way into the hearts of his regiment 
 of boys that one time, when he came to be 
 discouraged because he did not get additional 
 equipment from Paris, and had gone in to 
 resign and go home, but was persuaded to go 
 back to his little hut, on his arrival back in 
 that hut he was welcomed by his entire regiment 
 with cheers and handshakes and shouts of joy. 
 He had been winning their hearts in his little 
 hencoop of a hut without knowing. 
 
 Then there was that other New York busi- 
 ness man, who had never endured a hardship 
 
 148 
 
THE BIG BROTHER OF THE KHAKI 
 
 in all his life, and who, after living with his 
 boys for a long time, wrote to headquarters, 
 saying: "I've never been so cold, or so wet, or 
 so happy in my life. I have found my fellow 
 man. I have found myself. I have found my 
 God. In middle life I have been reborn." 
 
 And that boy in one of the camps whose 
 heart had been won by one of the girl canteen 
 workers. She was an M.D. back home, and 
 the men knew it. 
 
 The men soon got to knowing how much 
 the women workers disliked having them go to 
 the towns on leave, for it was there that the 
 bad women were, and the wine, and the moral 
 danger. So these mischievous American lads 
 like to tease the women workers. 
 
 One day this boy came along, with a twinkle 
 in his eye, and yelled, "I'm going to town, 
 Doctor." She looked disappointed. He laughed, 
 and then added, "But I'm only going to get 
 my pants pressed, Doc!" 
 
 She laughed with relief, but called after him, 
 "To prove it, you report to me when you get 
 back. Will you?" 
 
 "Yes," he flung back with a grin. 
 
 149 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 An hour or two later the lad came sailing 
 through the canteen where the woman worker 
 was busy, saluted her, and said, "Everything's 
 O. K., Doc. Good-night!" 
 
 Surely, if the men Y. M. C. A. workers were 
 called the "Big Brothers of the Khaki," the 
 women workers must be called "Big Sisters 
 in Khaki." 
 
 One is reminded of Hugo's "Quatrevingt- 
 treize," that dialogue in which Cimordain and 
 Gauvain discuss the new republic, and Ci- 
 mordain says, "And in this new republic the 
 man shall be the king." 
 
 "On one condition," said Gauvain. 
 
 "And what is that?" 
 
 "That the woman shall be the queen!" 
 
 Yes, the woman worker in the Y. M. C. A. 
 was queen over there. When we landed at a 
 certain port in France with our little band of 
 American girls, a group of soldiers saw us and 
 came rushing over and up to the girls with 
 their hats off. "American girls! Say, you 
 look good to us. We haven't seen an American 
 girl in two months! May we talk with you 
 while you wait for your train?" 
 
 150 
 
THE BIG BROTHER OF THE KHAKI 
 
 One girl was to go to a cantonment in south- 
 ern France, where she was the only girl among 
 thousands of American soldiers. They had 
 been there for six months without an American 
 woman in sight. Was she to be a queen? One 
 guess is enough. 
 
 My friend Dr. A. E. Enyart had two 
 striking experiences illustrative of the title of 
 this sketch. One was in a theater in Paris. 
 An American boy sat drinking with a harlot. 
 
 Secretary Enyart saw him, and motioned for 
 him to come over to where he was standing. 
 
 They got to talking, and the boy asked him 
 to change $70 in American money into French 
 money. 
 
 Mr. Enyart said, "No, I won't, for if I did, 
 that girl would get it all before morning, and 
 you probably have a wife or a mother back 
 there at home, who is a thousand times more 
 entitled to it than she is." 
 
 The boy went away, angry at first, but five 
 minutes later my friend was surprised to see 
 the lad at his side again. He didn't say much. 
 
 He reached out the seventy dollars to the 
 
 Y. M. C. A. secretary, gave his mother's ad- 
 151 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 dress in America, and said, "You are right. 
 Send it to her," and disappeared before the 
 secretary had a chance to get either his name 
 or company address. 
 
 Mr. Enyart sent the money, and has a 
 receipt for it from the American Express Com- 
 pany, but has never been able to locate the boy. 
 
 The remarkable thing about this story to 
 me is the fact that the soldier absolutely 
 trusted that Y. M. C. A. uniform, so much so, 
 in fact, that he handed his money over, with 
 his mother's address, to a "Y" man whom he had 
 never seen before, and left without even suggest- 
 ing that he be given a receipt for his money. 
 
 His other experience was with a French 
 official. Mr. Enyart had been in charge of 
 several Y. M. C. A. hotels in Paris. He was 
 purchasing agent also for all the Y. M. C. A. 
 work in this city. 
 
 The securing of coal was one of his hardest 
 
 problems. He found that to get coal at all 
 
 he must first visit a certain official and have 
 
 tea with him. This social preliminary would 
 
 last half of an afternoon, and the ordeal had 
 
 to be repeated frequently. 
 152 
 
THE BIG BROTHER OF THE KHAKI 
 
 Then, after the social preliminaries were all 
 over, Mr. Enyart found that he was always 
 told to go home and write a letter. He had 
 previously written this letter on the stationery 
 of the hotel, thinking that it was more im- 
 pressive. 
 
 But this particular time he was in a hurry, 
 and, knowing the ropes, he went prepared with 
 the letter already written on Y. M. C. A. 
 stationery. After the social preliminary of a 
 half afternoon was over, and he was being 
 dismissed with a request to go home and write 
 a letter, he remarked, "Here is a letter, mon- 
 sieur." 
 
 The official took the letter. His face began 
 to light up with a new comprehension. Here- 
 tofore Mr. Enyart had not seemed to make the 
 man understand what the Y. M. C. A. stood 
 for. He could not separate it from the army. 
 
 But here was something that he understood. 
 It was the red triangle on that stationery. 
 His face beamed as he looked up. 
 
 "Ah, oui!" he exclaimed. "Oui, oui, oui, 
 
 oui! You give my boy chocolate when he sick 
 
 at the war. I give you coal!" 
 153 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 One night I was walking along the crowded 
 streets of a certain port of entry, St. Navaire. 
 Suddenly three American soldiers staggered up 
 to me and said: "Shay, you're a Y. M. C. A. 
 guy, and you're all we got. You gotta take care 
 of us. Honest, we couldn't help gettin' drunk. 
 We've been in hoshpital two months, and got 
 leave " 
 
 "Yes, and I see you got something else 
 besides 'leave,' " I said to him. 
 
 "Jush take us to hotel anywhere; we got 
 money." 
 
 And I took them — three of them, so drunk 
 that I had to half carry them. This was my 
 first personal experience with a drunken soldier 
 in France; I had seen only a few of them, but 
 they needed my help. 
 
 I took them to the hotel, with the help of my 
 friend Senator Benson of California, vouched 
 for them and, after undressing them, washed 
 them and put them to bed. 
 
 The fact that there has been more or less 
 criticism of the Y. M. C. A. from certain 
 sources since the armistice was signed and the 
 boys have been coming home makes this chap- 
 
 154 
 
THE BIG BROTHER OF THE KHAKI 
 
 ter all the more worth while to the men and 
 women of the church. Let not Christ's people 
 be stampeded into believing all this adverse 
 talk. It has its well-defined source. Every 
 definite criticism is answerable. 
 
 The American soldier is about as "Billy" 
 Levere said he was. "Billy" was a secretary 
 in France. In speaking to the soldiers in the 
 camps he always used this introduction, lisp- 
 ing as he spoke: 
 
 "There are three things that I have always 
 noticed about a soldier. First, he ith always 
 broke; second, he ith always hungry; third, 
 wherever he ith he wishes to God he wath 
 thome place else." 
 
 From this spirit comes much of the kicking 
 against the Y. M. C. A. But the end will 
 vindicate that great arm of the church in its 
 work in France. When history writes its 
 ultimate page for the "Y" it will be a page 
 unspotted because of its unselfish service as 
 an institution of Christ. Such service as it 
 rendered cannot die. The vast majority of 
 boys will never be able to forget that it served 
 them in their dire distress. The few who 
 
 155 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 are criticizing now represent a small num- 
 ber. 
 
 Men who, although in the church, have been 
 swayed by the storm of criticism, may have 
 their faith renewed in some of the incidents 
 that follow showing the love that the boys 
 have for the Y. M. C. A. in France and their 
 attitude toward this Christian institution. 
 
 While I was putting the drunken boys to 
 bed I got their story. All three of them had 
 been wounded in the last drive near Soisson. 
 One was a sergeant, and the other two boys 
 referred everything to him. 
 
 One lad tried to tell me what they thought 
 of the Y. M. C. A. He started off with enthusi- 
 asm: "W're goin' lick the Germans, and the 
 Y. M. Shay's going to help us! We're goin' 
 to drive the Germans into Berlin, and the 
 Y. M. Shay— is " 
 
 But that pronunciation of the letters Y. M. 
 C. A. was too much for his tongue, so he 
 waved his hand to the sergeant, and said, 
 "Sergeant, you tell them what we think of 
 the Y. M. Shay; I can't." 
 
 Then he forgot his linguistic failings and 
 
 156 
 
THE BIG BROTHER OF THE KHAKI 
 
 started again telling me about how the Y. M. 
 C. A. had given them chocolate and had fol- 
 lowed them into the Somme line, but before 
 he had half finished he got discouraged and 
 turning to the sergeant said, again, "Sergeant, 
 you tell them what Y. M. Shay did." 
 
 Three times he started out on his eulogy 
 of the Y. M. C. A. The last time about how 
 the Y. M. C. A. man had brought him in 
 from the field on a truck; but here too he had 
 to fall back on the sergeant and he said, "Ser- 
 geant — Sergeant, you tell them how much we 
 think of the Y. M. Shay." 
 
 But the sergeant was asleep, and so I never 
 did hear what the boys thought of the Y. M. 
 C. A., save when the last one to stay awake 
 called me over and said, "Here's nine hundred 
 francs; take them and keep them for me until 
 to-morrow." 
 
 I took the money and said, "I'll give you 
 a receipt for it." 
 
 "Don't want any receipt. You're Y. M. 
 Shay; that's enough for me. You're Y. M. 
 Shay. Don't want any receipt." 
 
 "Well, I'll just mark it down here how much 
 
 157 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 I've got anyhow," I replied. That insulted 
 him. 
 
 "Don't want any receipt; don't want any 
 marks; Y. M. Shay is all right; can't insult 
 Y. M. Shay in my presence, without a fight" 
 — and he attempted to get out of bed to 
 avenge the insult I had offered to the 
 Y. M. C. A. 
 
 Drunk as they were, they trusted a perfect 
 stranger, because he had on a "Y" uniform. 
 
 Another night I picked up a drunken boy 
 who was lying in a pool of water. He was 
 afraid I was an M. P., and protested against 
 going with me. 
 
 I said, "I'm a Y. M. C. A. secretary, and 
 I'm going to take you to my room and wash 
 you up and keep you all night, so you can 
 report to duty looking like a man instead of 
 a pig." He was then satisfied and said, "Let 
 me feel your cap; I'll know then." 
 
 I let him feel my cap and he felt the red 
 triangle and was satisfied for a time, but just 
 as I was taking him into my office he got nerv- 
 ous again. There was a dim light burning 
 on my office door. He looked at it and was 
 
 158 
 
THE BIG BROTHER OF THE KHAKI 
 
 sure that I was an M. P., and was taking him 
 to headquarters. 
 
 He wouldn't go in until he had read what 
 it said on the door. He spelled the letters out 
 word by word like a little child: "R-E-L-I-G- 
 I-O-U-S D-I-R-E-C-T-0-R. ,, Then he turned 
 to me and said, staggering as he spoke, "Shay, 
 maybe you don't know it, but you're doing 
 pretty good piece of religious work now, old 
 man; pretty good piece of religious work." 
 
 Stories like these and experiences like these 
 make one dismiss with a smile the petty crit- 
 icisms about inefficient canteen work, for we 
 know that down deep in the human heart 
 the organization will be judged by its greater 
 service; its service to the souls of men; and 
 it was this greater service that made the vast 
 majority of boys in France not only accept 
 it as their own club and home, but accept it 
 with a complete abandonment of eagerness that 
 warms our hearts as we who saw it remember 
 it. The preacher who can see back of the 
 criticisms the realities; who knows that these 
 ungrateful words do not represent the spirit of 
 
 the great majority of soldiers, will not approach 
 
 159 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 the average boy with any feeling of chagrin for 
 this arm of the church that became the "Big 
 Brother of the Khaki" in France through sheer 
 merit in serving. 
 
 160 
 
"You bet your life 
 they read itl" 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE BOOK AND THE BOY 
 
 The Soldier — His Attitude Toward 
 The Bible 
 
 What has been the boy's attitude toward 
 the Bible? Has he been indifferent to it? 
 Has he scorned it as he might have done at 
 home many times? Has he treated it as a 
 book for "children and missionaries and old 
 ladies"? Has he felt ashamed at the thought 
 of being found dead with one in his pocket? 
 Has he been ashamed for the folks at home 
 
 to know that he carries one into the trenches 
 
 161 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 with him, and ashamed for them to know that 
 he read it every day? 
 
 A complete understanding of his attitude 
 toward the Book will help us to understand 
 him better as he comes back. It will help 
 us to meet him more than half way. We will 
 not have to talk about his new attitude, for 
 that would be the most foolish thing im- 
 aginable to do. We shall not be afraid of 
 him when we know. The knowledge that 
 this chapter gives us shall make us bold as 
 we approach him. This knowledge shall 
 make us feel that we can "pal" up to 
 him. 
 
 To know that he read the Bible, and that 
 he carried it around with him, and that he 
 pasted his mother's picture in it, and that 
 the Bible that he carried through the war is 
 as valuable a souvenir as the Boche helmet 
 that he captured; to know that he not only 
 read it but that he is willing to boast of having 
 read it; to know that he has it marked up 
 with turned-down leaves and pencil dashes — 
 all this will make us brave as lions in our 
 own hearts when we meet him. That is the 
 
 162 
 
THE BOOK AND THE BOY 
 
 purpose of this chapter and, in whole, that 
 is the purpose of this book. 
 
 There have never been enough Bibles in 
 France to supply the demand for them. I have 
 gone into the Y. M. C. A. headquarters many 
 times for New Testaments and have been told 
 that none were available. I am not telling 
 this truth to criticize the Y. M. C. A., for it 
 had done its best to get Bibles enough 
 to supply the demand, but shipping facilities 
 had made that impossible. As it was, the 
 "Y" had shipped to France and had given 
 away literally millions of New Testaments. 
 But that did not keep up with the demand. 
 On the other hand, I am telling it to illustrate 
 the thrilling truth that the boys were so eager 
 to have a Bible or a New Testament with 
 them that the demand was greater than the 
 supply. 
 
 I was the religious director of a large port 
 I of entry for two months, and I never could 
 keep enough Testaments and Bibles on hand 
 to supply the demand for them. We hoarded 
 Bibles like we hoarded sweets at times. We 
 had a rule that when the supply of sweets was 
 
 163 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 low, only so much was to go to a man. 
 Especially was this true down near the front 
 lines when it was almost impossible at times 
 to get supplies up to the men. Here the rule 
 was as absolute as the law of the Medes and 
 Persians that only a certain amount went to 
 a man. In some cases it was necessary for 
 one secretary to confine his selling activities 
 to men of a certain regiment, and when strag- 
 glers came in he had to say, "No, I can't sell 
 to you, for you don't belong to my regiment." 
 It was too bad, but it had to be done. When 
 the reader remembers that often there was 
 but one secretary to ten thousand men he 
 will understand the problem. 
 
 So we had to hoard our Bibles. 
 
 Growing desperate, I used to send over to 
 England for Bibles. Out of ten lots that I 
 ordered only six lots reached me. The rest 
 were sunk by submarines. We had to do this 
 because the Religious Department at the 
 Y. M. C. A. headquarters in Paris could not 
 keep up with the demand. 
 
 "Gimme a real, honest-to-God Bible," said 
 a big fellow, marching into a hut one day. 
 
 164 
 
THE BOOK AND THE BOY 
 
 We wondered what he meant by an "honest- 
 to-God-Bible." The religious director of that 
 hut sKpped back to me and asked what I 
 thought. 
 
 I said: "He means a Douay Version. He's 
 a Catholic." For we were also supplying the 
 Douay Version of the Bible by thousands to 
 Catholic boys. I myself had supplied the 
 Catholic chaplains with this version. They 
 had none of their own and were overjoyed 
 to receive them from the Y. M. C. A. religious 
 director. 
 
 But this was not what the boy wanted. 
 
 I thought that perhaps he was a Jew and 
 wanted a Jewish Bible, a supply of which we 
 carried. No, it was not that. 
 
 I went out myself and the boy said, "You 
 know — one of them 'Honest-to-God Bibles'; the 
 kind that has it all in." 
 
 Then I caught on. He wanted a complete 
 Bible with the New and Old Testament. Gen- 
 erally, in fact almost universally, we gave out 
 only the New Testament. I do not know the 
 reason for this, but it is a fact. You could 
 hardly get a complete Bible from the Y. M. 
 
 165 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 C. A.; and frequently secretaries had requests 
 for the entire Bible. 
 
 The first contact that I had with the won- 
 derful spreading of the Testaments over France 
 was in an enlisted men's hotel, in Paris, the 
 Pavilion. In every room there was a Testa- 
 ment for the boy as he came back to Paris 
 from the front. One sat down there at meals 
 with boys from every "outfit" in France. 
 For breakfast it was a doughboy from Verdun 
 who had just been in the trenches for three 
 months. For lunch it was with a boy who 
 had been shot to pieces at Gallipoli. For 
 dinner it was in a group of Australians who 
 had been in from the beginning through it all. 
 
 The first day that I arrived in this hotel 
 
 there was a neat little New Testament left 
 
 on my table in my room and a note telling me 
 
 that it had been left there as a gift to me 
 
 from the Y. M. C. A. I inquired if the boys 
 
 generally took them back to the trenches with 
 
 them, and those in charge of the hotel said, 
 
 "We have never had a boy refuse a Khaki 
 
 Testament in this hotel, and we have given 
 
 out thousands." 
 
 166 
 
THE BOOK AND THE BOY 
 
 Up front in the huts I heard some fascinating 
 tales of the boy and the Book. In the first 
 place, in the warehouses, side by side with 
 the chocolate and the toothbrushes I saw the 
 Bibles. They were being shipped out. An 
 order would come in for "One box of chocolates, 
 one box of petite biscuits; one box of tooth- 
 brushes; one hundred Testaments. " 
 
 One Testament that I found had a couplet 
 inside: 
 
 "This book will keep you from sin, 
 Or sin will keep you from this book.' 
 
 The boys were challenged by that couplet. 
 It was followed by a list of suggestive readings, 
 and I have learned with a sigh of regret and 
 joy that these suggestions were eagerly grasped 
 at by the average boy, both because he knew 
 so little of the Book and because he was so 
 eager to know more about it. It was a com- 
 mon sight to see men come up to the secretary 
 of a canteen, especially when they were going 
 into the line, and beg him to mark their Bibles. 
 Thousands of boys gladly signed the "Pocket 
 Testament League pledge" which reads: "I 
 
 167^ 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 hereby accept membership in the Pocket 
 Testament League by making it the rule of 
 my life to read at least one chapter in the 
 Bible each day, and to carry a Bible or Testa- 
 ment with me wherever I go." 
 
 Some of the Testaments had various attrac- 
 tive features about them, but all of them went 
 like the proverbial hot cakes. About the 
 most popular thing that a man could have 
 about his canteen was a Bible. Some of the 
 Bibles had a hymn on one page, and on the 
 other a "Decision" place and pledge. 
 
 The Testaments were not forced on the 
 boys. They were piled up on every counter 
 in every hut canteen. A sign was put up — 
 "Take One," or "These Are For You," or just 
 "Free." And when a pile was put up it melted 
 like snow on a warm day. The supply was 
 never as great as the demand, let the people 
 at home remember. Every secretary was cry- 
 ing for more Testaments all the time. I have 
 seen boys stand in line in huts when they heard 
 that a new supply of Testaments was in, and 
 I too, much to my own sorrow, have seen them 
 go away disappointed without one. 
 
 168 
 
THE BOOK AND THE BOY 
 
 Secretaries had their own ways of handing 
 out the Testaments. One day a friend of 
 mine, Mr. Shipp, associate general secretary in 
 France, was approaching a new hut down in 
 a woods where a lot of engineers were camping. 
 He saw, long before he reached the hut, a 
 line of men, like he had seen at the Polo Grounds 
 in New York before a big ball game or at a 
 theater. He thought that there must be 
 something special that day and approached the 
 hut eagerly. What he found astonished him. 
 
 The secretary was handing out New Testa- 
 ments, but he was doing it in a new way. In 
 each Testament he was putting his own name 
 and address back in Cleveland, and side by 
 side with his own name he was putting the 
 name of the boy who received the Testament. 
 Then he was taking down in his own notebook 
 the lad's home address. The boys liked this 
 secretary, and they wanted one of those Testa- 
 ments with its personal touch. Consequently, 
 to get a Bible they stood in line as they had 
 done back home for baseball tickets. 
 
 Dr. Dan Poling was very deeply impressed 
 
 with an experience that he had in a hut when 
 169 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 he was down on our front line at Toul for a 
 week on a tour of inspection. But the secre- 
 taries who worked day and night, and day after 
 day, week after week, and month after month, 
 especially in our front huts, had this experience 
 every time a new bunch of boys went into the 
 trenches. 
 
 Dr. Poling was standing one night read- 
 ing his Testament. A company of "dough- 
 boys" was going into the front line trenches 
 to relieve some lads who had been in there 
 for eight days. A boy saw him reading the 
 Testament and bashfully walked up to him 
 and said, "Say, mark this one of mine, will 
 you?" As Dr. Poling took it the lad added, 
 "Mark some good ones now, old top!" 
 
 It was the holy joy of a new experience to 
 
 this good man. But, much to his Christian 
 
 glee, when he had finished marking that one 
 
 Testament, up came another lad with one 
 
 saying, "Mark mine too, pal!" He finished 
 
 that one when up came another lad, saying 
 
 "Mine too, sir, please." And then another, 
 
 and another, and another, until they were 
 
 actually standing in line to have their Testa- 
 
 170 
 
THE BOOK AND THE BOY 
 
 ments marked — that crowd of boys going into 
 the trenches. Poling said that toward the last 
 of that line he didn't know whether he was 
 laughing or crying, and neither did the boys. 
 And neither did I when he told me about it. 
 
 I asked him what he marked and he said, 
 "0, Matthew— the fifth chapter; Matthew 
 10-18; 11-42; the 6th chapter, 19th and 20th 
 verses; and old reliable John 3. 16; Romans 
 8. 35, 36, 37, 38, and 39; Matthew 28-30, and 
 as many more as I could think of in the rush. 
 I wish I'd had more time. They kept me 
 jumping. I thought I knew the Bible, but 
 those were precious moments, and every mark 
 I knew counted. I never knew before how 
 valuable it was to know just where to turn, 
 for those lads had to go out into the night 
 in five minutes." 
 
 "Did they read the Bible?" one who has been 
 over there is asked by lip and letter. 
 
 "Did they read it?" 
 
 "Indeed they did!" is one answer, and "You 
 bet your life they read it!" is another I have 
 heard frequently from secretaries, who have 
 
 seen them reading it in their billets, in the 
 
 171 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 huts, in the trenches, in the hospitals, every- 
 where. 
 
 "A fellow likes to have the good passages 
 marked when he's down there in the trenches, 
 with eight days hanging on his hands, for he 
 has a lot of time to read, and that book's 
 interesting," one lad said to me one day. 
 
 Another boy after he had read the story of 
 Christ exclaimed in true soldier language, with 
 great fervidness, "That feller Christ that I read 
 about in this book; all I gotta say is 'I'm for 
 him.' " 
 
 Maybe some of our dear, delightful, "One- 
 way-to-do-it" friends, "one-way-to-bend-the- 
 knee-and-none-other-cro wd, '" 'one- way-to-crook 
 the-elbo w-f raternity , " * 'one- way-to-intone-the- 
 prayer-and-one-alone" crowd, wouldn't call this 
 "I'm for him" of the lad, a recruit to the 
 Master. You see, he didn't sign any card, 
 and he didn't kneel down anywhere, and he 
 didn't grab my hand, and he didn't say, "I 
 pledge this or that"; and he didn't cry, and he 
 didn't laugh, and he didn't shout, and he 
 didn't join anything. He just said, "I'm for 
 him!" but I've never heard a declaration of 
 
 172 
 
THE BOOK AND THE BOY 
 
 loyalty to the Christ anywhere within church 
 walls that had quite the fervor or that meant 
 quite so much as that from that lad under 
 the canvas walls of a Y. M. C. A. hut in France. 
 And the light in his eyes was like the break- 
 ing of a new day along the hills. 
 
 Yes, our boys read the book. They had a 
 lot of time in the trenches, and in the billets 
 and in the camps, and they read everything 
 in sight. They liked the Testament too. They 
 kept their copies in their pockets, especially if 
 they were marked by some personal touch of 
 somebody back home or a secretary or a 
 chaplain. 
 
 If some of the wives or mothers or sweet- 
 hearts who loved enough to give their lads 
 Testaments with their names in them, could 
 have seen how those books were treasured it 
 would have warmed their hearts as the sum- 
 mer sun warms a rosebud and brings out all 
 the glorious perfume there is in it. I think the 
 richest perfume I ever smelled, such that it 
 intoxicated me with its witchery, was a great 
 American Beauty down in Pasadena which 
 
 had been warmed all morning by the summer 
 
 173 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 sun. And so your women hearts would scent 
 the world with happiness if you could see your 
 pictures pasted in these Testaments as I have 
 seen them, pasted just down below where you 
 signed your names in them, or if you could see 
 
 written as I have "To be sent to ," with 
 
 the home address of some loved one. Or if 
 you could hear a boy say, as one said to me, 
 showing me a soiled, dirty Testament: "That's 
 been in the trenches three times. It's been 
 across the Atlantic. It's been in Paris. It's 
 been at the Argonne. It's been in England. 
 It's been under shell fire dozens of times. 
 It's been in gas attacks. It's been everywhere 
 that I've been, and, by heck, it's going to keep 
 on going right with me wherever I go. I read 
 it every day sometimes. Maybe it's at night; 
 maybe it's in the morning just before mess 
 if it's light enough. I've read it by the light 
 of a new day. I've read it by the light of a 
 candle in a dugout when the Boche was bombin' 
 us. I've read it in a Paris hotel sittin' comfy- 
 like in a big leather chair, with electric lights 
 overhead. I've read it by the light of matches 
 
 in an open field in training quarters. I've 
 
 174 
 
THE BOOK AND THE BOY 
 
 read it by flashing my Ever-Ready on it in a 
 listin' post. I've read it by moonlight. I've 
 read it on trains. I've read it on boats. I've 
 read it on rumblin' trucks." 
 
 He paused for a few minutes feeling that 
 book with his hand, patting it tenderly as he 
 would his dog or pet as a boy (and he was 
 after all only a boy) ; then he finished with this 
 statement: "And when this darned war is 
 over that little old Testament is goin' back 
 home with me, and I'm goin' to give it to her!" 
 
 Just then duty called me. I never did learn 
 who "her" was. I am sure that he would have 
 told me had I waited, but I could not wait 
 at that time. But that boy's enthusiasm for 
 that book which had been with him through 
 everything hovered around me as a holy 
 light for days. 
 
 "Her" may have meant his mother, who gave 
 
 it to him the last thing as she tried to hide 
 
 the tears at the train or the boat. "Her" 
 
 may have meant his sister. "Her" may have 
 
 meant his wife. "Her" may have meant his 
 
 sweetheart, and thank God for the thousands 
 
 of sweethearts who sent boys to France with 
 175 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 Bibles in their pockets, one of their most 
 treasured possessions. 
 
 But standing out above all of one's various 
 experiences in France is the great fact that 
 the boys have been reading the Bible. They 
 have read it naturally and simply. They have 
 not been ashamed to be seen reading it. No 
 man ever had a shoe shied at him, as Tom 
 Brown did when he prayed — not in France in 
 the American army. It was not considered an 
 unusual thing for a boy to be sitting on his 
 bunk or standing in a trench reading the Bible. 
 
 I do not mean to say that the American 
 soldier was a psalm-singing piece of piety. 
 Never! But I do mean to say that he had a 
 warm, friendly, comraderie, human, natural, un- 
 affected man-interest in the book. 
 
 I think that knowledge of this truth will 
 help us to understand him as he comes back 
 to us. 
 
 176 
 
"I knew youd 
 come, Tomt" 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 "I'M FOR HIM!" 
 
 The Soldier — His Attitude Toward 
 The Master 
 
 The boys have believed in Christ. They 
 have accepted him as their friend and a fellow 
 crusader. If you asked them to state it this 
 way they would never do so, but to get any- 
 thing like a complete understanding of the boy 
 who has been in France you must know that 
 he has accepted the Christ. It may have been 
 such an expression as the boy made in the last 
 chapter, "I'm for him," but it was definite. 
 
 177 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 He may not have accepted him in any 
 formal way. He may never have signed a 
 card. He may never have stood in a meet- 
 ing. He may never have said to a living soul 
 that he has accepted Christ, but down deep 
 in his own living, vital, throbbing soul he has 
 seen that the Christ was a man and that the 
 Christ was more than that; that he was divine; 
 and he has accepted him. 
 
 I think that it is Donald Hankey who heard 
 a Tommy say, "We don't know much about 
 the church, but we do know the Christ." 
 
 I refer the reader to the story of the boy 
 with whom I talked in the tent; the boy who 
 was reading the story of Gethsemane and 
 reading it in the light of his own experiences; 
 the boy who had come by the route not only 
 of a crude reasoning but also of a vital expe- 
 rience to an understanding and an acceptance 
 of the Christ as comrade and friend and Saviour. 
 
 Dr. Merle Smith, pastor of the First Method- 
 ist Episcopal Church of Pasadena, confirms my 
 experience with the boys, and that is, that 
 they are not so much interested in a human 
 Christ either as they are interested in a living, 
 
 178 
 
"I'M FOR HIM!" 
 
 vital, mystic Christ. I mean by this that the 
 old story of Christ the carpenter, Christ the 
 man who was supremely human, Christ the 
 man who lived as we live and suffered as we 
 suffer, did not make such a great appeal as did 
 the mystic Christ. 
 
 Dr. Smith tells of one night when he was 
 addressing a crowd of boys down near the 
 front lines. He was emphasizing the human 
 Christ. I think most of us felt that that 
 was the best approach when we first went 
 to France. Perhaps we may be forgiven 
 our lack of insight into this tremendous 
 situation at first flush. We were so eagerly 
 anxious to get into the boy's heart and to 
 get him to knowing our Christ that we made 
 the approach through the human Christ. 
 
 But I presume it was that the boys had seen 
 how feeble and frail humanity was — even well- 
 trained officers, even old army men — in the 
 face of a terrific barrage. They had seen the 
 weakness of the human. They had seen 
 that there must be something higher and 
 stronger and more eternal than the human. 
 So they had come to know that the kind of 
 
 179 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 a Christ that they needed was not a human 
 Christ but a divine Christ; a Christ who was 
 not touched by bullets and shells; a Christ 
 that physical limitation did not hamper, a 
 Christ who could walk with them and talk 
 with them amid the rain and hail of machine- 
 gun fire and rifle bullets and bursting shrapnel. 
 
 It is for this reason that stories like "The 
 Comrade in White" grew up about the war; 
 stories a thousand times more real than shells 
 and guns. It is for this reason, or, rather, 
 in answer to this need that "The Christ of 
 Flanders" was perhaps the most popular war 
 poem not only to the folks at home but also 
 to the men in the field. And this poem, as we 
 all know, is full of a beautiful mysticism. In- 
 deed, as one who follows the new poetry care- 
 fully says, "All the war poetry was mystic 
 poetry. You cannot name me a great war 
 poem that dealt with Christ as just the human 
 Christ." 
 
 I had to admit that he was right. 
 
 So Dr. Smith was preaching to them about 
 the humanness of Christ, the carpenter Christ, 
 when he noticed a listlessness on the part of 
 
 18Q 
 
"I'M FOR HIM!" 
 
 the men and he felt that he was not "putting 
 it over," as he says in the language of the boys. 
 Then he suddenly switched to a story and a 
 quoting of "Christ in Flanders." There was 
 a sudden quickening in interest. It was as 
 if an electrical wave had swept over that crowd 
 of boys. They sat up on the benches. Those 
 who were writing letters stopped writing and 
 began to listen to the story of this mystic 
 Christ who could be, not in earthly form, 
 but in spiritual form, with them and among 
 them. What they wanted and what they 
 needed was a mystic Christ, a mystic Christ 
 who was not encumbered with human limita- 
 tions, a Christ who could walk with them out 
 in No Man's Land, where no human being 
 could come, where not even the most fear- 
 less stretcher-bearer or surgeon dared go. The 
 mystic Christ was there; men saw him; men 
 felt his hand on their brows; men heard him 
 speak to them; and you could never make 
 them believe otherwise. They expected him 
 and he came. 
 
 Association Men tells the story of a boy who 
 was wounded and who lay out in No Man's 
 181 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 Land. His own brother was in the trenches, 
 and, knowing of this casualty, begged his cap- 
 tain for the privilege of crawling out into 
 No Man's Land to his brother, but the caD- 
 tain refused. 
 
 "It would mean certain death. You could 
 never reach him alive, much less do him any 
 good. It would only mean that in addition 
 to losing him I would lose you also. I can- 
 not let you go." 
 
 But the boy pleaded, and finally the cap- 
 tain, who was human and who had a brother 
 of his own, permitted the lad to go out to his 
 own brother. 
 
 The lad crawled cautiously over the top of 
 the trench. Then he worked his way from 
 shell-hole to shell-hole toward his wounded 
 brother. It was a terrible task. His friends 
 watched him every minute. They expected to 
 see his body blown to pieces with a shell. 
 Sometimes he lay for a half an hour in a shell 
 hole before he could proceed. Several times 
 the Germans spotted him, and hundreds of 
 rifle bullets whined over his head. 
 
 At last he crawled down into the hole where 
 
 182 
 
"I'M FOR HIM!" 
 
 his brother lay. He remained there for an 
 hour and then laboriously crawled back and re- 
 ported to his captain. 
 
 "Well, what was the use of you're going? 
 You found him dead as I expected." 
 
 "No, I didn't, sir; he was alive. I poured 
 water down his throat. He was unconscious 
 when I crawled down into the shellhole, but 
 when I poured the water into his throat he 
 opened his eyes, sir, and he said, 'It's Tom; 
 I knew you'd come, Tom!' " 
 
 And so wherever they were — out in No 
 Man's Land, buried in a dugout, or under a 
 mass of ruins, they wanted a Christ that 
 could come to them. They wanted a Christ 
 who was not limited by human weaknesses of 
 body or blood. They wanted a Christ and 
 they believed in a Christ and they accepted 
 a Christ, who walked at night among the 
 wounded out in No Man's Land, and this kind 
 of a Christ they found walking there, and this 
 kind of a Christ they believed in and talked with 
 and prayed to with all their souls. And when 
 they come back, as they are now doing, they 
 
 will be men who have walked with such a Christ. 
 
 183 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 Dr. Merle Smith also called my attention to 
 the name the boys used for the Master. They 
 called Him "The Saviour." 
 
 "It was like a blow in the face to me," said 
 this great clergyman. "It made me suddenly 
 aware of the fact that I had not been using 
 that name for my Master much in my 
 preaching. But from that day to this that 
 phrase, 'The Saviour', has come back into my 
 preaching vocabulary. The boys taught me 
 that." 
 
 To fully understand the soldier the preacher 
 must know this. He must know that the kind 
 of a Christ in whom they believed was a mystic 
 Christ. And in Him they believed as few men 
 who have not walked close to the mouth of 
 hell can believe. 
 
 If such a Christ be presented to them, the 
 preacher will find an atmosphere of acceptance 
 and sympathy. Let this be remembered in the 
 reconstruction days that are now upon us. 
 
 In "Out To Win," one of Coningsby Daw- 
 son's latest books, I quote a couplet which 
 about expresses the kind of a Christ in whom 
 
 the boys believed in France: 
 
 184 
 
"I'M FOR HIM!" 
 
 "I hear and to myself I say, 
 'Why, Christ walks with me every day.' " 
 
 The one theme to which boys would always 
 listen was that of the Christ. They frankly 
 didn't want and wouldn't listen to a theolog- 
 ical discussion on the doctrines. They did 
 not want a lecture when they were expecting 
 a sermon. They kicked about this to the 
 secretaries. When a man came to them on 
 Sunday from whom they had a right to expect 
 a sermon, if they didn't get it, they felt as 
 folks who came for bread and had been given 
 stones and, like the true Americans that they 
 were, they entered a protest. A few experiences 
 like this made any new speaker see that he 
 needn't be afraid to preach Christ to these 
 American boys. That was what they expected; 
 that was what they wanted most of all in their 
 sermons; that was the one theme that would 
 hold them fascinated. Wise speakers soon 
 found this out. 
 
 No reconstruction effort is complete that 
 does not have back of it the consciousness that 
 this has been the attitude of the boy toward 
 the Christ. It has not only been an attitude 
 
 185 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 of an acceptance of the historical Christ, and 
 an acceptance of the humanitarian Christ, but 
 it has been more than that; it has been the 
 attitude of a comradeship with the mystic, 
 the eternal, the spiritual Christ. He has not 
 only accepted this mystic Christ, but he has 
 taken him into the most secret place of his 
 innermost soul and has called him "Comrade." 
 He has realized not only his oneness with 
 Christ, but he has realized through that Christ 
 his oneness with the Father. 
 
 One need not hesitate to preach Christ to 
 this boy when he comes back into the churches. 
 One must remember that he does not want 
 his preaching about Christ diluted. In his 
 own words, he "wants his preaching straight." 
 He doesn't want any lectures. He doesn't 
 want to be entertained. He wants his old 
 friend of France, the Saviour. 
 
 Drive Christ out of the church, and you 
 drive the boy out; welcome Christ, and you 
 welcome the boy. 
 
 186 
 
"On a tree such as this 
 Jesus was crucified" 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE NEW CALVARY 
 
 The Soldier — His Attitude Toward 
 The Cross 
 
 The authors quoted in this chapter have 
 been men who have been in intimate contact 
 with what might be called the souls of the 
 soldiers. They are men who have either been 
 on the battlefields of France or who have had 
 loved ones there, and in two instances they 
 are men who have lost sons. They are thought- 
 ful men who have delved into the depths of 
 the thing, and it is thrilling to see that, from 
 
 the hearts of these thinking men, who are 
 
 187 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 interpreting in turn the hearts of the soldiers, 
 contemporary war literature is, consciously 
 or unconsciously, interpreting the great 
 world conflict in terms of a new Calvary. 
 One will find this note in the almost innumer- 
 able books which have been written by soldiers 
 from the trenches; men who have never in 
 all their lives before given Jesus Christ a loyal 
 thought, but who feel a real comradeship with 
 the Master now, and who have come to under- 
 stand, in their fullest meaning, both Geth- 
 semane and Calvary. The books of their expe- 
 riences have been pouring in upon us, and we 
 have been reading them with the utmost eager- 
 ness, for we have learned by reading several 
 books which have come out of the trenches, 
 from the pens of men who never before thought 
 to write, that these erstwhile thoughtless, play- 
 ing, careless, laughing boys have come to 
 marvelous articulation because of their expe- 
 riences. And in most of these books one 
 finds the note of Calvary struck, a note which 
 finds immediate response and understanding in 
 the hearts of millions of readers because they 
 
 too have passed through their own sufferings. 
 
 188 
 
THE NEW CALVARY 
 
 Somehow, in a strangely unanimous fashion, 
 every thoughtful writer who, through prose or 
 poetry, attempts to interpret the war turns at 
 last to Golgotha. They do not all use the or- 
 thodox phraseology, but they cannot get away 
 from that interpretation. Read a hundred 
 books that have actually come out of the blood, 
 the glare, the flare, the heat, the hurt, the hate, 
 the sorrow and suffering of the war, and in 
 more than half of these books, selected at ran- 
 dom, you will hear the note of a tragic and yet 
 a triumphant Calvary struck continually. 
 
 Coningsby Dawson defines the war in these 
 terms in "Carry On," that remarkable series 
 of personal letters which he wrote home. In 
 one which he wrote to his mother he makes it 
 clear not only that he believes that those who 
 remained at home, especially the women, were 
 bearing the harder cross, but he also makes it 
 clear in striking phraseology that he too is 
 interpreting the war in the light of the cru- 
 cifixion, and he writes to his mother these 
 lines: 
 
 "We have been carried up to the Calvary of the 
 
 world, where it is expedient that some men should 
 189 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 suffer that the generation to come may be better. 
 Your end of the business is the worse. For me, I 
 can go forward steadily because of the greatness of 
 the glory. I never thought to have the chance to 
 suffer in my body for other men." 
 
 One of the most vivid illustrations of how 
 war literature, most of which is written by 
 the soldier himself, is expressing the war in 
 terms of Calvary is found in a description of 
 the battle of Ypres. The writer, Dr. A. D. 
 Enyart, dean of Rollins College for many 
 years, was an eyewitness of this great battle, 
 and his description of it has been copied far 
 and near. He says: 
 
 "For miles around there was not a spot as large 
 as a bucket that had not been shelled, and when I 
 arrived just back of the batteries it was a barren 
 waste as far as we could see. Intense bombardment 
 had been kept up all night, and when I say bom- 
 bardment it does not describe it at all adequately. 
 All the hells of Dante and Milton and Faust and 
 the Bible fade into insignificance compared with 
 this. I walked beside the big guns; heard the short, 
 sharp firing commands: 'No. 1, fire; No. 2, fire; 
 Nos. 3, 4, 5, 6, fire ten rounds'; and as each order 
 
 190 
 
THE NEW CALVARY 
 
 was given hell was let loose. Information was being 
 continually sent down by wireless from scouting 
 aeroplanes overhead, and following this information 
 belching fire shot out of the mouths of the big guns. 
 Now and then a shell from the Germans would 
 break near enough to where we were standing to 
 let us know that the battle was not all one-sided. 
 Amid this continual roar I passed the night. 
 
 "At daybreak I was taken by an English officer to 
 the brow of a hill overlooking a valley filled with a 
 gray mist. It was cold, and I was chilled through 
 to the bone. Suddenly he looked at his watch and 
 said, 'In just one minute, down there, the Tommies 
 will go over the top.' The words were hardly out 
 of his mouth before the minute had passed and a 
 deadly silence settled down over us. I wondered 
 what that silence meant. 
 
 "The big guns had stopped to let the boys make 
 their charge as per schedule. It was a silence like 
 death. In that silence things around me attracted 
 my attention that I had not noticed before. I 
 peered through the fog across the hill where shell 
 fire from the Germans had previously torn every- 
 thing to bits, even great trunks of what had for- 
 merly been giant trees. But suddenly there loomed 
 through the morning mists, high over that valley 
 
 through which the Tommies were charging to their 
 191 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 death, as though it were looking down from that 
 hillside on the scene below and trying to define the 
 significance of that valley of the Shadow, with its 
 gaunt arms extended, appeared the limb of an old 
 tree, broken by shell fire, which had so fallen that 
 it was caught in the shape of a cross. As I looked 
 at that crude cross I remembered that it was on a 
 tree such as this that Jesus was crucified. It is also 
 on a cross that they themselves have crudely made 
 that the Germans are trying to crucify culture, 
 kindness, art, decency, tenderness, faith, hope, love, 
 civilization, freedom, and democracy. I thought of 
 all this, and then I looked from that gaunt, rugged 
 cross, looming through the mists of morning, amid 
 that uncanny silence, down to the valley floor, and 
 I said to myself, 'Those boys down there are going 
 up the hill of Calvary.' I could not keep back the 
 tears. Just then I did not know all that was going 
 on down there and all that this Calvary was mean- 
 ing to those boys, for the kindly gray mist hid the 
 awfulness of that charge from my eyes. But I was 
 soon to know 
 
 "I was to know when, a few hours later, I stood 
 in a Y. M. C. A. dugout and watched the 'walking 
 wounded' come in from that charge. I hesitate to 
 describe what I saw, for my heart is sick at the 
 
 memory of it. I cannot see the paper to write. 
 
 192 
 
THE NEW CALVARY 
 
 One by one thousands of walking wounded passed 
 me. I bowed my head at times. It seemed un- 
 bearable. They did not look like human beings. 
 They were bloody, mangled masses of flesh; their 
 clothes torn from their bodies by the barbed wire; 
 some just able to crawl; all dragging themselves 
 past the dugout to get their chocolate and tea. 
 Then down the line came a wounded 'Tommy' 
 with his pal on his shoulders. The Tommy had 
 been shot through the cheek, an ugly wound where 
 a bullet had gone through one cheek and out the 
 other. He was a mass of blood, but he grinned and 
 said: 'Aw, it didn't hurt. Both me arms and legs 
 are good, and I can carry me pal, who has lost his 
 legs.' 
 
 "Then as I stood I saw an English Tommy give up 
 his place in the line to a wounded German prisoner. 
 I saw another English Tommy light a cigarette and 
 stick it in the lips of a German prisoner who could 
 use neither of his own hands because they were both 
 wounded. I thought of Christ's prayer for his ene- 
 mies, for those who were crucifying him on Calvary, 
 'Father, forgive them; they know not what they 
 do,' and I thought how true this was of the com- 
 mon German soldier. But as I watched this line of 
 walking wounded file past, hour after hour that 
 
 morning, I saw back of this line something else. I 
 193 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 saw that gaunt old tree out of which the German 
 shells had formed a cross; I saw it nakedly looming 
 through the mists. All that day these scenes kept 
 mingling and intermingling: that gaunt cross, the 
 walking wounded, and the valley of that morning's 
 charge, until the very lines of boys themselves 
 seemed suddenly to form into the lines of a cross 
 before my misty eyes. Then the meaning of all 
 that I had seen dawned on me. It was Calvary all 
 over again." 
 
 How vividly John Oxenham pictures it all 
 in that scintillating book of poems, The Vision 
 Splendid, when he tells the dramatic tale of 
 "Jim Baxter." It is a ballad with a daring 
 conception of a British Tommy who was 
 actually nailed to a crude wooden cross by the 
 Germans. Several English soldiers have been 
 found nailed to crude crosses in captured Ger- 
 man trenches. The Germans flagrantly denied 
 and decried the tenderness and compassion of 
 the Christ and ridiculed the nation that believes 
 in all that the cross symbolizes. I do not use 
 this quotation for the purpose of stirring up 
 further hatred. That time has passed. Now it is 
 our Christian task to forgive. I tell it only be- 
 
 194 
 
THE NEW CALVARY 
 
 cause it is a vivid illustration of the attitude of 
 a keen man's mind toward Calvary in reference 
 to the war. 
 
 Jim Baxter is one of those soldiers who not 
 only suffered spiritually the pangs of the cross, 
 but he was actually nailed in his physical 
 body to its beams. There had been a charge 
 and Jim Baxter had stood, long after his com- 
 rades had fallen, fighting to the last bullet. 
 Then when that bullet was gone he had still 
 stood, swinging his big gun around him, knock- 
 ing a half dozen Germans over as they closed 
 in on him. He suddenly dropped unconscious. 
 When he comes to he finds himself nailed to 
 a cross and speaks: 
 
 "When Jim came to he found himself 
 Nailed to a cross of wood, 
 Just like the Christs you find out there 
 On every country road. 
 
 "He wondered dully if he'd died, 
 And so become a Christ; 
 'Perhaps,' thought he, 'all men are Christs 
 When they are crucified.' 
 195 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 "His strength was ebbing with his blood, 
 His hands and feet were dead, 
 Fierce, biting pains shot through the nails 
 And blazed within his head. 
 
 "Below, a mob of jeering Huns 
 Mocked at his woeful plight. 
 They bade him loose himself and come 
 Down for another fight. 
 
 "But suddenly he raised his head, 
 His eyes shone clear and bright, 
 And opened wide — for at his side 
 Stood One clothed all in white. 
 
 "His face was wondrous pitiful, 
 But still more wondrous sweet; 
 And Jim saw holes just like his own 
 In His white hands and feet; 
 
 "But His look it was that won Jim's heart, 
 It was so wondrous sweet. 
 
 " 'Christ* — said the dying man once more, 
 With accent reverent. 
 He had never said it so before, 
 
 But he knew now what Christ meant." 
 196 
 
THE NEW CALVARY 
 
 Linked closely with this definition and de- 
 scription of the war in vivid terms of a real 
 human Calvary from a character of Jim Bax- 
 ter's type comes the Donald Hankey type of 
 college-bred, cultured, scholarly English lad. 
 Those who have not read the two books A 
 Student in Arms, by Donald Hankey, have not 
 read the best of the war literature. All through 
 both of these remarkable books Donald Hankey 
 is ever conscious of "The New Calvary." In 
 a hundred ways he expresses it. He expresses 
 it in that marvelous chapter on the religion 
 of Tommy, which he pictures as having be- 
 come strangely and strongly articulate in the 
 trenches for the first time in Tommy's life. 
 He strikes this note in the expressions of his 
 own religious experience. Hankey had been 
 long searching for the Christ. When he did 
 not find him in social service work in London 
 he enlisted as a private, thinking to find him 
 in the trenches with the common boys of 
 England. And he was not disappointed, for 
 he did find the Master. He found him through 
 the brotherhood, the sacrifices, and the suffer- 
 ings of his brave comrades. He found him 
 
 197 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 through learning the willingness to live the 
 experience that Christ set forth when he said, 
 "Greater love hath no man than this, that he 
 lay down his life for his fellow man." Donald 
 Hankey found Christ a vital, vivid, warm, 
 close, personal Saviour only when he lived 
 and suffered in the trenches with his fellows. 
 
 Add to this the utterance of Dr. Gilbert 
 Murry, of Oxford, a scholar who had taught 
 such fine fellows as Hankey in their Oxford 
 days; an older man, one who could not carry 
 arms, cultured, poised, intellectual, cold, crit- 
 ical, but who also sees in this war, sees like 
 a man reborn, the Calvary of it, and gives 
 utterance to this thought in a thrilling para- 
 graph of prose: 
 
 "As for me personally there is one thought 
 
 that is always with me; better men, younger 
 
 men, men with more hope in their lives, many 
 
 of whom I have taught and loved, are dying 
 
 out there for me. The orthodox Christian will 
 
 be familiar with the thought of one who loved 
 
 you dying for you. I would like to say I now 
 
 seem to be familiar with the feeling that 
 
 something innocent, something great, some- 
 
 198 
 
THE NEW CALVARY 
 
 thing that loved me is dying, and dying daily 
 for me." 
 
 I could refer to "The Comrade in White," 
 "The Cross at the Front," by Tiplady, to Mary 
 Shipman Andrews's "The Three Things," and 
 to many other publications, every chapter of 
 which literally breathes with the thought that 
 the war was a new Calvary to the world, and 
 that out of this Calvary even now there is 
 dawning the light of the resurrection of a new 
 morning for the world. What this new Cal- 
 vary means to the soldier himself one writer 
 tries to show us. First, it means that through 
 this war the soldier has been reborn, just as 
 the world is to be reborn. "Private Peat," 
 author of one of the best books that have 
 come out of the war, in The American Maga- 
 zine of March, 1918, comes with a paragraph 
 that has thrilled the great reading public of 
 America as Harry Lauder's story thrilled it 
 a short time ago. In expression of this thought, 
 that the soldier is being reborn, Private Peat 
 says, "I could tell of dozens of cases I have 
 known personally of men who were literally 
 born again in the trenches." "To be born 
 199 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 again" will be a familiar phrase to the orthodox 
 Christian, just as Dr. Murry intimates. But 
 it is a stirring thing to hear the whole world 
 using these significant Christian phrases in these 
 tremendous days. 
 
 And Private Peat is not the only writer who 
 knows that the boys have been new born, 
 that they have found Christ and their Father, 
 for John Oxenham in "The Vision Splendid," 
 which he defines as "The Vision Splendid is 
 the Cross Victorious," lets a boy speak for 
 himself in answer to an interrogatory poem 
 which he calls "What Did You See Out There, 
 My Lad?" The question is asked in the first 
 stanza of the poem: 
 
 "What did you see out there, my lad, 
 That has set that look in your eyes? 
 You went out a boy, you have come back a man, 
 With strange, new depths underneath your tan; 
 What was it you saw out there, my lad, 
 That set such deeps in your eyes?" 
 
 And the answer comes that he saw Christ 
 and God: 
 
 "Strange things — and sad — and wonderful — 
 
 200 
 
THE NEW CALVARY 
 
 Things that I scarce can tell — 
 I have been in the sweep of the Reaper's scyth 
 With God— and Christ — and hell. 
 
 'I have seen Christ doing Christly deeds; 
 I have seen the devil at play; 
 
 I have seen the Godless pray.' 
 
 Other verses follow, but these are enough 
 for our purposes, and then comes the answer 
 of the author to the lad who has seen Christ 
 and God; the answer that the lad had a right 
 to his high look: 
 
 "You've a right to your deep, high look, my lad, 
 
 You have met God in the ways; 
 And no man looks into His face 
 
 But he feels it all his days. 
 You've a right to your deep, high look, my lad, 
 
 And we thank Him for His grace." 
 
 Somehow the soldier has found his oneness 
 with God in the war. I have talked with 
 these lads face to face and have found that 
 this tremendous fact is true. It is not woven 
 of a poet's fancy. It is vitally, vividly, victori- 
 ously true. I have talked with lads coming 
 
 201 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 in from the trenches and they had a superior 
 look about them. It was almost unearthly. 
 They had gone in boys, they had come out 
 men; they had gone in rookies, they had 
 come out veterans. Private Peat says in 
 the fifth paragraph of his American Magazine 
 article: "And suppose I didn't come back 
 at all? I know I'd be smiling now — and I 
 wouldn't be doing it in hell, either. That's 
 what you don't realize, you who are here at 
 home. You don't know how things get clear 
 and plain to us in the trenches. Talk about 
 finding yourself! We find more than our- 
 selves. We find God." 
 
 If the reader doesn't find this strong enough 
 to convince, let him turn to Oxenham's "The 
 Leaves of the Golden Book," which he has 
 written to console his own heart and the 
 hearts of numberless readers who wonder 
 what has become of their lads. Bishop Mc- 
 Connell says that as he walked through the 
 "saddest road in Christendom," on the British 
 front, with an English clergyman who was 
 seeking the graves of several boys for their 
 folks back home, he saw hundreds of graves 
 
 202 
 
THE NEW CALVARY 
 
 in this desolate war-scarred field with a simple 
 cross and the words, "An Unknown British 
 Soldier." And here lies the terrible tragedy 
 of war. To those who are bearing this cross 
 at home come these lines like the touch of a 
 mother hand on a fevered brow, comforting, 
 consoling, soothing, especially when coupled 
 with what Private Peat has said: 
 
 "God will gather all these scattered 
 
 Leaves into His Golden Book, 
 Torn and crumpled, soiled and battered, 
 
 He will heal them with a look. 
 Not one soul of them has perished; 
 
 No man ever yet forsook 
 Wife and home and all he cherished, 
 
 And God's purpose undertook, 
 But he met his full reward 
 In the 'Well done' of his Lord." 
 
 And to further strengthen and to further 
 comfort, and to add the full measure of con- 
 solation, Oxenham gives us another word of 
 hope in "Through the Valley": 
 
 "And there, of His radiant company, 
 
 Full many a one I see 
 
 203 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 Who have won through the Valley of Shadows 
 
 To the larger liberty. 
 Even there, in the grace of the heavenly place, 
 
 It is joy to meet mine own, 
 And to know that not one but has valiantly won, 
 
 By the way of the Cross, his crown." 
 
 Then, like a challenge, literature puts it up to 
 us as to what this sacrifice, what this suffering, 
 what this cross must spur us to. It must 
 spur us to the realization that these lads have 
 died for us. Thoughtful men like Dr. Murry, 
 of Oxford, see this, and we have heard him 
 speak already. Oxenham adds his voice to 
 this phase of our thinking: 
 
 "For us He died— 
 
 For you and me; 
 For us they died — 
 
 For you and me. 
 That love so great be justified, 
 And that Thy name be magnified, 
 
 Grant, Lord, that we 
 
 Full worthy be 
 Of these, our loved — our crucified!' 
 
 And here side by side with Christ this great 
 poet puts the lads. Not side by side with him 
 
 204 
 
THE NEW CALVARY 
 
 as the criminals were, but as brothers with 
 him. And if Christ were willing to accept a 
 thief into his fellowship on the cross simply 
 because he believed, how eagerly and warmly 
 he must welcome these lads who died as he 
 died, for others, that the world might be 
 better! How eagerly shall he welcome them! 
 
 In "The Fiery Cross," a new Oxenham book, 
 this thought that, like Christ, some lad has 
 died for us is briefly and wonderfully expressed 
 
 "Some man has died out there to-day 
 For you and me — 
 Died in heart-wracking agony, maybe, 
 For you and me." 
 
 And war literature dealing with the New 
 Calvary makes us see that not only men, 
 but the world, will be reborn out of this New 
 Calvary. In "The New Earth" Oxenham has 
 one outstanding stanza: 
 
 "Not since Christ died upon His lonely cross 
 
 Has time such prospect held of Life's new birth; 
 Not since the world of chaos first was born 
 
 Has man so clearly visaged hope of a new earth." 
 
 Yes, a new world is to arise after this our 
 
 205 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 New Calvary; a new world is to arise out of 
 the morning of the New World Resurrection. 
 Let this final word from Oxenham in prose 
 and a final word in verse sum it all up. The 
 more practical, social, industrial rebirth he 
 foreshadows in the Introduction to his book 
 "The Vision Splendid": "If this fierce flame 
 free us from the ruinous wastage of drink, 
 from the cancer of immorality, from the shame 
 of our housing-systems both in town and 
 country, and bring about a fairer apportion- 
 ment of the necessaries of life — a living wage 
 to all workers, leisure to enjoy, and oppor- 
 tunity to possess and progress — it will have 
 done much. If it level the dividing walls, 
 and result in a Pact of Nations which will 
 insure peace for all time, it will have done 
 very much. If it bring the world back to God, 
 it will have done everything. This, our great 
 sacrifice, will then be turned to everlasting 
 gain." 
 
 The poem is taken from "The Fiery Cross": 
 
 "The wayward world has nailed itself 
 On its own cross of woe: 
 
 With its own hands it hewed the wood, 
 
 206 
 
THE NEW CALVARY 
 
 It dyed the rood with its own blood, 
 
 And then, with vicious blow, 
 Drove home the nails that it had cast, 
 Through its own flesh, and made them fast; 
 
 It dug the pit below. 
 
 "But every cross new meaning holds 
 
 Since such sweet virtue came 
 Of Calvary; and though mankind 
 Still wanders graceless, deaf, and blind 
 
 To his own bitter shame, 
 Yet by God's grace he shall arise 
 From this dread cross of sacrifice 
 
 To set all life aflame!" 
 
 And thus it is that the war has brought 
 to the boy a new understanding of and a new 
 attitude toward the cross of Calvary. He 
 has faced it. It is his own vital, throbbing 
 experience. He has been at one with Christ. 
 He knows the cross to be something now 
 besides a figure of speech. 
 
 When he comes back to our churches will 
 he find those of us who are interpreting the 
 cross interpreting it as if we know it to be a 
 livid, vivid, burning force in life, or as if we 
 believe it to be some far-off figure of speech, 
 
 207 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 some beautiful mirage of the past, some theo- 
 logical figment of the church's imagination? 
 
 He will soon detect the difference. He will 
 know whether the cross is a living fact in our 
 lives and in our churches and in our sermons. 
 He will soon know whether we believe it as 
 he has come to believe it or whether we just 
 preach it because it has been expected of us 
 by the customs of the church. 
 
 Perhaps we who are the preachers, and we 
 who are the church, and we who are the loved 
 ones who were left at home, can only make 
 the cross real to him as he returns, if we too 
 have suffered; if we too have laid our bodies 
 upon the cross itself; if we too have felt the 
 nails, and the thorns, and the spear thrust in 
 our sides. God help the church to preach the 
 cross and to be willing to live the story of 
 the cross, that we may win, not only the boy, 
 but the world to all that it means for time 
 and eternity. 
 
"This is no time 
 for formalities" 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE UNION SACRED 
 
 The Soldier — His Attitude Toward 
 Christian Unity 
 
 Some people were pleased and some people 
 were not pleased when the idea of a United 
 War Work Campaign was put up to the nation 
 by the government. I think that the vast 
 majority of the people of America were thrilled 
 with the thought of Catholic, Protestant, Jew, 
 working together for a great common cause. 
 Whatever may have been the results that 
 have arisen since, or the criticisms, I believe 
 
 209 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 that just the common "folks" of America, 
 the fathers and mothers of the boys, were 
 lifted into the seventh heaven of a spiritual 
 ecstasy in their giving. 
 
 One of my most spiritual laymen was present 
 at a big preliminary meeting for this drive in 
 San Francisco. At that meeting the President 
 of the United Railways Corporation was present 
 representing the Jews, another great business 
 man was there representing the Catholic in- 
 terests, and many representing the Y. M. C. A. 
 He himself is a big business man and a man 
 in big business, and he came home saying to 
 me: "Why, it was like the spirit of an old- 
 time Methodist revival meeting. Half of the 
 time we wept together and half of the time we 
 felt like shouting. We sang hymns and we 
 prayed — Catholic, Jew, and Protestant. It was 
 like being converted all over again !" And as he 
 told me the story of that preliminary meeting for 
 the War Work Campaign tears were in his 
 eyes. 
 
 When he had finished I said, "Do you 
 realize that the spirit of this great thing started 
 in the camps of America and France?" 
 
 210 
 
THE UNION SACRED 
 
 "No! How is that?" 
 
 "Why, it is because the men in the camps 
 both in America and in France have forgotten 
 that there ever was such a thing as church 
 differences. I'll wager that there were not ten 
 men in the average cantonment in America 
 or in the average regiment in France who 
 had any idea to which particular denom- 
 ination their chaplains or their Y. M. C. A. 
 secretaries belonged." 
 
 He was astonished at that statement. 
 
 Since then I have written and talked with 
 a hundred chaplains and secretaries both from 
 France and America, to see if their experiences 
 confirm my observations in several American 
 cantonments, added to six months in France; 
 and I have never found a negative voice to 
 this proposition. 
 
 The religious director of the Western Di- 
 vision of the Y. M. C. A. said to me: "Why, 
 in all the camps with which I have had contact 
 I doubt if the question ever occurred to a boy 
 as to what denomination his chaplain or sec- 
 retary belonged. It didn't make any difference 
 to the boy." 
 
 211 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 Personally, I worked in France for six months 
 with hundreds of secretaries and chaplains. 
 I knew intimately, as I count them over, 
 at least a dozen chaplains, and a hundred 
 religious work secretaries and preachers, and as 
 I recall them I could not tell you the denom- 
 inational connections of more than three about 
 whom I did not already know before I went 
 to France. 
 
 It simply was not considered. Whether a 
 man was a Methodist, or a Presbyterian, or a 
 Congregationalist was not taken into considera- 
 tion by the organization itself, and it certainly 
 would have been considered as a "supereroga- 
 tion" of information to the soldier. He didn't 
 care what church the chaplain or the secretary 
 was a preacher in before he went to the camps. 
 This was true in both the camps at home and in 
 the overseas work. I doubt if this statement 
 will be denied by a single war worker who 
 reads this book. I make it with supreme con- 
 fidence. 
 
 This truth came to me in a peculiar inci- 
 dent with a suddenness that startled me after 
 I had gotten home from France. While I was 
 
 212 
 
THE UNION SACRED 
 
 in France this spirit of church unity was so 
 much a matter of fact that one never thought 
 of it. He worked with a chaplain or a secre- 
 tary hand in hand, week after week, and he 
 never concerned himself about the denom- 
 ination in which his fellow worker was a min- 
 ister. Many a time since I have come home 
 have I said to myself: "I wonder what church 
 that fine chap was a preacher in? I wish that 
 I had asked him." The fellow to whom I 
 refer and I worked on a truck for a solid month 
 on the Toul line. I knew that he was a preacher, 
 and he knew that I was. He was fifty, and 
 I was fifteen years younger. We became close 
 pals, but to this day I do not know to which 
 church he ministers in peace times. I must 
 write and find out. 
 
 The incident is this: 
 
 I had been raising what I called "A Big 
 Brother Fund." A thousand dollars had swept 
 into it in two months' time. It was to go to 
 boys in France who were stranded financially. 
 It was understood that I would send it to 
 France to be administered by Y. M. C. A. 
 secretaries. A Catholic mother had given up 
 
 213 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 her vacation to send me twenty dollars for 
 that fund, in spite of the fact that I was a 
 Protestant minister well known to her. Then 
 one day it suddenly occurred to her that she 
 was a Catholic and I was a Protestant and she 
 called me on the phone anxiously inquiring if 
 a part of that money would be used for Catholic 
 boys. Her question dumfounded me for a 
 minute, and I told her the startling truth over 
 the phone. 
 
 "Why, my dear woman," I said, "for the 
 first time since I left home to go to France, 
 through six months of Y. M. C. A. work, and 
 back home again, you have made me conscious 
 of the fact that there is a difference. In France 
 as we helped a boy we never knew, and we 
 did not ask, and we did not care, whether a boy 
 was a Catholic or a Protestant. Yes, indeed, 
 a part of this money will certainly go to help 
 Catholic boys in the natural course of events." 
 
 Chaplain Lagua, of the French army, said 
 to me on the boat going over: "It is a fact 
 that during the war there has been, even among 
 Catholics, a wonderful movement toward a 
 more spiritual religion and toward a deeper 
 
 214 
 
THE UNION SACRED 
 
 brotherhood of religious life. Especially is this 
 true mong the chaplains and enlisted priests 
 and pastors. One of our Protestant chaplains 
 was killed recently. At the funeral one of the 
 Roman Catholic chaplains spoke in the cem- 
 etery in a most liberal spirit of common brother- 
 hood and Christian love. This would not have 
 been possible before the war. But the war 
 has bound together in common suffering the 
 priests and the Protestant chaplains in a bond 
 of Christian love that church differences can- 
 not separate forever. No churchman of either 
 church ever thought to live to see the day 
 when a Catholic priest would take part in the 
 funeral service of a Protestant minister, and 
 stand with bared head, and tears flooding his 
 cheeks, before the grave of a Huguenot son. 
 It is what we call Union Sacree, the 'Union 
 Sacred.' How it would be possible not to 
 admire these Catholic priests I, a Protestant 
 chaplain, say, is more than I can understand. 
 They go fearlessly into the first-line trenches 
 and often out into No Man's Land in order to 
 take the holy communion and the last rites 
 
 of death to some of their soldiers dying on 
 
 215 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 the field of battle. In fact, the conduct of 
 the priests and of the sisters in the hospitals 
 has made for the respect of all religions in 
 France; and both men and women who never 
 before embraced the comforts of either the Prot- 
 estant or Catholic Church are turning to 
 their altars with bowed heads and tender 
 hearts." 
 
 Chaplain Laugu gave me another thrilling 
 incident. 
 
 It was a general gathering of people. The 
 Socialists were there. "What we called in 
 France the freethinkers were there. ... It was 
 after the war had reduced us all to a common 
 level, politically, socially, and religiously. At 
 the close of a splendid lecture by a friend of 
 mine concerning Jesus Christ, one of these 
 Socialist freethinkers stood up and with great 
 emotion said, 'We are not Catholics; we are 
 not Protestants; we are nothing; but when 
 you speak about Jesus Christ as you have 
 spoken this night, our sole desire is to fall on 
 our faces and worship him.' ' 
 
 I am not making an argument for a union 
 
 of the Catholic and the Protestant churches; 
 
 216 
 
THE UNION SACRED 
 
 nor am I making an argument for a union 
 of Protestant churches. I am not making an 
 argument for anything. I am simply present- 
 ing the facts. Somebody else may make the 
 arguments. I am saying, that whether or no 
 we want it; whether or no we, the preachers and 
 the leaders of the church, take cognizance of 
 it, arguments or no argument, the fact is that 
 the boys in the service have seen such a perfect 
 illustration of, such a workable example of, 
 such a warm, friendly living lesson of church 
 unity that they will look to see in the coming 
 months and years a spirit that is more and 
 more swinging like a huge tide to that crest, 
 never to ebb. 
 
 I say that the preacher at home, and the 
 Sunday school teacher, and the mother and 
 the father who are concerned about the spir- 
 itual welfare of the boy, whether he has been 
 in America or France, will talk his language 
 of religion if they try to forget sectarian dif- 
 ferences, if they cease to emphasize the non- 
 essentials of requirements for church member- 
 ship; if they will remember that for two solid 
 
 years that boy has been living in the throbbing, 
 
 217 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 vital presence of a great religious brother- 
 hood where church lines and differences have 
 not obtruded themselves; has been living in 
 a laboratory of love where great religious 
 forces have been thrown together in the same 
 crucibles, which act, instead of producing an 
 explosion of opinions and creeds and customs 
 and traditions, has evolved a wonderful mix- 
 ture of force and power, and love and tears 
 and laughter, and social communion, and sa- 
 cred moments, and great resolves, and high 
 ideals, and clean living, and far calls to holy 
 and heroic tasks. 
 
 They have seen it work. They will not, at 
 first, expect an abrupt severing of church 
 differences. But they will not tolerate preach- 
 ing in a pulpit that tends to further bitter- 
 ness, prejudice, hate, and hurt that comes 
 from emphasizing church distinctions. 
 
 Do you think that it made any difference 
 to the American officer who was dying in a 
 Paris hospital whether the secretary-preacher 
 was Catholic, Protestant, or Jew? 
 
 The call had come to the Y. M. C. A. head- 
 quarters in Paris. An American officer was 
 
 218 
 
THE UNION SACRED 
 
 dying and wanted to see a preacher. They 
 didn't say whether he was Catholic, Congre- 
 gationalist, Methodist, or Presbyterian. He 
 just wanted to see a preacher. 
 
 A preacher I know went in answer to that 
 call, although he had been informed that the 
 man was dying with smallpox. It was not a 
 pleasant task, for the poor lieutenant's body 
 was practically covered with running sores. 
 He was a loathsome sight. But as this young 
 preacher said to me afterward: "He was an 
 American soldier, dying, and far from home, 
 and I would have crawled on my hands and 
 knees clear across France to have served him; 
 and I would have risked every disease in the 
 world to have carried his message home to 
 his wife and baby! That was a privilege of a 
 man's life time." 
 
 "Where am I?" was the first question the 
 poor, sick fellow asked my friend. 
 
 "In a Paris hospital sick," was the an- 
 swer. 
 
 "Why, how did I get here? I thought I 
 hadn't left the States yet?" said the young 
 officer, in his delirium. 
 
 219 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 "Well, you are in Paris, and you are a very 
 sick man," said the Methodist preacher. 
 
 "Am I going to die?" he asked, so abruptly 
 that my friend was taken off his feet. 
 
 He hesitated for a moment, considering, be- 
 fore he made answer. 
 
 "Yes, my boy." 
 
 But his hesitancy gave the officer a chance 
 to go on, even as he was speaking. 
 
 "Yes, I'm going to die. I know it. I have 
 known it all along. It is all clear to me now. 
 I was brought in here with a wound. I got 
 it in the back at Verdun. Then I took pneu- 
 monia, and that French soldier came in here 
 from another room to be sociable with me. 
 He had smallpox in light form and gave it to 
 me. I wasn't strong enough to throw it off. 
 
 Yes I'm going to die in France 
 
 thousands of miles from home 
 
 and " 
 
 Then he wept, and in his delirium he chat- 
 tered away; but when he came to himself 
 again he finished his sentence just as if nothing 
 had intervened. 
 
 "And mother and the kiddie. A thousand 
 
 220 
 
THE UNION SACRED 
 
 miles away from home and her. Write her. 
 Tell her that I loved her and the kiddie to 
 
 my last breath. God bless them both their 
 
 old daddy " 
 
 The secretary bowed his head before this 
 tragedy. He took the lieutenant's hand, which 
 was covered with sores. He forgot that, in 
 the poor lad's sorrow, for the officer was nothing 
 but a mere boy, after all. 
 
 The soldier looked up and muttered. 
 
 "Are you praying? Don't pray for me; 
 pray for her; and the kiddie; poor little top; 
 poor girl; poor little top. They'll be so lonely 
 without their daddy. Pray for them. I'm, 
 
 I'm all right I've kept clean I'm all 
 
 right not outside much — but inside " 
 
 And suddenly that preacher-secretary's duty 
 was ended. 
 
 Boys hear and know of this type of service 
 rendered in the name of the Master; not in the 
 name of the Catholic Church, nor of the Meth- 
 odist Church, nor of the Presbyterian Church, 
 but in the name of the Eternal God of every 
 human being. Remembering these things, and 
 deeds such as the one I have just mentioned, 
 
 221 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 and which I might duplicate a dozen times in 
 this chapter; remembering the great eternal 
 fundamentals of religion, that "Greater love 
 hath no man than this, that he will lay down 
 his life for his friends," they will not be able 
 to understand any emphasis on church differ- 
 ences. And more than that: they will not 
 be able to understand any negative attitude 
 toward church unity on the part of any church 
 or preacher. The day for negations along 
 that line is past. They are a part of the 
 Old Era. The New Era is here! 
 
 222 
 
Every mother's son of them will 
 want to talk over their experiences. 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 LINKING THE BOY UP WITH 
 THE CHURCH 
 
 This is frankly and openly, hopefully and 
 cheerfully, prayerfully and sincerely, hilariously 
 and deliberately a chapter of enticement. It 
 is bait. It is an attempt to set forth that 
 beauty of the flower and scent and color, of 
 warmth and friendship and Christian love 
 which will lure and challenge and call the boy 
 to the high and holy place which we name the 
 church and to such high and holy tasks as 
 will make him feel that the church has some- 
 
 223 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 thing to offer him that is as worth while, as 
 full of adventure and danger, and as big as 
 the crusade from which he has just returned. 
 
 I do not say that this is the final word on 
 this tremendously important theme. I only 
 know that the burden of the possibilities of 
 that boy who has been overseas is upon my 
 preacher-heart and that I want to help, even 
 though that help be but a little, to point the 
 way. 
 
 Many suggestions will be added to the sug- 
 gestions of this chapter as to how to link the 
 boys up with the church as they come back. 
 Each additional thought will receive a glad 
 shout of welcome from this humble writer's lips. 
 Even since this manuscript was written I have 
 read Dr. Charles Sheldon's new book, "All The 
 World," which deals with this great theme in 
 marvelously dramatic fiction form. I wish 
 every preacher might read that book in con- 
 nection with this chapter and this theme. 
 
 Linking Him up Socially 
 
 The social way must be the bait, the lure. 
 It must be the scent of the flower that calls 
 
 224 
 
LINKING THE BOY WITH THE CHURCH 
 
 the hungry bee to that richer thing more 
 worth while to him than even the scent sug- 
 gests. 
 
 Those who know the young man at home 
 or those who knew him in France will say at 
 once that his social nature is strong. It has 
 only been made stronger by his experiences 
 in France, for reasons that are obvious. He 
 has been kept away for months and years 
 from socially mingling with women of his own 
 nation. He is hungry for that woman touch, 
 that clean, woman touch which he has missed 
 so long. 
 
 His entire social life since he went to France 
 has been with men. Why, one of the saddest 
 and yet the most hilarious things that I saw 
 in France while I was there was what we 
 called a "stag dance." Each Thursday evening 
 we had a regular dance in which only men 
 were present. Men danced with men. Sailors 
 danced with doughboys, and it was a happy 
 crowd. They always crowded the hut for this 
 social evening. They always encored the num- 
 bers, and they always stayed until the lights 
 
 were out. 
 
 225 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 "Men dancing with men?" queried my 
 preacher friend in New York when I told him 
 of this strange social phenomenon in France. 
 
 "Yes, men dancing with men! Men dancing 
 with men all evening in a crowded hut to the 
 music of an orchestra, dancing and enjoying 
 it," I replied. 
 
 "Impossible!" my friend replied. 
 
 "But it happened! It happened each Thurs- 
 day night for two months that I know of. It 
 happened all over France. It was the most 
 popular night that the Y. M. C. A. secretary 
 put on. That night was sure to bring a packed 
 hut." 
 
 But, in spite of the fact that the boys en- 
 joyed their social life without women in France, 
 that very thing has made them hungry for 
 the woman touch. They are coming back 
 home eager for it. The problem of the church 
 is to see that they get this woman touch, and 
 that they get it under decent surroundings 
 and that they get it with clean, fine women. 
 If the church fails here, it has failed in a 
 fundamental answer to one of the two great- 
 est human hungers. 
 
 226 
 
LINKING THE BOY WITH THE CHURCH 
 
 So socially we must see that the church 
 supplies that woman touch. This must be 
 done through social life in which the young 
 women of our churches take a definite leader- 
 ship. They must not spare themselves in 
 time or earnestness in this particular. There 
 is nothing more important than this now that 
 the war is over if the church is in earnest. 
 
 In discussing this very question with a group 
 of my more mature women, whom I had called 
 together for advice on how to link the boys 
 up with the church socially, one of the most 
 brilliant of my women, who has a son in France 
 and who has been giving this theme much 
 careful and prayerful thought, arose to speak 
 with great eagerness in her manner. I could 
 see that back of the tears in her eyes there 
 was a great, eager idea. I could see that not 
 only an educated woman's mind had been at 
 work, but that a great, overflowing, hungry 
 mother's heart had added anxiety to that 
 thought. 
 
 Her idea was simple and yet it has great 
 possibilities. It was that each church organ- 
 ize a "Soldiers' Club." This club will make 
 
 227 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 no distinction between those boys who have 
 seen service in the camps at home and "over 
 there." The boys themselves will not wish 
 this distinction made. They are too big for 
 that; but every mother's son of them will 
 want to talk over their experiences. They 
 will get together somewhere to do this thing. 
 No force on earth can stop them. We might 
 as well recognize that certainty. So the church 
 must provide with all of its might and power 
 and equipment this place and this organ- 
 ization. "The Soldiers' Club" will do this. 
 
 It might have a chaperon. That chaperon 
 might be the mother of a soldier, or his sister. 
 The club would be something besides a social 
 gathering. It could be a social club but also 
 a Sunday school class. In this way naturally 
 and carefully the boys in this club, at least 
 those who wished, could be a part of the church 
 school. And if this soldier's class is taught 
 by a live, energetic, forward-looking man, 
 preferably a man who has been in the service 
 or in France in some capacity, it will link that 
 club of boys up with the church in a way that 
 will astonish the church. 
 
 228 
 
LINKING THE BOY WITH THE CHURCH 
 
 Another social suggestion that came forth 
 from this meeting was that an evening be 
 arranged; a social evening called "Hut Night." 
 A "Y" hut could easily be constructed in a 
 social hall of the church. Let the women of 
 the church dress in girls' Y. M. C. A. uniforms. 
 Let there be tables and a canteen. Let the 
 evening's refreshments be served over the 
 canteen counter by the girls of the church. 
 Let there be an old phonograph going all the 
 time. As a part of the play of the evening 
 have every boy sit down and write a letter 
 to some girl in the room. Then let there be 
 a regular program of some literary value. Let 
 the boys have a part in this program with 
 stories of "Service Life." Have candles to 
 light the "Hut." It would make a fine social 
 evening. 
 
 Link Him up with the Service Flag 
 
 Every preacher who has been worth the 
 
 salary that is paid him has seen that there 
 
 was a service flag in his church during the 
 
 past two years. He has had an Honor Roll 
 
 and that Roll has been read at least once a 
 229 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 Sunday. He who has failed here has lost 
 one of his strongest appeals both to the boy 
 in the service and to the folks at home. 
 
 I met one boy in France whose name was on 
 the Honor Roll of my church at home. He 
 was not a member of the church, but his 
 mother is. He came running up to me in a 
 certain port of entry one day after I had been 
 there a month and we had had several talks. 
 He was driving a big Pierce-Arrow truck. He 
 left it standing in the middle of a narrow 
 French road, blocking traffic. He was waving 
 in his hand a piece of paper. I thought that 
 it was a letter from his sweetheart at least, 
 and waited with a smile. 
 
 He was a big, rugged, rough boy. Much 
 to my surprise, he had a Church Weekly 
 Bulletin. Tears were in his eyes as well as 
 happiness. 
 
 "What do you think of this, Doc? They 
 got my name on the church Honor Roll! Say, 
 that's fine of them! I don't even belong, but 
 mother does." 
 
 Then he paused as his dirty thumb found 
 his name to point it out to me. 
 
 230 
 
LINKING THE BOY WITH THE CHURCH 
 
 "Do they care that much in the church 
 about us guys?" he asked me. 
 
 "They care more than you know," I replied. 
 
 "Say, that's great! That's great!" he kept 
 saying to me as he looked at that Honor Roll. 
 
 A month later I caught this same rascal 
 showing that dirty soiled worn Bulletin to a 
 new man who had just landed in France. 
 The two of them stood down by the docks 
 where a big transport had just landed. Much 
 to my surprise, I saw the other lad pull out a 
 Church Bulletin and match my own friend's 
 enthusiasm with a showing of his own name 
 on an Honor Roll. 
 
 Yes, this gets a strangle hold on the boys' 
 hearts. Few preachers have failed to have 
 this Honor Roll. 
 
 A little five-year-old lad's father, one of 
 
 my doctors, enlisted in the service. The first 
 
 Sunday morning young Philip listened to hear 
 
 his father's name read on the Honor Roll, 
 
 but for some reason it was omitted. The 
 
 next Sunday, small as he was, he got a copy 
 
 of the Church Bulletin the first minute that 
 
 he entered the church and ran his stubby 
 23X 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 finger down the list of two hundred names 
 to see if his daddy's name was there. He 
 could recognize the name "Jordan" when he 
 saw it. It was not there, and he cried. When 
 the preacher heard of this incident it made 
 him know just what a place in the hearts of 
 folks the Honor Roll and service flag have, so 
 the next Sunday that boy's daddy's name was 
 on the roll. 
 
 But the daddy had been called to camp. 
 So had Philip. Then the next thing the 
 preacher heard was that Phillip had con- 
 tracted the influenza, and for a week his life 
 was despaired of. Unconscious through pneu- 
 monia for two days of that week, Philip's 
 first waking thought was as to whether or not 
 his daddy's name was on the Honor Roll and if a 
 star had been placed on the church flag for him. 
 
 The service flag will always be a sacred 
 thing to the boys. They know all that it 
 means. They have heard how each Sunday 
 "God save our Noble Sons" has been sung 
 for them; and a prayer lifted from the altars 
 of the church. This has impressed them, 
 church members or no. 
 
 232 
 
LINKING THE BOY WITH THE CHURCH 
 
 Now comes this suggestion from a thought- 
 ful layman of my own church, following a 
 request from his pastor for suggestions as to 
 how to link the boys up with the church. It 
 is that as each boy comes home we have a 
 little service at the altars of the church. This 
 lad is to be invited to the altar by the preacher. 
 The star that represented him is to be taken 
 from the service flag and pinned on his breast. 
 It is his to keep forever. 
 
 This suggestion came to me with a thrill. 
 Its possibilities are infinite. It will link that 
 boy up with the church as nothing else that 
 I know. 
 
 "What shall be done with the gold stars?" 
 my friend asked me. 
 
 My reply comes quickly. "Each mother 
 who has given a son in death to his country 
 shall also be called to the altars of the church 
 and there, in honor and tribute, that gold star 
 shall be pinned on her breast." 
 
 Linking Him up to a Great Task 
 
 That must be the aim of the church. That 
 lad has learned application in the service. 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 He went to France on wings of love as a great 
 idealist on the crusade of service. The church 
 must give him a task either at home or abroad 
 with the same possibilities of adventure, the 
 same dangers, the same sacrifices, the same 
 great ends if it expects to win him. 
 
 We have the answer. We have the answer 
 at home and we have it across the seas. The 
 regeneration of industry; the solution of the 
 social and economic problems in factories and 
 mills, a living wage, decent living conditions, 
 the right to live, the right to labor, fair work- 
 ing hours; democracy in industry instead of 
 autocracy in industry; "to make the world 
 safe for children'' — all these great tasks the 
 church must offer the boy, for pink teas and 
 church bazaars will not satisfy the hunger in 
 his heart for a man's job. 
 
 Then there is the mission field. It is "over- 
 seas" work. It is full of dangers; Africa, 
 Japan, Mexico, South America, China, Korea, 
 the islands of the seas; those same islands that 
 lured Robert Louis Stevenson, he of the ad- 
 venturer's heart — all these are full of appeal 
 
 to the venturing heart. 
 
 234 
 
LINKING THE BOY WITH THE CHURCH 
 
 He will feel the lure of travel. He will feel 
 the pull of adventure. The greatest adventure, 
 the greatest life adventure that the church can 
 offer a live idealist who has been in France 
 is mission work. 
 
 He has known what it means to risk his 
 life; to tramp over long trails through rain and 
 mud; and he has known sickness. Africa 
 offers that same great thrill in its unopened 
 mission fields. 
 
 He had dedicated himself to the fight for 
 democracy and brotherhood on earth. Every 
 missionary that goes forth to work goes with 
 the same spirit, with the same hope, with the 
 same end in view as the soldier who went 
 to France. Missionaries are being sent to 
 China to make the "world safe for democracy." 
 
 No wonder that Yuan Shi Kai accused the 
 Christians of bringing about the republic in 
 China. "You cannot teach that all men are 
 equal; that all men are brothers without over- 
 throwing autocracy and bringing about de- 
 mocracy,' ' this astute Oriental said. 
 
 Hundreds of thoughtful, educated boys who 
 have been in France will find the appeal of 
 
 235 
 
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS 
 
 the mission field thrilling their very souls; and 
 it will send them out again on a great crusade 
 of service, to fight for the principles for which 
 Jesus the Christ died, to "make the world 
 safe for democracy' ' if the church puts this 
 great task, this great challenge to a man's 
 soul up to them in the manner that it de- 
 serves. This, a tremendous task, will do more 
 to link the boys up with the church than any- 
 thing else on earth. 
 
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