On no day in France did I look in vain for Christian Endeavorers, and no group that I met there was so small that it did not contain them. My visit with Patterson that night was only the beginning, or rather it was a high point, in a day of continuous Christian Endeavor fellowship. In every Y. M. C. A. hut I was greeted by Christian Endeavorers under helmets and with gas-masks, at attention. What a fine little group that was from Maine! And then there was the brother of a president of the Oklahoma union.
In one "hut," after the gas-warning which came while I was speaking had been recalled, a Christian Endeavorer took me to the rise from which an exceptional view of the flares from the guns could be seen. The night was crowded with great trucks bearing supplies and ammunition along the midnight roads. Without lights, and forbidden to use their horns, those unsung, unseen heroes crept along, passing files of soldiers, soldiers marching in and soldiers marching out, facing the risk of the shells that death drops suddenly from the sky to open chasms in the way or to strew horses and men in wide windrows under the ghostly trees. And on many a high seat and behind many a truck-wheel I found my brethren that night.
In another hut I was greeted by William E. Sweet, former president of the Colorado union. He sat on a cracker-box, and told me that Christian Endeavor made him, that he is president of the Young Men's Christian Association in Denver, that he is in France, that he is all that he is trying to be as a Christian, under God, because of Christian Endeavor.
At ten o'clock that night we turned off the main road, and in a dense growth came upon the last hut within the zone of constant shell-fire. It was strangely quiet. After heavy knocking the door was cautiously opened, and a familiar face peered out at us above a flickering candle.
AMERICAN INFANTRY RESTING, APPROACHING THE FRONT IN FRANCE
From a photograph copyrighted by the Committee on Public Information. From Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.
"Early to bed and early to rise?" questioned Barnes.
"No," a big voice replied. "Nothing doing here to-night. The boys are all up on the line. Looks like a 'party.' They were ordered away early and in a hurry."
While he spoke, the chap with the candle had been inspecting me, and introductions were hardly begun before we knew each other; it was Rev. Mr. Sykes, formerly president of the Minnesota Christian Endeavor union, and as vigorous a Christian as ever demonstrated the manhood of the Master. There in the woods I left him under a sky whose paths are crowded with iron messengers of death, making a little bit of heaven for hundreds of men who tread daily the places of a man-made hell.