"Can't you take a joke?" the frightened husky stuttered.
"No, not that kind," the California divine replied, and continued, "We'll call it quits, since you didn't mean it; but don't try to be funny again until you have studied a joke-book."
The applause that greeted the "clean knockout" was not audible; but it was loud, and the name "Gyp the Blood" was the reward of the victor. The preacher is "wanted" in France, but only the Fighting Parson need apply. Surely it will be unnecessary to add that the "big fight" is not of the kind just described, although the spirit that secured the decision there is the spirit absolutely essential to success in the other.
The present war has made many calls upon the church, and has laid new and heavy obligations upon the ministry. I do not aspire to deal with the general programme of organized religious forces, nor do I pretend to discuss seriously the peculiar religious problems growing out of these unparalleled times. I am ambitious only to present a pen-picture glimpse of the preacher as I saw him in France, the American preacher in action with the American overseas forces.
At the outset I disclaim any prejudice for or against. I saw him under all conditions, from port of entry to the front lines, from cosmopolitan Paris to the odoriferous country village, from training-camp to hospital, at times when he was conscious of being inspected and was on his mettle, and when he thought himself unrecognized and with no fellow countryman about. I have no special brief prepared for him; I judged him by the measure of a man. France has only one uniform to-day, the uniform of the soldier; all other distinctions as to dress have been removed.
I found a few preachers in France who made me thankful for the vivid picture of my own ministerial father, which I carry always with me, they were so disappointing! One was trying to smoke; it was painfully apparent that it was his first attempt. He was doing his best to be a good fellow, and succeeded only in being a fool. Another was rather loudly arguing with a young Y. M. C. A. secretary and trying to convince him that no man could really get on with the men of the army unless he smoked cigarettes and drank the French wines. The younger fellow won the debate, and did so without my seconding speech, which for the other members of the recently arrived party I felt constrained to make, since I was a veteran of several weeks' standing.
Both of these illustrations relate to the use of tobacco, and it will be well to add that a preacher who would feel himself called upon to conduct an anti-cigarette crusade on the western front would be equally a misfit with the one laboring under the sad delusion that to grip the hearts of the men in uniform he must lower his own personal standards.
First of all, a man to succeed with men anywhere must run true to form, must be honest and be his best self; he may be very sure that the American soldier will not misjudge him or be deceived by him. War has an amazing aptness for ignoring reputations and discovering character. If the preacher did not smoke on the western side of the Atlantic, he does not need to smoke on the eastern side; it will take more than smoke to make him a winner. Of course he may run true to his best form and yet be a failure, but he is doomed from the beginning if he turns his back upon his personal ideals and standards.
It is a pernicious fallacy that you must be like men to be liked by them; sometimes men want you to be different. There are supreme occasions in a man's life when, sick of himself and of his kind, he longs for a comrade and a guide whose language, whose habits of mind and of body, are the opposite of his own. Such times come more frequently where the iron death moans by than elsewhere. A cad or a Pharisee has no place in France to-day, but there are no depths in real religion and simple piety too profound for the men who stand for their country's sake in a soldier's narrow place between life and death.
