THE FIRST AMERICAN TROOPS TO REACH EUROPE MARCHING THROUGH LONDON AMID THE CHEERS OF THOUSANDS OF OUR BRITISH ALLIES
Copyright by Committee on Public Information.
I heard a first lieutenant from Mississippi say to a young United Presbyterian minister: "I came to talk to you to-day because you are different. I feel myself slipping. At bayonet practice a man loses a lot of the things he doesn't want to forget."
I would not refer to this if it were the only incident of its kind.
I have given my two stories of preachers who got away with a poor start. I saw hundreds of preachers in France, American preachers with the Y. M. C. A. and others serving as chaplains. They are a great lot! Measured by every obligation of their ordination, and by their ability and their willingness to adapt themselves to these unprepared-for and utterly unanticipated conditions, they are a great lot! The American preacher in France is a minister. He is doing a tremendous work now, and he will do a far greater work when he returns.
I wish that every pastor in America could have at least six months in actual service overseas. It would pay any congregation to finance its minister's trip abroad for service with the Y. M. C. A.
As to the programme of the Kingdom itself, these men who have heard the great spiritual voice of Civilization in her rebirth, who have toiled and listened through long and terrifying days that crowded out of their lives the petty and superficial things, who have thrilled with the uncovered cries of men for the answer to their heart questionings, for the realization of their soul quests, will not return to be contented within the ancient walls of ecclesiasticism and sectarian differences. They, with the hundreds of thousands they have ministered to, will strike mightily against the props of outgrown systems. With the re-enforcements already promised from missionary lands, they will save us from ourselves, and together we shall set Christ free in His own temple. These who have seen the folly of a too long divided command on the western front, and who have witnessed the wisdom of a generalissimo there, will call for a United Army under the Divine Generalissimo, to press forward on the spiritual front of the world.
One day I saw six men building a road from a military highway in to a Y. M. C. A. supply warehouse. They were working in the rain, breaking rock and standing ankle-deep in mud. Four of the six men were preachers, preachers to large and distinguished congregations at home. The combined salaries of the six amount to $30,000; one man, a Wall Street broker, draws $12,000; divide $18,000 among the other five men!
In a first-line Y. M. C. A. division fifty-two secretaries were working night and day, doing the work of one hundred and twenty-five men. Twenty-eight of the fifty-two were preachers. Ah, but you say, how well were they doing it? This very question was in my mind, and I asked the divisional secretary to tell me how many of the twenty-eight he would keep if he could secure the secretarial assistance he would consider ideal. He went over his list carefully, and said, "Twelve." Rather disquieting! I then asked him how many of the laymen he would retain by the same test, and after quite as careful consideration he said, "Ten," and added: "O, they are all great fellows. You have asked me an efficiency question, and I have applied my ordinary business standards; but some of these very men may prove to be very efficient."