The meetings held the boys at the throne of God each night, they were the power behind the doughnut, and the boys recognized it.
“One hesitated to ask them if they wanted prayers because we knew they did,” said one sweet woman back from the front, speaking about the time of the St. Mihiel drive. “We couldn’t say how many knelt at the altar because they all knelt. Some of them would walk five miles to attend a meeting.”
It poured torrents the night of the drive and nearly drowned out the soldiers in their little tents.
They came into the hut to shake hands and say goodbye to the girls; to leave their little trinklets and ask for prayers; and they had their meeting as always before a drive.
But this was an even more solemn time than usual, for the boys were going up to a point where the French had suffered the fearful loss of thirty thousand men trying to hold Mt. Sec for fifteen minutes. They did not expect to come back. They left sealed packages to be forwarded if they did not return.
One boy came to one of the Salvation Army men Officers and said: “Pray for me. I have given my heart to Jesus.”
Another, a Sergeant, who had lived a hard life, came to the Salvation Army Adjutant and said: “When I go back, if I ever go, I’m going to serve the Lord.”
After the meeting the girls closed the canteen and on the way to their room they passed a little sort of shed or barn. The door was standing open and a light streaming out, and there on a little straw pallet lay a soldier boy rolled up in his blanket reading his Testament. The girls breathed a prayer for the lad as they passed by and their hearts were lifted up with gladness to think how many of the American boys, fully two-thirds of them, carried their Testaments in the pockets over their hearts; yes, and read them, too, quite openly.
Two young Captains came one night to say good-bye to the girls before going up the line. The girls told them they would be praying for them and the elder of the two, a doctor, said how much he appreciated that, and then told them how he had promised his wife he would read a chapter in his Testament every day, and how he had never failed to keep his promise since he left home.
Then up spoke the other man: