The wrecked house in Neuvilly where the lassies went to sleep in the cellar and woke up to find the soldiers watching them.
The wrecked church in Neuvilly where the memorable meeting was held.
Beneath the picture of the Christ, in front of the altar a few men were at work in an improvised office with four candles burning around them. In the rear of the church Lt.-Col. Frederick R. Fitzpatrick of the One Hundred and Tenth Ammunition Train had his office, and there another candle was burning. Some wounded men lay on stretchers in the shadowed northwest corner, and around the little fire the five Salvation Army lassies sat among two hundred soldiers. They sang at first the popular songs that everybody knew: “The Long, Long Trail,” “Keep the Home Fires Burning,” “Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag and Smile! Smile! Smile!” and “Keep Your Head Down, Fritzie Boy!”
By and by some one called for a hymn, and then other hymns followed: “Jesus Lover of My Soul,” “When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder,” and, as always, the old favorite, “Tell Mother I’ll Be There!”
They sang for at least an hour and a half, and then they did not want to stop. Oh, but it was a great sound that rolled through the old broken walls of the church and floated out into the night! One of the lassies said she would not change crowds with the biggest choir in New York.
Then they asked the girls to sing and the room was very still as two sweet voices thrilled out in a tender melody, speaking every word distinctly:
Beautiful Jesus, Bright Star of earth!
Loving and tender from moment of birth,
Beautiful Jesus, though lowly Thy lot,
Born in a manger, so rude was Thy cot!
Beautiful Jesus, gentle and mild,
Light for the sinner in ways dark and wild,
Beautiful Jesus, O save such just now,
As at Thy feet they in penitence bow!