Instantly one of the boys brought out of his tunic about two inches of candle and struck a match, and in three minutes we had about twenty pieces of candle burning. It was a weird scene.
After the hymns I began to talk, and the candles burnt lower, and some of them flickered out, and I could see a boy here and there twitch a bit of candle as it was going out.
I said, “Put the candles out, boys. I can talk in the dark.”
It was a wonderful service, and here and there you could hear the boys sighing and crying as they thought of home and father and mother. It isn’t difficult to talk to boys like that.
There is no hymn of hate in your boys’ hearts. I have known them take a German prisoner even after he has played the cruel thing; but there! he looked hungry and wretched, and in a few minutes they have shared their rations and cigarettes with him. I call that a bit of religion breaking out in an unlikely place. The leaven’s in the lump, thank God!
I was speaking at a convalescent camp. Every one of the boys had been badly mauled and mangled on the Somme. This particular day I had about seven or eight hundred listeners. It was evening, and when I had talked to the boys, I said,
“I wonder if any of you would like to meet me for a little prayer?”
And from all over the camp came the answer, “Yes, sir; yes, sir; yes, sir.”