“What time, sir?” I asked. “I cannot miss my meeting at half-past six with the boys.”
“Well, the mess will be at half-past seven. We will arrange that.”
“Before you go, sir, I should like to ask why you are interested in me.”
“Well, I’ll tell you, if you wish,” he said. “Men are writing home to their wives, mothers, sweethearts, and they are talking about a new power in their lives. ‘We have got something that is helping us to go straight and play the game,’ they write. And so,” said the General, “we should like to have a chat with you.”
I went the next night, and for an hour and a half I preached the Gospel to those officers. It was a great chance; and it was the result of the note-paper which I have sometimes given out for an hour and a half at a time to your boys.
There are lots of people think you are not doing any spiritual work unless you are singing, “Come to Jesus.” Put more Jesus in every bit of the day’s business. Jesus ought to be as real in the city as in the temple. If I read my New Testament aright, and if I know God, and if I know humanity, and if I know Nature, then that is God’s programme. God’s programme is that the whole of life should be permeated with Christ.
God bless the women who have gone out to help your boys. Women of title, of wealth and position, serving God and humanity behind tea-tables.
In one of our huts I saw a lady standing beside two urns—coffee and tea. She was pouring out, and there were 150 or 200 men standing round that hut waiting to get served. The fellows at the end were not pushing and crowding to get first, but waiting their turn. They are more good-natured than a religious crowd waiting to get in to hear a popular preacher. I have seen these people jostle at the doors.
But your boys don’t do that. They just sing, “Pack up your troubles,” and wait their turn.
Well, these boys, wet and cold, were waiting for a cup of coffee, and one of those red-hot gospellers came along, and he said, “Sister, stop a minute and put a word in for Jesus. This is a great opportunity.”