"You needn't fear no rivalry," exclaimed one; "they've got the wrong class o' person doon there."
"This is our hut, and you make us feel as if we belonged to the place and it to us," said another.
If their loyalty warmed our hearts, it did not in the least facilitate the task of explanation that our Association fears no rivalry, that it is not attempting to run a cheap café, and rather than be thought to outbid anyone else would pack up its traps and depart.
Such is the spirit of the institution for which we are working. And perhaps I may whisper it in my diary that in one place, when some unscrupulous folk were bribing unwary men with free drinks to spread abroad that the Association tea was of an inferior quality to theirs, with their truly magnanimous spirit the Y.M.C.A. did walk out of the camp, and yet continued to supply the said unscrupulous folk with all the stores they required.
Oh, yes, we're all inordinately proud to be working under the sign of the Red Triangle!
Many, no doubt, have used the institution for the purpose of gratifying their curiosity, more as a means of playing their rôle in the Great Game, and most, maybe, will sever their connection with the Association to which they owe so much with the cessation of hostilities; but those who have been vouchsafed an insight into the methods of the Y.M.C.A., the dominating spirit that has driven it into the position of responsibility it now holds—in face of the derision with which its rise was first greeted—will not forget that the Y.M.C.A. has never yet failed where it was most needed, never shown anything but the greatest magnanimity of spirit. Entirely undenominational, it throws its doors open to every sect under the sun, its buildings have been lent to Jews and Catholics, Mohammedans and others alike; and just because of its broadness and the largeness of its vision it is having an evangelising power undreamt of by any religious inquisition of the Middle Ages. There will be many, after this war, who will be able to say:
"I grew religious because I saw what a wonderful thing active religion can be"; and though the members of this Association—which has a way of giving the humbler born leaders of men an opportunity of leading—may never hear of all this, it will be inscribed to their favour on the Day of Reckoning! And surely the very silence of its workings is sufficient testimony of its strength, as its growth is of its utility.
Does the world know, I wonder, how daily improvised centres are springing up nearer and nearer the Front, to the men's delight, until the old familiar sign of the Red Triangle—not Bass's Pale Ale, be it noted—but the Red Triangle, that symbolises "Body, Mind and Spirit," is to be found even in dug-outs?
Nor is the institution behindhand in Egypt or the Near East or Gallipoli.
Only to-day we heard of a secretary (originally here with the Indian force) who, on landing at Gallipoli, was greeted by the C.O. with a cheerful: