"'The battle of Neuve Chapelle caused a stream of casualties to flow past this point for a week. Some died and were laid to rest beside their comrades, their last messages being sent to their startled kinsfolk at home. Some who were weary and willing to die took heart again through sympathy and skilful nursing. One boy of seventeen in sore torture was heard half-consciously crying: "Ah! bonnie Scotland, what I'm suffering for you now"; he slowly recovered and did not grudge his pains. Those at home for whom brave men are suffering and dying should be done with tippling and trifling.
"'The work at this point includes attendance at three hospitals and the conducting of services for troops as required. During last week there were only four cases "seriously and dangerously ill" and about thirty men sick and wounded. At a Rest Depot a class was formed to prepare for First Communion, and at a special service on Good Friday eleven soldiers were admitted. The Sacrament was administered on Easter Sunday morning, and there were about sixty communicants. These included a few Baptists, Congregationalists, and others, who, if members of their own churches, were admitted and invited to this Communion. A Church Parade with an Irish cavalry regiment followed at 11 o'clock. In the twilight the largest soldiers' club in the district was crowded for Evening Service. There the Bishop of London—candid as King Alfred and persuasive as Alfred Tennyson—encouraged and blessed us all, and his inspiring words hallowed the great enterprise which brings us here.'"
The following statement of the work of the Young Men's Christian Association at the front and at home has been written by the Rev. W. Kingscote Greenland, at the request of the General Secretary, Mr. A.K. Yapp.
"No branch of the religious and social work among our soldiers during the war, both at the front and in the home camps, has been so well known and universally acknowledged and appreciated as that accomplished by the Young Men's Christian Association. The press has spread the fame of it far and wide and devoted leaders and columns of details to it. Any exhaustive story therefore is as unnecessary as it would be disproportionally large. What makes it imperative, however, that at least a brief summary of its widespread and manifold activities should be included, is that it has been a work of quite interdenominational character—all churches equally contributing both workers and money—and therefore the credit, if credit there is to be, must be shared among all. The fact of it is that the Y.M.C.A. has acted throughout as a species of central bureau or clearing-house, by the ready and available means of which anybody and everybody desirous of assisting in the moral and spiritual welfare of our troops could do so without calling into existence new organisation and machinery.
"And here it must be mentioned that two facts were, humanly speaking, responsible for the striking emergence of the Y.M.C.A. into this unique position. The first fact is that for fifteen years past the Association has had great experience of this sort of work by reason of its tents in all the Territorial camps every summer, so that the war only meant an extension, though an immense extension, of activities to which it was no stranger. And, secondly, the courageous spiritual statesmanship and moral daring of the General Secretary, Mr. A.K. Yapp, who on the outbreak of war, and in the holiday season too, launched this policy.
"The story of that breathlessly summoned council meeting in the Headquarters of the National Council in Russell Square on August 5 is a veritable romance. Telegrams brought holiday-making secretaries hurrying from the seaside, and in a few hours it was decided to pitch canvas tents wherever the new recruits for Kitchener's Army were located, and issue a national appeal for the necessary funds. As everybody now knows, this was done—hundreds of tents for refreshments, reading, writing, and rest sprang up as if by magic all over the land; thousands of pounds of money flowed in from high and low; and the Young Men's Christian Association was swept forward in the tide from being a semi-disparaged adjunct of the Church's care for a certain type of young townsman, to that of a great ally of the nation in its hour of moral, no less than physical, agony. The tale of the swift adaptation of practically the entire premises, resources, and plant of the Association to the military and naval emergency, involving almost superhuman hours of thought and skill, can never adequately be told. The whole country was mapped out, committees formed, hundreds of workers engaged, stationery ordered, stores and motor-transport acquired, the patronage of the King and the approval of the War Office secured, and in a few weeks the machinery for the safeguarding of the leisure hours of the troops who were flocking to the colours was in working order.
"Then came the late autumn with its rains and floods, and the necessity for better accommodation than canvas tents. Wooden huts were obviously required. But these would cost money—roughly £300 at least apiece. A great appeal was issued for the necessary funds, and the response was amazing. Several hundreds of thousands of pounds were contributed, many donors presenting a hut and furnishing it, and as winter closed in comfortable and warm and well-equipped huts replaced everywhere the sodden tents.
"As the military situation broadened and developed, the Association followed suit, and huts were built and opened in the base towns in France, Egypt, and India, while many young men were sent on board the troop-ships as lay chaplains to take charge of the soldiers on these journeys and to look after them on their landing in foreign and colonial ports.
"And so the situation as it stands at this present time of writing is roughly as follows: 600 Y.M.C.A. centres in the home camps, of which 300 are permanent wooden huts. In France 50 centres, of which 36 are huts. In Egypt 8 centres in charge of 10 young Christian men sent out by the Association, and in India 30 centres, manned by 12 Association workers. To this record must be added over 2000 camp workers, only a very small proportion of whom are paid, and the innumerable ladies who either serve at the counters or are quartered with local committees of management. To this, further, several other inspiring features and items must still be added. Under the Y.M.C.A. auspices, Princess Victoria has a number of field kitchens across in France and Flanders which supply the men at the actual front. Also, and by no means least, scores of clergymen and ministers of all denominations give some, and a few all their time, to conducting services and "talks" in the huts in the evenings, while among the voluntary workers on Salisbury Plain, at the Crystal Palace, the White City, Harwich and Felixstowe, Hindhead, Milford, Southport, Alnwick and along the Tyne, and scores of other camps, are to be found university professors and students, men from all the theological colleges, retired city merchants, ministers with leave of absence from their churches, business men moved to leave their shops and offices in the care of wives and clerks and managers, and almost every type of Christian man and profession and occupation.