On board ship the Christian men were always ready for prayer. The Rev. R.H. Hingley tells that one day he had been conducting a brief service on a cruiser, and as he was waiting for his boat, man after man came up to him and suggested a prayer meeting. It was a newly commissioned ship and many of the men who gathered to the prayer meeting confessed Christ for the first time.
At sea these men congregate every evening for prayer in the chaplain's room, but often that room is too small, and more commodious quarters have to be sought.
Mr. Hingley tells of a letter he has received from a sailor saint. "We have taken the ninety-first Psalm as our special song. How grand it is to be sure, and how true have we proved it to be!" Thus many of our Christian sailor lads go down to the sea in ships singing as they go, "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty," and so they are not afraid "for the terror by night, nor for the arrow that flieth by day." Christ has many witnesses among our sailors in the North Sea.
It was not long before another class of service came to those at the Home Base, viz. the work among the wounded in the hospitals. This war has brought the fact of war home to every one.
Not long was it before the hospitals already in use were all too small for the numbers of wounded drafted from the front, and hospitals sprang up in all the great centres of population. For weeks preparations had been made. Red Cross amateur nurses and St. John's Ambulance nurses had been completing their training. Medical men had volunteered their services, and ministers of religion of all denominations were ready to do what they could for the spiritual needs of the men.
The opportunity was golden. Never had there been one like it before. These men had come through the Valley of Death. They were ready to think and pray. Says one chaplain:
"Again and again, while going through the wards, men have said, 'I shall be a different man after this, sir.' They have told us of their life in the trenches and of the prayers they have made while the bullets have been flying about them. Said one: 'I know this—on the field I prayed hard, more than ever I prayed before.' Another man speaks of the peace he had when facing death. 'I remembered those words in one of the Psalms—"A thousand shall fall at thy side and ten thousand at thy right hand, but it shall not come nigh thee"—and God brought me through.'"
Multiply this story a thousandfold and we shall see what the war has done for men, and also realise how easy it has been to lead soldiers thus impressed into fellowship with our Lord. A loving work is this, requiring ministry tender and true, but it has been done and done right nobly. Men who had learnt not to be afraid of death have learnt also how to live.
In Denmark Hill Hospital a wounded man told this story to the Rev. A. Bingham. A young soldier was mortally wounded in one of the great battles. When he realised that he was dying he began to sing. Faintly but clearly he sang:
Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide;
. . . . . .
Hold Thou Thy Cross before my closing eyes;
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies;
Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee;
In Life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.