"I'm so tired. I try to be brave, but I've been lying here for three months now, and my leg doesn't seem to get any better. It pains all the time until I think I'll die with the agony of it. I never sleep only when they give me something. But I try hard to be brave."
"You are brave!" I said to him. "They all tell me that, the doctors and nurses."
"They are so good to me." he said in low tones so that I had to bend to hear them. "But my leg; they don't seem to be able to help me."
Then I told him as gently as I could that it was not his leg, that it was his back, and that he would likely not get well. Then I tried to tell him of the room in his Father's house that was ready for him when he was ready to accept it, and of what a glorious welcome there was there.
He reached out for my hand in the semi-darkness of that evening. I can feel his hand-clasp yet. I didn't know what to say, but a phrase that had lingered in my mind from an old story came to the rescue.
"Don't you want the Christ to help you bear your pain?" I asked him.
"That is just what I do want," he said simply. "That was why I was so glad you came—an honest-to-goodness preacher," and he smiled again, so bravely, in spite of his suffering, and in spite of the news that I had just broken to him.
Then we prayed. I stood beside his bed holding his hand and praying. The room was full of other wounded boys, but in the twilight I doubt if a lad there knew what we were doing. I spoke low, just so he could hear, and the Master knew what was in my heart without hearing.
When I was through I felt a pressure of his hand, and he said: "Now I feel stronger. He is helping me bear my burden. Thank you for coming, and"—then he paused for words "and—thank you for bringing Him."
Yes, there is suffering in France, suffering among our soldiers, too, but suffering that is glorified by courage.