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Foreword

I am writing this during an air raid at 12.30 at night, and I have justfinished a Foreword for the Bishop of Zanzibar's new and tender littlebook. He has been a water-carrier for the British force in German EastAfrica, and Gipsy Smith has just come from the trenches in France.

You would not expect the two books to be similar, but they are: they areboth about “Jesus.” This devotion to “Jesus” binds all time Christianstogether, and one day will bring us all more visibly together than weare now. I love this breezy little book of Gipsy Smith's; it is not onlyfull of the love of “Jesus,” but love of our [pg vi]“our boys.” They aresplendid. I spent the first two months of the war as their visitingchaplain—went out to give them their Easter Communion the first year ofthe war at the Front. Gipsy Smith and I made friends together, speakingfor them at the London Opera House on the great day of Intercession andThanksgiving we had for them when the King himself called us alltogether.

Then I like the common sense of it! You must have robust common sense ifyou are going to win “our boys.” Anything unreal, merely sentimental,washy, they detect in a moment. You must draw them “with the cords of aman and the bonds of love,” and those who read this book will find manya hint as to how to do it.

A.F. London.

Your Boys

I have just come back from your boys. I have been living among them andtalking to them for six months. I have been under shell fire for amonth, night and day. I have preached the Gospel within forty yards ofthe Germans. I have tried to sleep at night in a cellar, and it was socold that my moustache froze to my blanket and my boots froze to thefloor. The meal which comforted me most was a little sour French breadand some Swiss milk and hot water, and a pinch of sugar when I could getit.

There are Y.M.C.A. marquees close to the roads down which come thewalking wounded from the trenches. In three of these marquees lastsummer in three days over ten thousand cases were provided with hotdrinks and refreshment—free. And that I call Christian work. You and Ihave been too much concerned about the preaching and too little aboutthe doing of things.

A friend of mine was in one of those marquees at the time, and he toldme a beautiful story. Some of the men sat and stood there two and threehours waiting their turn, and the workers were nearly run off their