“When I survey the wondrous Cross”—that was the song they chose.
And they sang it all the better because I had sung their songs with
them. Before we had got to the end of the last verse some of those boys
were in tears, and it wasn’t hard to pray. It isn’t far from rag-time to
“When I survey the wondrous Cross.”
When they had finished the hymn I said, “Boys, I am going to tell you
the story of my father’s conversion.” For I had to convince my padre
friend that they were not sceptical. I took them to the gipsy tent and
told them of my father and five motherless children, and of how Jesus
came to that tent, saving the father and the five children and making
preachers of them all.
I said, “Did my father make a mistake when he brought Christ to those
five motherless children?” And the eight hundred boys shouted, “No,
sir.”
“Did he do the right thing?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What ought you to do?”
“The same, sir.”
“Do you want Jesus in your lives?” and every man of the eight hundred
jumped to his feet.
You say they are sceptical where Jesus is concerned. I’ll tell you when
they are sceptical—when they see the caricature of Jesus in you and me.
* * * * *
I was, as I have said, under shell fire for a month in one place—night
and day for a month—and never allowed out without a gasbag round my
neck. I slept in a cellar there at night when I did sleep—only 700 yards
from the Germans—and, as I have said before, it _was_ cold.
When the thaw set in, I put a couple of bricks down and put a box-lid on
top, so that I could stand in a dry place. We had two picks and two
shovels in that cellar in case anything happened overnight. I have been
up against it. Whenever I talked to the boys there they sat with their
gas-bags round their necks, and one held mine while I talked. It was
quite a common thing to have something fall quite close to us while we
were singing.
Imagine singing “Cover my defenceless head,” just as a piece of the roof
is falling in. Or—
In death’s dark vale I fear no ill
With Thee, dear Lord, beside me—
then another crash! That makes things real. Every word was accompanied
by the roar of guns—the rattle of the machine gun and the crack of the
rifle. We never knew what it was to be quiet.
A shell once came and burst just the other side of the wall against
which I was standing and blew part of it over my head. I have suffered
as your boys have, and I have preached the Gospel to your boys in the
front line. I long for the privilege of doing it again.
* * * * *
If I had my way I’d take all the best preachers in Britain and I’d put
them down in France. And if the church and chapel goers grumbled, I’d
say, “You’re overfed. You can do without a preacher for a little.” And
if they were to ask, “How do you know?” I should reply, “Because it’s
hard work to get you to one meal a week. You only come once on a Sunday
and often not that. That’s how I know you are not enjoying your food.”
I love talking to the Scottish boys—the kilties. Oh! they are great
boys—the kilties. When the French first saw them they didn’t know what
they were, whether they were men or women.
“Don’t you know what they are?” said a bright-faced English boy. “They
are what we call the Middlesex.”
You can’t beat a British boy, he’s on the spot all the time—“the
Middlesex!” Some of you haven’t seen the joke yet.
* * * * *
I once went to a hut just behind the line, within the sound of the guns.
Buildings all round us had been blown to pieces. The leader of this hut
was a clergyman of the Church of England, but he wasn’t an ecclesiastic
there, he was a man amongst men, and we loved him.
“Gipsy Smith,” he said, “I don’t know what you will do; the boys in the
billets this week are the Munsters—Irish Roman Catholics. You would have
got on all right last week; we had the York and Lancasters.”
“Do you think they will come to the meetings?”
“I don’t know,” he replied; “they come for everything else! They come
for their smokes, candles, soap, buttons—bachelor’s buttons—postcards,
and everything else they want. But whether they will come for the
religious part, I don’t know.”
“Well,” I said, “we can but try.”
It was about midday when we were talking, and the meeting was to be at
6.30.
“Have you got a boy who could write a bill for me?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said, “I’ve got a boy who could do that all right.”
“Print it on green paper,” said I.
Why not? They were the Munsters. Why shouldn’t we use our heads? People
think mighty hard in business, why shouldn’t we think in the religious
world?
“Just say this and nothing more,” I said.
“‘Gipsy Smith will give a talk in the Hut to-night at 6.30.
Subject—Gipsy Life.’”