A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

The War Romance of the Salvation Army

E >> Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill >> The War Romance of the Salvation Army




It is this Christ who has given to our humblest service a sheen-something
of a glory-which the troops have caught, and which will make these simple
deeds to hold tenaciously to history, and to outlive the effacing fingers
of time-even to defy the very dissolution of death.

As Premier Clemenceau said: "We must love. We must believe. This is the
secret of life. If we fail to learn this lesson, we exist without living:
we die in ignorance of the reality of life."

A senator, after several months spent in France, stated: "It is my opinion
that the secret of the success of this organization is their complete
abandonment to their cause, _the service of the man_."

Of the many beautiful tributes paid to us by a most gracious public, and
by the noblest-hearted and most kindly and gallant army that ever stood up
in uniform, perhaps the most correct is this: _Complete abandonment to
the service of the man_.

This, in large measure, is the cause of our success all over the world.

When you come to think of it, the Salvation Army is a remarkable
arrangement. It is remarkable in its construction. It is a great empire.
An empire geographically unlike any other. It is an empire without a
frontier. It is an empire made up of geographical fragments, parted from
each other by vast stretches of railroad and immense sweeps of sea. It is
an empire composed of a tangle of races, tongues, and colors, of types of
civilization and enlightened barbarism such as never before in all human
history gathered together under one flag.

It is an army, with its titles rambling into all languages, a soldiery
spreading over all lands, a banner upon which the sun never goes down-with
its head in the heart of a cluster of islands set in the grey, wind-blown
Northern seas, while its territories are scattered over every sea and
under every sky.

The world has wondered what has been the controlling force holding this
strange empire together. What is the electro-magnetism governing its
furthest atom as though it were at your elbow? What is the magic sceptre
that compels this diversity of peoples to act as one man? What is the
master passion uniting these multifarious pulsations into one heart-beat?

Has it been a sworn-to signature attached to bond or paper? No; these can
all too readily be designated "scraps" and be rent in twain. Has it been
self-interest and worldly fame? No, for all selfish gain has had to be
sacrificed upon the threshold of the contract. Has it been the bond of
kinship, or blood, or speech? No, for under this banner the British master
has become the servant of the Hindoo, and the American has gone to lay
down his life upon the veldts of Africa. Has it been the bond of that
almost supernatural force, glorious patriotism? No, not even this, for
while we "know no man after the flesh," we recognize our brother in all
the families of the earth, and our General infused into the breasts of his
followers the sacred conviction that the Salvationist's country is the
world.

What was it? What is it? Those ties created by a spiritual ideal. Our love
for God demonstrated by our sacrifice for man.

My father, in a private audience with the late King Edward, said: "Your
Majesty, some men's passion is gold; some men's passion is art; some men's
passion IB fame; my passion is man!"

This was in our Founder's breast the white flame which ignited like sparks
in the hearts of all his followers.

_Man is our life's passion._

It is for man we have laid our lives upon the altar. It is for man we have
entered into a contract with our God which signs away our claim to any and
all selfish ends. It is for man we have sworn to our own hurt, and--my God
thou knowest-when the hurt came, hard and hot and fast, it was for man we
held tenaciously to the bargain.

After the torpedoing of the _Aboukir_ two sailors found themselves
clinging to a spar which was not sufficiently buoyant to keep them both
afloat. Harry, a Salvationist, grasped the situation and said to his mate:
"Tom, for me to die will mean to go home to mother. I don't think it's
quite the same for you, so you hold to the spar and I will go down; but
promise me if you are picked up you will make my God your God and my
people your people." Tom was rescued and told to a weeping audience in a
Salvation Army hall the act of self-sacrifice which had saved his life,
and testified to keeping his promise to the boy who had died for him.

When the _Empress of Ireland_ went down with a hundred and thirty
Salvation Army officers on board, one hundred and nine officers were
drowned, and not one body that was picked up had on a life-belt. The few
survivors told how the Salvationists, finding there were not enough life-
preservers for all, took off their own belts and strapped them upon even
strong men, saying, "I can die better than you can;" and from the deck of
that sinking boat they flung their battle-cry around the world--
_Others!_

_Man!_ Sometimes I think God has given us special eyesight with which
to look upon him, We look through the exterior, look through the shell,
look through the coat, and find the man. We look through the ofttimes
repulsive wrappings, through the dark, objectionable coating collected
upon the downward travel of misspent years, through the artificial veneer
of empty seeming-through to the _man_.

He that was made after God's image.

He that is greater than firmaments, greater than suns, greater than
worlds.

Man, for whom worlds were created, for whom Heavens were canopied, for
whom suns were set ablaze. He in whose being there gleams that immortal
spark we call the soul. And when this war came, it was natural for us to
look to the man-the man under the shabby clothes, enlisting in the great
armies of freedom; the man going down the street under the spick and span
uniform; the man behind the gun, standing in the jaws of death hurling
back world autocracy; the man, the son of liberty, discharging his
obligations to them that are bound; the man, each one of them, although so
young, who when the fates of the world swung in the balances proved to be
_the man of the hour;_ the man, each one of them, fighting not only
for today but for tomorrow, and deciding the world's future; the man who
gladly died that freedom might not be dead; the man dear to a hundred
million throbbing hearts; the man God loved so much that to save him He
gave His only Son to the unparalleled sacrifice of Calvary, with its
measureless ocean of torment heaving up against His Heart in one foaming,
wrathful, omnipotent surge.

Wherein is price? What constitutes cost, when the question is _THE
MAN_?




Preface by the Writer



I wish I could give you a picture of Commander Evangeline Booth as I saw
her first, who has been the Source, the Inspiration, the Guide of this
story.

I went to the first conference about this book in curiosity and some
doubt, not knowing whether it was my work; not altogether sure whether I
cared to attempt it. She took my hand and spoke to me. I looked in her
face and saw the shining glory of her great spirit through those
wonderful, beautiful, wise, keen eyes, and all doubts vanished. I studied
the sincerity and beauty of her vivid face as we talked together, and
heard the thrilling tale she was giving me to tell because she could not
take the time from living it to write it, and I trembled lest she would
not find me worthy for so great a task. I knew that I was being honored
beyond women to have been selected as an instrument through whom the great
story of the Salvation Army in the War might go forth to the world. That I
wanted to do it more than any work that had ever come to my hand, I was
certain at once; and that my whole soul was enmeshed in the wonder of it.
It gripped me from the start. I was over-joyed to find that we were in
absolute sympathy from the first.

One sentence from that earliest talk we had together stands clear in my
memory, and it has perhaps unconsciously shaped the theme which I hope
will be found running through all the book:

"Our people," said she, flinging out her hands in a lovely embracing
movement, as if she saw before her at that moment those devoted workers of
hers who follow where she leads unquestioningly, and stay not for fire or
foe, or weariness, or peril of any sort:

"Our people know that Christ is a living presence, that they can reach out
and feel He is near: that is why they can live so splendidly and die so
heroically!"

As she spoke a light shone in her face that reminded me of the light that
we read was on Moses' face after he had spent those days in the mountain
with God; and somewhere back in my soul something was repeating the words:
"And they took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus."

That seems to me to be the whole secret of the wonderful lives and
wonderful work of the Salvation Army. They have become acquainted with
Jesus Christ, whom to know is life eternal; they feel His presence
constantly with them and they live their lives "as seeing Him who is
invisible." They are a living miracle for the confounding of all who doubt
that there is a God whom mortals may know face to face while they are yet
upon the earth.

The one thing that these people seem to feel is really worth while is
bringing other people to know their Christ. All other things in life are
merely subservient to this, or tributary to it. All their education,
culture and refinement, their amazing organization, their rare business
ability, are just so many tools that they use for the uplift of others. In
fact, the word "OTHERS" appears here and there, printed on small white
cards and tacked up over a desk, or in a hallway near the elevator,
anywhere, everywhere all over the great building of the New York
Headquarters, a quiet, unobtrusive, yet startling reminder of a world of
real things in the midst of the busy rush of life.

Yet they do not obtrude their religion. Rather it is a secret joy that
shines unaware through their eyes, and seems to flood their whole being
with happiness so that others can but see. It is there, ready, when the
time comes to give comfort, or advice, or to tell the message of the
gospel in clear ringing sentences in one of their meetings; but it speaks
as well through a smile, or a ripple of song, or a bright funny story, or
something good to eat when one is hungry, as it does through actual
preaching. It is the living Christ, as if He were on earth again living in
them. And when one comes to know them well one knows that He is!

"Go straight for the salvation of souls: never rest satisfied unless this
end is achieved!" is part of the commission that the Commander gives to
her envoys. It is worth while stopping to think what would be the effect
on the world if every one who has named the name of Christ should accept
that commission and go forth to fulfill it.

And you who have been accustomed to drop your pennies in the tambourine of
the Salvation Army lassies at the street corners, and look upon her as a
representative of a lower class who are doing good "in their way," prepare
to realize that you have made a mistake. The Salvation Army is not an
organization composed of a lot of ignorant, illiterate, reformed criminals
picked out of the slums. There may be among them many of that class who by
the army's efforts have been saved from a life of sin and shame, and
lifted up to be useful citizens; but great numbers of them, the leaders
and officers, are refined, educated men and women who have put Christ and
His Kingdom first in their hearts and lives. Their young people will
compare in every way with the best of the young people of any of our
religious denominations.

After the privilege of close association with them for some time I have
come to feel that the most noticeable and lovely thing about the girls is
the way they wear their womanhood, as if it were a flower, or a rare
jewel. One of these girls, who, by the way, had been nine months in
France, all of it under shell fire, said to me:

"I used to wish I had been born a boy, they are not hampered so much as
women are; but after I went to France and saw what a good woman meant to
those boys in the trenches I changed my mind, and I'm glad I was born a
woman. It means a great deal to be a woman."

And so there is no coquetry about these girls, no little personal vanity
such as girls who are thinking of themselves often have. They take great
care to be neat and sweet and serviceable, but as they are not thinking of
themselves, but only how they may serve, they are blest with that
loveliest of all adorning, a meek and quiet spirit and a joy of living and
content that only forgetfulness of self and communion with Jesus Christ
can bring.

I feel as if I would like to thank every one of them, men and women and
young girls, who have so kindly and generously and wholeheartedly given me
of their time and experiences and put at my disposal their correspondence
to enrich this story, and have helped me to go over the ground of the
great American drives in the war and see what they saw, hear what they
heard, and feel as they felt. It has been one of the greatest experiences
of my life.

And she, their God-given leader, that wonderful woman whose wise hand
guides every detail of this marvellous organization in America, and whose
well furnished mind is ever thinking out new ways to serve her Master,
Christ; what shall I say of her whom I have come to know and love so well?

Her exceptional ability as a public speaker is of the widest fame, while
comparatively few, beyond those of her most trusted Officers, are brought
into admiring touch with her brilliant executive powers. All these,
however, unite in most unstinted praise and declare that functioning in
this sphere, the Commander even excels her platform triumphs. But one must
know her well and watch her every day to understand her depth of insight
into character, her wideness of vision, her skill of making adverse
circumstances serve her ends. Born with an innate genius for leadership,
swallowed up in her work, wholly consecrated to God and His service, she
looks upon men, as it were, with the eyes of the God she loves, and sees
the best in everybody. She sees their faults also, but she sees the good,
and is able to take that good and put it to account, while helping them
out of their faults. Those whom she has so helped would kiss the hem of
her garment as she passes. It is easy to see why she is a leader of men.
It is easy to see who has made the Army here in America. It is easy to see
who has inspired the brave men and wonderful women who went to France and
labored.

She would not have me say these things of her, for she is humble, as such
a great leader should be, knowing all her gifts and attainments to be but
the glory of her Lord; and this is her book. Only in this chapter can I
speak and say what I will, for it is not my book. But here, too, I waive
my privilege and bow to my Commander.

[Grace Livingston Hill]




Contents




I. The Story
II. The Gondrecourt Area
III. The Toul Sector
IV. The Montdidier Sector
V. The Toul Sector Again
VI. The Baccarat Sector
VII. The Chateau-Thierry-Soissons Drive
VIII. The Saint Mihiel Drive
IX. The Argonne Drive
X. The Armistice
XI. Homecoming
XII. Letters of Appreciation




Illustrations



General Bramwell Booth.
Commander Evangeline Booth.
Lieutenant Colonel William S. Barker.
Introduced to French Rain and French Mud.
She Called the Little Company of Workers Together and Gave Them a Charge.
The Lassie Who Fried the First Doughnut in France.
"Tin Hat for a Halo! Ah! She Wears It Well!".
The Patient Officers Who Were Seeing to All These Details Worked Almost
Day and Night.
Here During the Day They Worked in Dugouts Far Below the Shell-tortured
Earth.
They Came To Get Their Coats Mended and Their Buttons Sewed On.
The Entrance to the Old Wine Cellar in Mandres.
The Salvation Army Was Told that Ansauville Was Too Far Front for Any
Women To Be Allowed To Go.
L'Hermitage, Nestled in the Heart of a Deep Woods.
L'Hermitage, Inside the Tent.
"Ma".
They Had a Pie-baking Contest in Gondrecourt One Day.
A Letter of Inspiration from the Commander.
The Salvation Army Boy Truck Driver.
The Centuries-old Gray Cemetery in Treveray.
Colonel Barker Placing the Commander's Flowers on Lieutenant Quentin
Roosevelt's Grave.
The Salvation Army Boy Who Drove the Famous Doughnut Truck.
Bullionville, Promptly Dubbed by the American Boy "Souptown".
Here They Found a Whole Little Village of German Dugouts.
The Girls Who Came Down to Help in the St. Mihiel Drive.
The Wrecked House in Neuvilly Where the Lassies Went to Sleep in the Cellar.
The Wrecked Church in Neuvilly Where the Memorable Meeting Was Held.
Right in the Midst of the Busy Hurrying Throng of Union Square.
"Smiling Billy".
Thomas Estill.
The Hut at Camp Lewis.





The War Romance of the Salvation Army




I.

The Story



Into the heavy shadows that swathe the feet of the tall buildings in West
Fourteenth Street, New York, late in the evening there slipped a dark
form. It was so carefully wrapped in a black cloak that it was difficult
to tell among the other shadows whether it was man or woman, and
immediately it became a part of the darkness that hovered close to the
entrances along the way. It slid almost imperceptibly from shadow to
shadow until it crouched flatly against the wall by the steps of an open
door out of which streamed a wide band of light that flung itself across
the pavement.

Down the street came two girls in poke bonnets and hurried in at the open
door. The figure drew back and was motionless as they passed, then with a
swift furtive glance in either direction a head came cautiously out from
the shadow and darted a look after the two lassies, watched till they were
out of sight, and a form slid into the doorway, winding about the turning
like a serpent, as if the way were well planned, and slipped out of sight
in a dark corner under the stairway.

Half an hour or perhaps an hour passed, and one or two hurrying forms came
in at the door and sped up the stairs from some errand of mercy; then the
night watchman came and fastened the door and went away again, out
somewhere through a back room.

The interloper was instantly on the alert, darting out of its hiding
place, and slipping noiselessly up the stairs as quietly as the shadow it
imitated; pausing to listen with anxious mien, stepping as a cloud might
have stepped with no creak of stairway or sound of going at all.

Up, up, up and up again, it darted, till it came to the very top, pausing
to look sharply at a gleam of light under a door of some student not yet
asleep.

From under the dark cloak slid a hand with something in it. Silently it
worked, swiftly, pouring a few drops here, a few drops there, of some
colorless, odorless matter, smearing a spot on the stair railing, another
across from it on the wall, a little on the floor beyond, a touch on the
window seat at the end of the hall, some more on down the stairs.

On rubbered feet the fiend crept down; halting, listening, ever working
rapidly, from floor to floor and back to the entrance way again. At last
with a cautious glance around, a pause to rub a match skilfully over the
woolen cloak, and to light a fuse in a hidden corner, he vanished out upon
the street like the passing of a wraith, and was gone in the darkness.

Down in the dark corner the little spark brooded and smouldered. The
watchman passed that way but it gave no sign. All was still in the great
building, as the smouldering spark crept on and on over its little thread
of existence to the climax.

But suddenly, it sprang to life! A flame leaped up like a great tongue
licking its lips before the feast it was about to devour; and then it
sprang as if it were human, to another spot not far away; and then to
another, and on, and on up the stair rail, across to the wall, leaping,
roaring, almost shouting as if in fiendish glee. It flew to the top of the
house and down again in a leap and the whole building was enveloped in a
sheet of flame!

Some one gave the cry of FIRE! The night watchman darted to his box and
sent in the alarm. Frightened girls in night attire crowded to their doors
and gasping fell back for an instant in horror; then bravely obedient to
their training dashed forth into the flame. Young men on other floors
without a thought for themselves dropped into order automatically and
worked like madmen to save everyone. The fire engines throbbed up almost
immediately, but the building was doomed from the start and went like
tinder. Only the fire drill in which they had constant almost daily
practice saved those brave girls and boys from an awful death. Out upon
the fire escapes in the bitter winter wind the girls crept down to safety,
and one by one the young men followed. The young man who was fire sergeant
counted his men and found them all present but one cadet. He darted back
to find him, and that moment with a last roar of triumph the flames gave a
final leap and the building collapsed, burying in a fiery grave two fine
young heroes. Afterward they said the building had been "smeared" or it
never could have gone in a breath as it did. The miracle was that no more
lives were lost.

So that was how the burning of the Salvation Army Training School
occurred.

The significant fact in the affair was that there had been sleeping in
that building directly over the place where the fire started several of
the lassies who were to sail for France in a day or two with the largest
party of war workers that had yet been sent out. Their trunks were packed,
and they were all ready to go. The object was all too evident.

There was also proof that the intention had been to destroy as well the
great fireproof Salvation Army National Headquarters building adjoining
the Training School.

A few days later a detective taking lunch in a small German restaurant on
a side street overheard a conversation:

"Well, if we can't burn them out we'll blow up the building, and get that
damn Commander, anyhow!"

Yet when this was told her the Commander declined the bodyguard offered
her by the Civic Authorities, to go with her even to her country home and
protect her while the war lasted! She is naturally a soldier.

The Commander had stayed late at the Headquarters one evening to finish
some important bit of work, and had given orders that she should not be
interrupted. The great building was almost empty save for the night
watchman, the elevator man, and one or two others.

She was hard at work when her secretary appeared with an air of reluctance
to tell her that the elevator man said there were three ladies waiting
downstairs to see her on some very important business. He had told them
that she could not be disturbed but they insisted that they must see her,
that she would wish it if she knew their business. He had come up to find
out what he should answer them.

The Commander said she knew nothing about them and could not be
interrupted now. They must be told to come again the next day.

The elevator man returned in a few minutes to say that the ladies
insisted, and said they had a great gift for the Salvation Army, but must
see the Commander at once and alone or the gift would be lost.

Quickly interested the Commander gave orders that they should be brought
up to her office, but just as they were about to enter, the secretary came
in again with great excitement, begging that she would not see the
visitors, as one of the men from downstairs had 'phoned up to her that he
did not like the appearance of the strangers; they seemed to be trying to
talk in high strained voices, and they had very large feet. Maybe they
were not women at all.

The Commander laughed at the idea, but finally yielded when another of her
staff entered and begged her not to see strangers alone so late at night;
and the callers were informed that they would have to return in the
morning if they wished an interview.

Immediately they became anything but ladylike in their manner, declaring
that the Salvation Army did not deserve a gift and should have nothing
from them. The elevator man's suspicions were aroused. The ladies were
attired in long automobile cloaks, and close caps with large veils, and he
studied them carefully as he carried them down to the street floor once
more, following them to the outer door. He was surprised to find that no
automobile awaited them outside. As they turned to walk down the street,
he was sure he caught a glimpse of a trouser leg from beneath one of the
long cloaks, and with a stride he covered the space between the door and
his elevator where was a telephone, and called up the police station. In a
few moments more the three "ladies" found themselves in custody, and
proved to be three men well armed.

But when the Commander was told the truth about them she surprisingly
said: "I'm sorry I didn't see them. I'm sure they would have done me no
harm and I might have done them some good."

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