The boat docked that morning, and one soldier at least, as he stood on the deck and watched the shores of his native land draw nearer, felt mingling with the thrill of joy at his return a vague uneasiness. He was coming back, it is true, but it had been a long time and a lot of things had happened. For one thing he had lost his foot. That in itself was a pretty stiff proposition. For another thing he was not wearing any decorations save the wound stripes on his sleeve. Those would have been enough, and more than enough, for his mother if she were alive, but she had gone away from earth during his absence, and the girl he had kissed good-bye and promised great things was peculiar. The question was, would she stand for that amputated foot? He didn’t like to think it of her, but he found he wasn’t sure. Perhaps, if there had been a croix de guerre! He had promised her to win that and no end of other honors, when he went away so buoyant and hopeful; but almost on his first day of real battle he had been hurt and tossed aside like a derelict, to languish in a hospital, with no more hope of winning anything. And now he had come home with one foot gone, and no distinction!

He hadn’t told the girl yet about the foot. He didn’t know as he should. He felt lonely and desolate in spite of his joy at getting back to “God’s Country.” He frowned at the hazy outline of the great city from which tall buildings were beginning to differentiate themselves as they drew nearer. There was New York. He meant to see New York, of course. He was a Westerner and had never had an opportunity to go about the metropolis of his own country. Of course, he would see it all. Perhaps, after he was demobilized he would stay there. Maybe he wouldn’t send word he had come back. Let them think he was killed or taken prisoner, or missing, or anything they liked. There were things to do in New York. There were places where he would be welcome even with one foot gone and no cross of war. Thus he mused as the boat drew nearer the shore and the great city loomed close at hand. Then, suddenly, just as the boat was touching the pier and a long murmur of joy went up from the wanderers on board, his eyes dropped idly to the dock and there in her trim little overseas uniform, with the sunlight glancing from the silver letters on the scarlet shield of her trench cap and the smile radiating from her sweet face, stood the very same Salvation Army lassie who had bent over him as he lay on the ground just back of the trenches waiting to be put in the ambulance and taken to the hospital after he had been wounded. He could feel again the throbbing pain in his leg, the sickening pain of his head as he lay in the hot sun, with the flies swarming everywhere, the horrible din of battle all about, and his tongue parched and swollen with fever from lying all night in pain on the wet ground of No Man’s Land. She had laid a soft little hand on his hot forehead, bathed his face, and brought him a cold drink of lemonade. If he lived to be a hundred years old he would never taste anything so good as that lemonade had been. Afterward the doctor said it was the good cold drink that day that saved the lives of those fever patients who had lain so long without attention. Oh, he would never forget the Salvation lassie! And there she was alive and at home! She hadn’t been killed as the fellows had been afraid she would. She had come through it all and here she was always ahead and waiting to welcome a fellow home. It brought the tears smarting to his eyes to think about it, and he leaned over the rail of the ship and yelled himself hoarse with the rest over her, forgetting all about his lost foot. It was hours before they were off the ship. All the red tape necessary for the movement of such a company of men had to be unwound and wound up again smoothly, and the time stretched out interminably; but somehow it did not seem so hard to wait now, for there was someone down there on the dock that he could speak to, and perhaps—just perhaps—he would tell her of his dilemma about his girl. Somehow he felt that she would understand.

He watched eagerly when he was finally lined up on the wharf waiting for roll-call, for he was sure she would come; and she did, swinging down the line with her arms full of chocolate, handing out telegraph blanks and postal cards, real postal cards with a stamp on them that could be mailed anywhere. He gripped one in his big, rough hand as if it were a life preserver. A real, honest-to-goodness postal card! My it was good to see the old red and white stamp again! And he spoke impulsively:

“You’re the girl that saved my life out there in the field, don’t you remember? With the lemonade!” Her face lit up. She had recognized him and somehow cleared one hand of chocolate and telegrams to grasp his with a hearty welcome: “I’m so glad you came through all right!” her cheery voice said.

All right! All right! Did she call it all right? He looked down at his one foot with a dubious frown. She was quick to see. She understood.

“Oh, but that’s nothing!” she said, and somehow her voice put new heart into him. “Your folks will be so glad to have you home you’ll forget all about it. Come, aren’t you going to send them a telegram?” And she held out the yellow blank.

But still he hesitated.

“I don’t know,” he said, looking down at his foot again. “Mother’s gone, and——”

Instantly her quick sympathy enveloped his sore soul, and he felt that just the inflection of her voice was like balm when she said: “I’m so sorry!” Then she added:

“But isn’t there somebody else? I’m sure there was. I’m sure you told me about a girl I was to write to if you didn’t come through. Aren’t you going to let her know? Of course you are.”

“I don’t know,” said the boy. “I don’t think I am. Maybe I’ll never go back now. You see, I’m not what I was when I went away.”

“Nonsense!” said the lassie with that cheerful assurance that had carried her through shell fire and made her merit the pet name of “Sunshine” that the boys had given her in the trenches. “Why, that wouldn’t be fair to her. Of course, you’re going to let her know right away. Leave it to me. Here, give me her address!”

Quick as a flash she had the address and was off to a telephone booth. This was no message that could wait to go back to headquarters. It must go at once.

He saw her again before he left the wharf. She gave him a card with two addresses written on it:

“This first is where you can drop in and rest when you are tired,” she explained. “It’s just one of our huts; the other is where you can find a good bed when you are in the city.”

Then she was off with a smile down the line, giving out more telegraph blanks and scattering sunshine wherever she went. He glanced back as he left the pier and saw her still floating eagerly here and there like a little sister looking after more real brothers.

The next day, when he was free and on a few days leave from camp, he started out with his crutch to see the city, but the thought of her kept him from some of the places where his feet might have strayed. Yet she had not said a word of warning. Her smile and the look in her eyes had placed perfect confidence in him, and he could remember the prayer she had uttered in a low tone back there at the dressing station behind the trenches in the ear of a companion who was not going to live to get to the Base Hospital, and who had begged her to pray with him before he went. Somehow it lingered with him all day and changed his ideas of what he wanted to see in New York.

But it was a long hard tramp he had set for himself to see the town with that one foot. He hadn’t much money for cars, even if he had known which cars to take, so he hobbled along and saw what he could. He was all alone, for the fellows he started with went so fast and wanted to do so many things that he could not do, that he had made an excuse to shake them off. They were kind. They would not have left him if they had known; but he wasn’t going to begin his new life having everybody put out on his account, so he was alone. And it was toward evening. He was very tired. It seemed to him that he couldn’t go another block. If only there were a place somewhere where he could sit down a little while and rest; even a doorstep would do if there were only one near at hand. Of course, there were saloons, and there would always be soldiers in them. He would likely be treated, and there would be good cheer, and a chance to forget for a little while; but somehow the thought of that Salvation lassie and the cheery way she had made him send that telegram kept him back. When a girl with painted cheeks stopped and smiled in his face he passed her by, and half wondered why he did it. He must go somewhere presently and get a bite to eat, but it couldn’t be much for he wanted to save money enough and hunt up that lodging house where there were nice beds. How much he wanted that bed!

It was quite dark now. The lights were lit everywhere. He was coming to a great thoroughfare. He judged by his slight knowledge of the city that it might be Broadway. There would likely be a restaurant somewhere near. He hurried on and turned into the crowded street. How cold it was! The wind cut him like a knife. He had been a fool to come off alone like this! Just out of the hospital, too. Perhaps he would get sick and have to go to another hospital. He shivered and stopped to pull his collar up closer around his neck. Then suddenly he stood still and stared with a dazed, bewildered expression, straight ahead of him. Was he getting a bit leary? He passed his hand over his eyes and looked again. Yes, there it was! Right in the midst of the busy, hurrying throng of Union Square! He made sure it was Union Square, for he looked up at the street sign to be certain it wasn’t Willow Vale—or Heaven—right there where streets met and crossed, and cars and trolleys and trucks whirled, and people passed in throngs all day, just across the narrow road, stood the loveliest, most perfect little white clapboard cottage that ever was built on this earth, with porches all around and a big tree growing up through the roof of one porch. It stood out against the night like a wonderful mirage, like a heavenly dove descended into the turmoil of the pit, like home and mother in the midst of a rushing pitiless world. He could have cried real tears of wonder and joy as he stood there, gazing. He felt as though he were one of those motion pictures in which a lone Klondiker sits by his campfire cooking a can of salmon or baked beans, and up above him on the screen in one corner appears the Christmas tree where his wife and baby at home are celebrating and missing him. It seemed just as unreal as that to see that little beautiful home cottage set down in the midst of the city.

The windows were all lit up with a warm, rosy light and there were curtains at the windows, rosy pink curtains like the ones they used to have at the house where his girl lived, long ago before the War spoiled him. He stood and continued to gaze until a lot of cash-boys, let loose from the toil of the day, rushed by and almost knocked his crutch from under him. Then he determined to get nearer this wonder. Carefully watching his opportunity he hobbled across the street and went slowly around the building. Yes, it was real. Some public building, of course, but how wonderful to have it look so like a home! Why had they done it?

Then he came around toward the side, and there in plain letters was a sign: “Soldiers and Sailors in Uniform Welcome.” What? Was it possible? Then he might go in? What kind of a place could it be?

He raised his eyes a little and there, slung out above the neatly shingled porch, like any sign, swung an immense fat brown doughnut a foot and a half in diameter, with the sugar apparently still sticking to it, and inside the rough hole sat a big white coffee cup. His heart leaped up and something suddenly gave him an idea. He fumbled in his pocket, brought out a card, saw that this was the Salvation Army hut, and almost shouted with joy. He lost no time in hurrying around to the door and stepping inside.

There revealed before him was a great cozy room, with many easy-chairs and tables, a piano at which a young soldier sat playing ragtime, and at the farther end a long white counter on which shone two bright steaming urns that sent forth a delicious odor of coffee. Through an open door behind the counter he caught a glimpse of two Salvation Army lassies busy with some cups and plates, and a third enveloped in a white apron was up to her elbows in flour, mixing something in a yellow bowl. By one of the little tables two soldier boys were eating doughnuts and coffee, and at another table a sailor sat writing a letter. It was all so cozy and homelike that it took his breath away and he stood there blinking at the lights that flooded the rooms from graceful white bowl-like globes that hung suspended from the ceiling by brass chains. He saw that the rosy light outside had come from soft pink silk sash curtains that covered the lower part of the windows, and there were inner draperies of some heavier flowered material that made the whole thing look real and substantial. The willow chairs had cushions of the same flowered stuff. The walls were a soft pearly gray below and creamy white above, set off by bands of dark wood, and a dark floor with rush mats strewn about. He looked around slowly, taking in every detail almost painfully. It was such a contrast to the noisy, rushing street, a contrast to the hospital, and the trenches and all the life with which he had been familiar during the past few dreadful months. It made him think of home and mother. He began to be afraid he was going to cry like a great big baby, and he looked around nervously for a place to get out of sight. He saw a fellow going upstairs and at a distance he followed him. Up there was another bright, quiet room, curtained and cushioned like the other, with more easy willow chairs, round willow tables, and desks over by the wall where one might write. The soldier who had come up ahead of him was already settled writing now at a desk in the far corner. There were bookcases between the windows with new beautifully bound books in them, and there were magazines scattered around, and no rules that one must not spit on the floor, or put their feet in the chairs, or anything of the sort. Only, of course, no one would ever dream of doing anything like that in such a place. How beautiful it was, and how quiet and peaceful! He sank into a chair and looked about him. What rest!

And now there were real tears in his eyes which he hastened to brush roughly away, for someone was coming toward him and a hand was on his shoulder. A man’s voice, kindly, pleasant, brotherly, spoke:

“All in, are you, my boy? Well, you just sit and rest yourself awhile. What do you think of our hut? Good place to rest? Well, that’s what we want it to be to you, Home. Just drop in here whenever you’re in town and want a place to rest or write, or a bite of something homelike to eat.”

He looked up to the broad shoulders in their well-fitting dark blue uniform, and into the kindly face of the gray-haired Colonel of the Salvation Army who happened to step in for a minute on business and had read the look on the lonesome boy’s face just in time to give a word of cheer. He could have thrown his arms around the man’s neck and kissed him if he only hadn’t been too shy. But in spite of the shyness he found himself talking with this fine strong man and telling him some of his disappointments and perplexities, and when the older man left him he was strengthened in spirit from the brief conversation. Somehow it didn’t look quite so black a prospect to have but one foot.

He read a magazine for a little while and then, drawn by the delicious odors, he went downstairs and had some coffee and doughnuts. He saw while he was eating that the front porch opened out of the big lower room and was all enclosed in glass and heated with radiators. A lot of fellows were sitting around there in easy-chairs, smoking, talking, one or two sleeping in their chairs or reading papers. It had a dim, quiet light, a good place to rest and think. He was more and more filled with wonder. Why did they do it? Not for money, for they charged hardly enough to pay for the materials in the food they sold, and he knew by experience that when one had no money one could buy of them just the same if one were in need.

Later in the evening he took out the little card again and looked up the other address. He wanted one of those clean, sweet beds that he had been hearing about, that one could get for only a quarter a night, with all the shower-bath you wanted thrown in. So he went out again and found his way down to Forty-first Street.

There was something homelike about the very atmosphere as he entered the little office room and looked about him. Beyond, through an open door he could see a great red brick fireplace with a fire blazing cheerfully and a few fellows sitting about reading and playing checkers. Everybody looked as if they felt at home.

When he signed his name in the big register book the young woman behind the desk who wore an overseas uniform glanced at his signature and then looked up as if she were welcoming an old friend:

“There’s a telegram here for you,” she said pleasantly. “It came last night and we tried to locate you at the camp but did not succeed. One of our girls went over to camp this afternoon, but they said you were gone on a furlough, so we hoped you would turn up.”

She handed over the telegram and he took it in wonder. Who would send him a telegram? And here of all places! Why, how would anybody know he would be here? He was so excited his crutch trembled under his arm as he tore open the envelope and read:

“Dear Billy (It was a regular letter!):
“I am leaving to-night for New York. Will meet you at Salvation Hostel day after to-morrow morning. What is a foot more or less? Can’t I be hands and feet for you the rest of your life? I’m proud, proud, proud of you!

Signed “Jean”

He found great tears coming into his eyes and his throat was full of them, too. It didn’t matter if that Salvation Army lassie behind the counter did see them roll down his cheeks. He didn’t care. She would understand anyway, and he laughed out loud in his joy and relief, the first joy, the first relief since he was hurt!

Some one else was coming in the door, another fellow maybe, but the lassie opened a door in the desk and drew him behind the counter in a shaded corner where no one would notice and brought him a cup of tea, which she said was all they had around to eat just then. She didn’t pay any attention to him till he got his equilibrium again.

She was the kind of woman one feels is a natural-born mother. In fact, the fellows were always asking her wistfully: “May we call you Mother?” Young enough to understand and enter into their joys and sorrows, yet old enough to be wise and sweet and true. She mothered every boy that came.

A sailor boy once asked if he might bring his girl to see her. He said he wanted her to see her so she could tell his mother about her.

“But can’t you tell her about your girl?” she asked.

“Oh, yes, but I want you to tell her.” he said. “You see, whatever you say mother’ll know is true.”

So presently she turned to this lonely boy and took him upstairs through the pleasant upper room with its piano and games, its sun parlor over the street, lined with trailing ferns, with cheery canaries in swinging tasseled cages, who looked fully as happy and at home as did the soldier boys who were sitting about comfortably reading. She found him a room with only one other bunk in it. Nice white beds with springs like air and mattresses like down. She showed him where the shower-baths were, and with a kindly good-night left him. He almost wanted to ask her to kiss him good-night, so much like his own mother she seemed.

Before he got into that white bed he knelt beside it, all clean and comfortable and happy like a little child that had wandered a long way from home and got back again, and he told God he was sorry and ashamed for all the way he had doubted, and sinned, and he wanted to live a new life and be good. Then he lay down to sleep. To-morrow morning Jean would be there. And she didn’t mind about the foot! She didn’t mind! How wonderful!

And then he had a belated memory of the little Salvation Army lassie on the wharf who had brought all this about, and he closed his eyes and murmured out loud to the clean, white walls: “God bless her! Oh, God bless her!”

This is only one of the many stories that might be told about the boys who have been helped by the various activities of the Salvation Army, both at home and abroad.

It would be well worth one’s while to visit their Brooklyn Hospital and their New York Hospital and all their other wonderful institutions. In several of them are many little children, some mere infants, belonging to soldiers and sailors away in the war. In some instances the mother is dead, or has to work. If she so desires she is given work in the institution, which is like a real home, and allowed to be with her child and care for it. Where both mother and father are dead the child remains for six years or until a home elsewhere is provided for it. Here the little ones are well cared for, not in the ordinary sense of an institution, but as a child would be cared for in a home, with beauty and love, and pleasure mingling with the food and shelter and raiment that is usually supplied in an institution. These children are prettily, though simply, dressed and not in uniform; with dainty bits of color in hair ribbon, collar, necktie or frock; the babies have wee pink and blue wool caps and sacks like any beloved little mites, they ride around on Kiddie Cars, play with doll houses and have a fine Kindergarten teacher to guide their young minds, and the best of hospital service when they are ailing. But that is another story, and there are yet many of them. If everybody could see the beautiful life-size painting of Christ blessing the little children which is painted right on the very wall and blended into the tinting, they could better comprehend the spirit which pervades this lovely home.

The New York Hospital, which has just been rebuilt and refurnished with all the latest appliances, is in charge of a devoted woman physician, who has given her life to healing, and has at the head of its Board one of the most noted surgeons in the city, who gives his services free, and boasts that he enjoys it best of all his work. Here those of small means or of no means at all, especially those belonging to soldiers and sailors, may find healing of the wisest and most expert kind, in cheery, airy, sanitary and beautiful rooms. But here, too, to understand, one must see. Just a peep into one of those dainty white rooms would rest a poor sick soul; just a glance at the room full of tiny white basket cribs with dainty blue satin-bound blankets—real wool blankets—and white spreads, would convince one.

And what one sees in New York in the line of such activities is duplicated in most of the other large cities of the United States.

Not the least of the Salvation Army service for the returning soldiers is the work that is done on the docks by the lassies meeting returning troop ships. They send telegrams free, not C.O.D., for them, give the men stamped postal cards, hunt up relatives, answer questions, and give them chocolate while they wait for the inevitable roll call before they can entrain. Often these girls will sit up half the night after having met boats nearly all day, to get the telegrams all off that night. It is interesting to note that on one single day, April 20th, 1919, the Salvation Army Headquarters in New York sent 2900 such free telegrams for returning soldiers.

The other day the father of a soldier came to Headquarters with an anxious face, after a certain unit from overseas had returned. It was the unit in which his boy had gone to France, but he had written saying he was in the hospital without stating what was the matter or how serious his wound. No further word had been received and the father and mother were frenzied with grief. They had tried in every way to get information but could find out nothing. The Salvation Army went to work on the telephone and in a short time were able to locate the missing boy in a Casual Company soon to return, and to report to his anxious father that he was recovering rapidly.

Another soldier arrived in New York and sent a Salvation Army telegram to his father and mother in California who had previously received notification that he was dead. A telegram came back to the Salvation Army almost at once from the West stating this fact and begging some one to go to the camp where the boy’s Casual Company was located and find out if he were really living. One of the girls from the office went over to the Debarkation Hospital immediately and saw the boy, and was able to telegraph to his parents that he was perfectly recovered and only awaiting transportation to California. He was overjoyed to see someone who had heard from his parents.

A portion of one troop ship had been reserved for soldiers having influenza. These men were kept on board long after all the others had left the ship. A Salvation Army worker seeing them with the white masks over their faces went on board and served them with chocolate, distributing post cards and telegraph blanks. When she was leaving the ship a Captain said to her rather brusquely: “Don’t you realize that you have done a foolish thing? Those men have influenza and your serving them might mean your death!”

Looking up into the man’s eyes the Salvationist said: “I am ready to die if God sees fit to call me.”

The officer laughed and told her that was the first time in his life he had known anyone to say they were ready to die and would willingly expose themselves to such a contagious disease.

“Aren’t you ready to die?” asked the girl. “Certainly not,” replied the Captain. “Sometimes I think I am hardly fit to live, much less die.”

“Don’t you realize that there is a Power which can enable you to live in such a way as to make you ready to die?”

“Oh, well, I don’t bother about going to church, in fact, I don’t bother about religion at all, although I must say once or twice when I was up the line over there I wished I did know something about religion, that is, the kind that makes a fellow feel good about dying; but I don’t want to go to church and go through all that business.”

“It is possible to accept Christ here and now on this very spot—on this ship—if you’ll only believe,” said the girl wistfully.

The Captain could not help being interested and thoughtful. When she left, after a little more talk he put out his hand and said:

“Thank you. You’ve done me more good than any sermon could have done me, and believe me, I am going to pray and trust God to help me live a different life.”

Sad things are seen on the docks at times when the ships come into port, and the boys are coming home.

A soldier in a basket, with both arms and both legs gone and only one eye, was being carried tenderly along.

“Why do you let him live?” asked one pityingly of the Commanding Officer.

The gruff, kindly voice replied:

“You don’t know what life is. We don’t live through our arms and legs. We live through our hearts.”

Some of our boys have learned out there amid shell fire to live through their hearts.

One of these lying on a litter greeted the lassie from Indiana, just come back to New York from France to meet the boys when they landed:

“Hello, Sister! You here?”

Her eyes filled with tears as she recognized one of her old friends of the trenches, and noticed how helpless he was now, he who had been the strongest of the strong. She murmured sympathetically some words of attempted cheer:

“Oh, that’s all right, Sister,” he said, “I know they got me pretty hard, but I don’t mind that. I’m not going to feel bad about it. I got something better than arms and legs over in one of your little huts in France. I found Jesus, and I’m going to live for Him. I wanted you to know.”

A few days later she was talking with another boy just landed. She asked him how it seemed to be home again, and to her surprise he turned a sorrowful face to her:

“It’s the greatest disappointment of my life,” he said sadly, “the folks here don’t understand. They all want to make me forget, and I don’t want to forget what I learned out there. I saw life in a different way and I knew I had wasted all the years. I want to live differently now, and mother and her friends are just getting up dances and theatre parties for me to help me to forget. They don’t understand.”

Forty miles west of Chicago is Camp Grant and there the Salvation Army has put up a hut just outside of the camp.

During the days when the boys were being sent to France, and were under quarantine, unable to go out, no one was allowed to come in and there was great distress. Mothers and sisters and friends could get no opportunity to see them for farewells.

The Salvation officer in charge suggested to the military authorities that the Salvation Army hut be the clearing place for relatives, and that he would come in his machine and bring the boys to the hut, taking them back again afterwards, that they might have a few hours with their friends before leaving for France.

This offer was readily accepted by the authorities, and so it was made possible for hundreds and hundreds of mothers to get a last talk with their boys before they left, some of them forever.

One day a young man came to the Salvation Army officer and told him that his regiment was to depart that night and that he was in great distress about his wife who on her way to see him had been caught in a railroad wreck, and later taken on her way by a rescue train. “I think she is in Rockford somewhere,” he said anxiously, “but I don’t know where, and I have to leave in three hours!”

The Ensign was ready with his help at once. He took the young soldier in his car to Rockford, seven miles away, and they went from hotel to hotel seeking in vain for any trace of the wife. Then suddenly as they were driving along the street wondering what to try next the young soldier exclaimed: “There she is!” And there she was, walking along the street!

The two had a blessed two hours together before the soldier had to leave. But it was all in the day’s work for the Salvation Army man, for his main object in life is to help someone, and he never minds how much he puts himself out. It is always reward enough for him to have succeeded in bringing comfort to another.

One of the Salvation Army Ensigns who was assigned to work at Camp Grant hut had been an all-round athlete before he joined the Salvation Army, a boxer and wrestler of no mean order.

The fame of the Ensign went abroad and the doctor at the Base Hospital asked him to take charge of athletics in the hospital. He was also appointed regularly as chaplain in the hospital. Every day he drilled the five hundred women nurses in gymnastics, and put the men attendants and as many of the patients as were able through a set of exercises. Thus mingling his religion with his athletics he became a great power among the men in the hospital.

The Salvation Army asked the hospital if there was anything they could do for the wounded men. The reply was, that there were eighty wards and not a graphophone in one of them, nothing to amuse the boys. The need was promptly filled by the Salvation Army which supplied a number of graphophones and a piano. Then, discovering that the nurses who were getting only a very small cash allowance out of which they had to furnish their uniforms, were short of shoes, the indefatigable good Samaritan produced a thousand dollars to buy new shoes for them. The Salvation Army has always been doing things like that.

The Salvation Army built many huts, locating them wherever there was need among the camps. They have a hut at Camp Grant, one at Camp Funston, one at Camp Travis, San Antonio, one at Camp Logan, Houston, Texas, one at Camp Bowie, Fort Worth, one at Camp Cody, Deming, New Mexico, one at Camp Lewis, Tacoma, a Soldiers’ Club at Des Moines, a Soldiers’ Club with Sitting Room, Dining Room, and rooms for a hundred soldiers just opened at Chicago. There is a charge of twenty-five cents a night and twenty-five cents a meal for such as have money. No charge for those who have no money. There is such a Soldiers’ Club at St. Louis, Kansas City, St. Paul and Minneapolis. All of these places at the camps have accommodations for women relatives to visit the soldiers, and all of the rooms are always full to the limit.

In Des Moines the Army has an interesting institution which grew out of a great need.

The Federal authorities have placed a Woman’s Protective Agency in all Camp towns. At Des Moines the woman representative of the Federal Government sent word to the Salvation Army that she wished they would help her. She said she had found so many young girls between the ages of fourteen and sixteen who were being led into an immoral life through the soldiers, and she wished the Salvation Army would open a home to take care of such girls.

With their usual swiftness to come to the rescue the Salvation Army opened such a home. The Brigadier up in Chicago gave up his valued private secretary, a lovely young girl only twenty-four years old, to be at the head of this home. It may seem a pretty big undertaking for so young a girl, but these Salvation Army girls are brought up to be wonderfully wise and sweet beyond others, and if you could look into her beautiful eyes you would have an understanding of the consecration and strength of character that has made it possible for her to do this work with marvellous success, and reach the hearts and turn the lives of these many young girls who have come under her influence in this way. In her work she deals with the individual, always giving immediate relief for any need, always pointing the way straight and direct to a better life. The young girls are kept in the home for a week or more until some near relative can be sent for, or longer, until a home and work can be found for them. Every case is dealt with on its own merits; and many young girls have had their feet set upon the right road, and a new purpose in life given to them with new ideals, from the young Christian girl whom they easily love and trust.

So great has been the success of the Salvation Army hut and women’s hostel at Camp Lewis that the United States Government has asked the Salvation Army to put up a hundred thousand dollar hotel at that camp which is located twenty miles out of Tacoma. The Salvation Army hut at this place was recently inspected by Secretary of War Baker and Chief of Staff who highly complimented the Salvationists on the good work being done.

A Christmas box was sent by the Salvation Army to each soldier in every camp and hospital throughout the West. Each box contained an orange, an apple, two pounds of nuts, one pound of raisins, one pound of salted peanuts, one package of figs, two handkerchiefs in sealed packets, one book of stamps, a package of writing paper, a New Testament, and a Christmas letter from the Commissioner at Headquarters in Chicago.

No Officer in the Salvation Army has been more successful in ingenious efforts to further all activities connected with the work than Commissioner Estill in command of the Western forces. He is an indefatigable and tireless worker, is greatly beloved, and his efforts have met with exceptional success.

It was a new manager who had taken hold of the affairs of the Salvation Army Hostel in a certain city that morning and was establishing family prayers. A visitor, waiting to see someone, sat in an alcove listening.

There in the long beautiful living-room of the Hostel sat a little audience, two black women-the cooks-several women in neat aprons and caps as if they had come in from their work, a soldier who had been reading the morning paper and who quietly laid it aside when the Bible reading began, a sailor who tiptoed up the two low steps from the cafÉ beyond the living-room where he had been having his morning coffee and doughnuts—the young clerk from behind the office desk. They all sat quiet, respectful, as if accorded a sudden, unexpected privilege.

The reading was a few well-chosen verses about Moses in the mount of vision and somehow seemed to have a strange quieting influence and carried a weight of reality read thus in the beginning of a busy day’s work.

The reader closed the book and quite familiarly, not at all pompously, he said with a pleasant smile that this was a lesson for all of them. Each one should have his vision for the day. The cook should have a vision as she made the doughnuts—and he called her by her name—to make them just as well as they could be made; and the women who made the beds should have a vision of how they could make the beds smooth and soft and fine to rest weary comers; and those who cleaned must have a vision to make the house quite pure and sweet so that it would be a home for the boys who came there; the clerk at the desk should have a vision to make the boys comfortable and give them a welcome; and everyone should have a vision of how to do his work in the best way, so that all who came there for a day or a night or longer should have a vision when they left that God was ruling in that place and that everything was being done for His praise.

Just a few simple words bringing the little family of workers into touch with the Divine and giving them a glimpse of the great plan of laboring with God where no work is menial, and nothing too small to be worth doing for the love of Christ. Then the little company dropped upon their knees, and the earnest voice took up a prayer which was more an intimate word with a trusted beloved Companion; and they all arose to go about that work of theirs with new zest and—a vision!

In her alcove out of sight the visitor found refreshment for her own soul, and a vision also.

This is the secret of this wonderful work that these people do in France, in the cities, everywhere; they have a vision! They have been upon the Mountain with God and they have not forgotten the injunction:

“See that thou do all things according to the pattern given thee in the Mount”

But the stories multiply and my space is drawing to a close. I am minded to say reverently in words of old:

“And there are also many other things which these disciples of Jesus did, the which if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written;” but are they not graven in the hearts of men who found the Christ on the battlefield or the hospital cot, or in the dim candle-lit hut, through these dear followers of His?