style="font-style: italic">not sceptical.”

We were half an hour ahead of time and the hut was crowded with eight hundred men. They were singing when I got in—something about “an old rooster—as you used to.”

Do you suppose I had no better sense than to go in and say, “Stop this ungodly music?” You can catch more flies with treacle than with vinegar.

I looked at the boys and said, “That's great, sing it again.”

[pg 17]

And I turned to the padre and asked, “Isn't that splendid? Isn't that fine?”

While we were waiting to begin the meeting, I said, “Boys, we must have another.”

“One of the same sort?” they shouted.

“Of course,” was my reply. And they sang “Who's your lady friend?” and when they had sung that, I called out, “Boys, we will have one more. What shall it be?”

“One of yours, sir.”

I had not trusted them in vain.

I said, “Very well, you choose your hymn.”

“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 [pg 18]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.

[pg 19]

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.

[pg 20]

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 [pg 21] 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 [pg 22] 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.'”

I knew that would fetch them.

At half-past six the hut was crowded with eight hundred Munsters. If you are an old angler, indeed if you know anything at all about angling, you know that you have got to consider two or three things if you are to stand any chance of a catch. You have got to study your tackle, you have got to study your bait, you have got to study the habits of your fish. When the time came to begin that meeting, one of the workers said,

“Shall I bring the box of hymn-books out?”

“No, no,” I replied; “that's the wrong bait.”

Those Munster boys knew nothing about hymn-books. We preachers have got to come off our pedestals and not give our hearers what we want, but the thing that will catch them. If a pretty, catchy Sankey hymn will attract a crowd, why shouldn't we use it instead of [pg 23]an anthem? If a brass band will catch them, why shouldn't we play it instead of an organ?

“Keep back those hymn-books,” I said. “They know nothing about hymn-books.” I had a pretty good idea of what would have happened if those hymn-books had been produced at the start.

I got on that platform, and I looked at those eight hundred Munsters and said, “Boys, are we down-hearted?”

“No,” they shouted.

You can imagine what eight hundred Munsters shouting “No” sounds like. They were all attention instantly. I wonder what would happen if the Vicar went into church next Sunday morning and asked the question, “Are we down-hearted?” I knew it would cause a sensation, but I'd rather have a sensation than a stagnation.

Those boys sat up. I said, “We are going to talk about gipsy life.” I talked to them about the origin of my people. There's not a man living in the world who knows the origin of my people. I can trace my people back to India, but they didn't come from India. We are one of the oldest races in the world, so old that [pg 24]nobody knows how old. I talked to them about the origin of the gipsies, and I don't know it, but I knew more about it than they did. I talked to them about our language, and I gave them specimens of it, and there I was on sure ground. It is a beautiful language, full of poetry and music. Then I talked about the way the gipsies get their living—and other people's; and for thirty minutes those Munsters hardly knew if they were on the chairs or on the floor—and I purposely made them laugh. They had just come out of the hell of the trenches. They had that haunted, weary, hungry look, and if only I could make them laugh and forget the hell out of which they had just climbed it was religion, and I wasn't wasting time.

When I had been talking for thirty minutes, I stopped, and said, “Boys, there's a lot more to this story. Would you like some more?”

“Yes,” they shouted.

“Come back to-morrow,” I said.

I was fishing in unlikely waters, and if you leave off when fish are hungry they will come back for more. For six nights I told those boys gipsy stories. I took them out into the [pg 25]woods. We went out amongst the rabbits. I told the boys the rabbits got very fond of me—so fond that they used to go home with me! I took them through the clover-fields on a June day and made them smell the perfume. I took them among the buttercups. I told them it was the Finger of Love and the Smile of Infinite Wisdom that put the spots upon the pansy and the deep blue in the violet. And then we went out among the birds and we saw God taking songs from the lips of a seraph and wrapping them round with feathers.

And the boys saw Jesus in every buttercup and every primrose, and every little daisy, and in every dewdrop, and heard something of the song of the angels in the notes of the nightingale and the skylark. Oh! Jesus was there, and they felt Him, and they saw Him. I took them amongst the gipsy tents, amongst the woodlands and dells of the old camping-grounds. They walked with Him and they talked with Him. I didn't use the usual Church language, but I used the language of God in Nature and the boys heard Him.

Towards the end of the week one of those Munster boys came and touched me and said, [pg 26]“Your Riverence! Your Riverence!” he says. “You're a gentleman.”

I knew I had got that boy.

Now, if you are an old angler you know what