any feeling that what is done for them is done for some other purpose than the ostensible one, entirely apart from how worthy such other purpose may be. Let me quote from a letter written by an officer of the Army who had been visiting a number of camps:

"The Camp Library to my mind fulfills one of the most vital needs of the camp. It is a place where our men can get relaxation and mental stimulus, and where they can feel at ease without the 'God-bless-you' atmosphere of the other welfare organizations."... "It is the one place in camp where you can go and have a chance to meditate or read in peace and quiet without a piano jangling in your ears or the imminent possibility of a prayer meeting."

The chaplain or the lay religious worker to whom a man instinctively turned at the moment when he needed spiritual help was the one whom he had learned to respect for courage and devotion and dignity, the man who had helped to bury his dead friend, to comfort and amuse his wounded friend, and to advise his misguided friend in the guard-house; not the one whose ill-timed ministrations he had learned to avoid. I understand that the story of the chaplain who entirely forgot that he was to appear at a review for the purpose of receiving a medal and delayed the entire proceedings while he was sought for and found in his customary post in the connecting trench, is absolutely authentic.

The man who could forget his denomination in his devotion to the great common mission was the man whom the soldier learned to love and to trust and who could do the most in the day of battle. The most popular tales among the chaplains are the tales of unorthodoxy: The Catholic priest who baptized a group of his men before action in a shell hole with water which was not only unblessed, but I fear unsanitary, and who simply referred to Philip and the Eunuch when reproved; the Methodist and Baptist, and I think the Episcopalian, who in the absence of their Presbyterian colleague, solemnly and quite illegally received a youngster into the Presbyterian fold before he went overseas, and confessed the next morning to the Presbyterian Board; the Wesleyan chaplain in the British Army who carried a crucifix to comfort the dying Catholics on the battlefield when no priest of their faith was near, and who administered the last rites to them as best he could. There are hundreds of such stories.

The appeal of any denomination as such, or of the Y, or the corresponding societies of other faiths, as such, was always mistaken. It was the united appeal of all the doers of good deeds which counted. If we never knew before, we know now the truth of the fable of the bundle of fagots. Personally, I believe the united drive for welfare work last fall, during which Protestant, Catholic and Jew, and men of no formal religion whatever, appealed from the same platform for the same great purpose, was an event of the greatest importance in our nation, and it will go ill with us if we forget the lesson that it has to teach.

The appeal must be not only disinterested, but it must be simple and direct. This, and the careful selection of its personnel, had much, if not most, to do with the extraordinary success of the Salvation Army. There are times in a soldier's life when the sewing on of a button at some vital spot will do more to "get" him than anything else in the world.

Out of this spirit of general helpfulness, there were developed at almost every point the most beautiful and sympathetic adjustments to immediate conditions. For example, take the plan of showing moving pictures upon the ceilings of hospital wards, so that the very ill may enjoy them without the strain even of raising their heads. This small piece of thoughtfulness to me represents the standard of thinking a problem through which we will have to maintain if we are to hold what we have gained, and what we have gained includes, or should include, a realization that active and willing loving-kindness furnishes the keenest of all pleasures.

Thus far I have spoken mainly of the work of preparation in the United States. Overseas our soldiers and their officers found new conditions and were forced to make new adjustments. We no longer could control the laws and ordinances, and we found different standards of conduct—not necessarily lower standards, but different standards. We could no longer enforce prohibition for example, but we did maintain a high average of temperance. We showed our allies, some of whom I may say were honestly sceptical on the subject, that with our soldiers continence was the rule, and not the exception. When I was in France last year, I asked those who were in a position to know upon this point and was told that, comparatively speaking, very, very few of our men lowered in France the standards of conduct which they held when they came into the Army, that many more greatly improved those standards, either because of the lessons they had learned in our training camps, or because of the wholesome companionship of the women workers with whom they were daily brought in contact, or because, and this was probably the most potent factor of all, they were so desperately keen to get into the fighting line that they were taking no chances of being put out of commission beforehand. Their morality was the morality of the team in training for the big game, and it kept tens of thousands of boys straight. Indeed, until November 11, disciplinary problems may be said to have been practically non-existent among combat troops and almost negligible among the others. After the armistice was signed, there was a let-down, this being after all a very human body of young men, and the first remedy tried by some of the old-time regulars did not help a bit. This was to "give 'em plenty of drill and make 'em so tired they won't have energy to get into mischief," but as one returning artillery officer pointed out to me, when a battery a month before has fired 50,000 rounds of high-explosive at the Boche, and worked its guns over craters and through thickets, a drill with dummy ammunition on a parade ground is almost a justification for mutiny. Wiser counsel soon prevailed and the welfare work, which had slumped with the rest, was again brought up to concert pitch. It was for the first time in France, properly coördinated under Army control. The misfits and the workers who had worn themselves out were returned to this country and their places taken by fresh blood. I remember in this connection a paragraph tucked in the middle of the uncompromising officialdom of the daily departmental cable: "Send over plenty of welfare workers and remember the best men you can send are the women."

Let me take this chance to say a word about the criticisms we have been hearing of this welfare work abroad. In the first place, the success of the work in this country among the men in training set up an expectation which it was humanly impossible to meet under the conditions overseas; in other words, the men who went over assumed standards as to the minimum amount of attention which it was their right to expect, the like of which had never been dreamed in the history of mankind. As a matter of fact, and taken as a whole, the treatment which they received was admirable and the comparatively few who now doubt the truth of this statement will come to realize it as time goes on. They will see that the misfits, the over-wrought, stood out in their minds like men out of alignment at parade, that they simply did not notice the thousands of men and women whose work for them was all that their own mothers could have asked.

The following official cablegram records the state of educational, recreation and welfare work at the end of April,