This is what a Tommy said to me: “We had been working some thirty or forty feet below the surface, mining, when the Germans began shelling our trench. I was standing at the mouth of the tunnel when a shell whizzed past my head and exploded. I was struck in the head with pieces of the shell. When I recovered myself I crept over my dead comrades in a dazed condition, then a sergeant found me and dragged me to a place of safety. Ah! sir, that sight I shall never forget. A deep sense of the power of Almighty God came over me, but, thank God, I am spared.” I asked him, “Did you ever think of these things before?” “Not much,” he said, “but there we do think about it. It is there men pray and read the Word.” As he said this he showed me his Book, and its condition convinced me that he had made great use of it. “We would rather sing hymns than songs there. I remember before going to a charge at Neuve Chapelle I felt that if I was killed there was no hope for me, for I knew I was a lost sinner, so I, with many others, was soon on my knees, and God answered my prayer, and I am not going to forget Him now.” I said to him, “Were you not told by some preachers there that if you died in battle you were all right?” “Yes,” he replied, “but I don’t believe that any honor upon the battlefield can ever meet my need as a sinner; nothing but the sacrifice and blood of Christ can avail for me.” So saying he left me to go back to the Front for the third time.
J. S.