“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.

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.