The War Romance of the Salvation Army Part 30

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 la.s.sies meeting returning troop s.h.i.+ps. 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 s.h.i.+p had been reserved for soldiers having influenza. These men were kept on board long after all the others had left the s.h.i.+p. 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 s.h.i.+p 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 G.o.d 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 s.h.i.+p--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 G.o.d to help me live a different life."

Sad things are seen on the docks at times when the s.h.i.+ps 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 sh.e.l.l fire to live through their hearts.

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

"h.e.l.lo, 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 a.s.signed 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 inst.i.tution 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 establis.h.i.+ng 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 ap.r.o.ns 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 cafe 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Thomas Estill Commissioner of the Western Forces]

[Ill.u.s.tration: The hut at Camp Lewis]

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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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!