as a sight to make men or angels weep, but even there
one saw erect amid the ruins, at the highest point, the Cross, the
emblem of our Christian faith, and one knew that though it might be by
way of the Cross, yet truth and freedom would triumph in the end.

* * * * *

A well-known war correspondent writing from British Headquarters in
France to the _Daily Mail_, on August 13, 1918, told the story of a
village under shell-fire and still within reach of machine-gun bullets,
in which was a German notice-board pointing to an incinerator, and
wrote:--'I hear from an officer who visited the spot again a day later
that another notice, "This way to the Y.M.C.A." was added. A dashing
cavalry officer, very much of the old school, possessing a voice that
would carry two miles, begged me with great earnestness to do him one
service, "Would I mention the Y.M.C.A.? It had provided his men with hot
coffee before riding out."' That is the kind of service the Red Triangle
has the privilege of rendering to our fighting men in the course of
practically every battle.

* * * * *

The Bois Carre in 1916 was a very unhealthy spot. At the edge of a wood
in a tiny natural amphitheatre the Y.M.C.A. had one of its outposts. An
orderly was usually in charge, and day and night he kept up a good
supply of hot drinks for free distribution to the troops. There they
could buy biscuits, cigarettes, soap, and other necessaries, or receive
free of charge the ever-welcome writing-paper and materials. The
supervising secretary visiting the dug-out one day in the course of his
rounds found it had been blown in by a big shell. The orderly was
terribly wounded, part of his side having been blown away, but smiling
amid his agony, he said, 'The money's safe here, sir!' Careless of
himself, the brave fellow's first consideration was to safeguard the
money in the Y.M.C.A. till.

We have vivid recollections of our visit to the Bois Carre in 1916. Late
in the evening we reached Dickebusch. The Y.M.C.A. was there in the main
street of the little Belgian village, and immediately behind it was the
ruined church. It was only a small strafed building in a ruined street
when the Red Triangle first made its appearance in Dickebusch, but the
secretary held that to be the most convenient type of Y.M.C.A. building,
'for,' said he, 'if it becomes too small, all you have to do is to
knock a hole through the wal