t King's Cross,
Victoria, and Waterloo,--and the station hut often means the last touch
of home before men go overseas, and that makes the work and the
personality of the workers all the more important.

CHAPTER IV

THE ROMANCE OF FINANCE

This work has been admirably done both at home and
at the Front. Its spiritual and material value to
the men lies beyond all reckoning, and the
services of its personnel are deeply appreciated
by the men themselves.--THE RIGHT HON. A. J.
BALFOUR, O.M., M.P.

ON August 4, 1914, our plan for war work was ready, but the 'sinews of
war' were lacking. Little could be done without money. In our extremity
we laid the whole position before one of our most generous leaders and
supporters, and told him of the opportunity we saw facing the Y.M.C.A.
'If we are to seize the opportunity,' we said, 'it is absolutely
necessary we should secure immediately twenty-five thousand pounds!' He
looked up and smiled indulgently--'Twenty-five thousand pounds!' he
cried; 'you couldn't possibly raise three thousand pounds at a time like
this; the thing's impossible!' 'Impossible or not,' was the reply, 'it
must be done. We mustn't even stop to think of the future of the
Y.M.C.A. Everything is at stake, and even if we have to sell every
building and every stick of furniture we possess we must go forward
now!' That very day a large number of telegrams and letters were sent
out from Headquarters to friends all over the country--the first war
emergency appeal of the Red Triangle--and within a few days the whole of
the twenty-five thousand pounds had been raised, and we were appealing
for another fifty thousand pounds, until at the time of writing, in
August 1918, the war fund has reached the total of nearly two and a half
millions sterling. That is a small sum compared with the amounts raised
for Y.M.C.A. war work in the United States. Their first appeal brought
in five million pounds, the second more than twelve millions, and their
appeal a year later, in October 1918, is for twenty millions sterling.
Our American friends gave us a hundred thousand pounds from the amount
raised by their second war work appeal, a generous and much appreciated
gift. People who know little of the facts are sometimes inclined to
criticise what they regard as the huge war expenditure of the British
Y.M.C.A.'s, but a moment's reflection will make it clear that it h