Warlincourt that so often
changed hands in the course of desperate fighting, and there on the top
were those little brown crosses. We stood at the edge of the vast crater
of La Boiselle that inaugurated the first battle of the Somme and saw in
its depths several of those little symbols of our Christian faith, but
looking away across the desolation of the battlefield one marvelled at
the efforts of nature to hide up the ravages of war. There were the most
glorious masses of colour everywhere--the colour given by the wild
flowers of the battlefields. One felt one had never seen more vivid blue
than that of the acres of cornflowers which rivalled the hues of the
gentian of the Alps. It may have been imagination, but looking out from
the Butte of Warlincourt over miles of poppies, one felt one had never
seen such vivid red, and instinctively those words came into one's mind:

'O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not seek to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life's glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red,
Life that shall endless be.'

The wild flowers of Picardy have bloomed over British graves again in
the summer of 1918, though German, not British, eyes saw them during the
early months, but those flowers speak of eternal hope, and tell us that
if we but do our part, the sacrifice of our bravest and best will not
have been made in vain.

Amid the ruins of Picardy the Y.M.C.A. did some of its best work. Lord
Derby spoke of the Association as 'essential in peace time,
indispensable in war time,' and never was the Association more
indispensable than during those terrible days of the German advance in
1918. Amid the ever-changing scenes of war it has been one of the
forces working for reconstruction. We mourn the loss of huts and Red
Triangle centres that have cost money, and on which labour has been
lavished. Not much to look at many of these places, and yet to those who
knew them they possessed an indescribable charm and fascination. It was
only a little marquee, for instance, that formed the Headquarters of the
Red Triangle at Henin in 1917, only a couple of padres, one Church of
England and one a Free Churchman there to represent the Y.M.C.A., but
the whole story is a romance. Whilst we were sharing their lunch of
bully beef and potatoes, bread, biscuits, and coffee, a 'strafe' began.
The British artillery, half a mile away, were pouring lead into the Hun
l