o The Army
by being blessed to hundreds of thousands of children for years to
come. You do not seem to think it is a very important task. I count
it the most important work I have had my hands on for years.

"I had a proper day at----. I got at the peasantry for once,
although I have often had that privilege before, and we had a
mighty day. Oh, the joy of leading those simple souls into the
light and power and freedom of the Kingdom! I am keeping better.
Praise the Lord!"

Whether The General's hopes for the use of his writings to the good of
children will be fully realised, remains to be seen; but it is a great
thing to have established even the purpose of making the way to Heaven
plain enough for the youngest feet to find.

The other day I heard a Captain explaining how he was "conscripted" into
The Army at ten years of age. He was standing outside the door of one of
our Halls on an evening when children were not admitted. He had tried,
in vain, boylike, to dodge through the doorkeeper's legs--but a drunken
woman came up and not only insisted on getting in, but on dragging him
in "to keep her company." Once inside, she went right up to the
Penitent-Form with her prisoner, and made him kneel with her there. He
had never seen so many grown-up people kneeling before, and, as they
prayed, he felt what a naughty boy he had been, and began both to weep
and pray. However little any older people might think of him that night,
God heard and saved him, and he is now fighting under our Flag in the
West Indies.

And others, who in their early years came to Christ, are now occupying
leading positions all over the world. One of them remembers, when a lad
of fifteen, hearing The General, whilst giving out the verse, "Sure, I
must fight, if I would reign; Increase my courage, Lord," say, "I would
like to alter it, to--'Sure, I will fight, and I shall reign.'" The lad
shouted, "Hallelujah!" and, as he was on the front seat in the theatre,
The General both heard and noticed him, and remarked: "I hope you will
make as good a fighter as you are a shouter." Thirty-three years of
faithful warfare have replied to The General's encouraging challenge.

And we have no means as yet of calculating how many such youthful
disciples have been equally helped by The General into a conquering
life. May this record help to multiply the number, for it is the will of
God to make all His children "strong in the