was forced into the single channel of silent
service. It reminded one of those thirty years in our Lord's life, in
simple secular toil, which could only minister to the needs of men over
a carpenter's bench.

It is no small task to undertake to occupy all the leisure time of
25,000 men far from home, shut up in irksome camps, easily aroused by
rumor or superstition. The numbers increased until there were finally
some 50,000 men to be cared for. Athletic fields were secured and
games were started. Football and hockey were more played by the
Indians than by the British troops. Badminton and volley ball, races
and track events, were also useful. Indoor games, the gramophone,
cinemas and concerts, and especially Indian dramas, were popular in the
evening. Lectures on geography, history, and moral subjects were well
attended, and French classes were of practical benefit.

An incalculable service has also been rendered in writing letters for
the great mass of ignorant soldiers to their families in the far-off
Indian villages, miles away from a railway. Illiteracy, superstition,
and false rumors existed at both ends of the line. Here is a man who
has had no word from home since he left a year or more ago. He hears a
baseless rumor or heeds some inborn fear that his child is sick, or his
wife unfaithful, or that he has been cheated out of his property.
Hundreds of homesick men whose whole lives have been bound up in the
family circle pour in upon the secretaries, begging that they will
write letters home for them. Here you may see six or eight secretaries
writing for hours each day, as fast as the men can dictate their
messages and tell their stories.

Then there arose the problem of how to keep these men in touch with
their households in isolated and illiterate villages in India. Mr.
Hume, one of the secretaries in Lahore, devised a far-reaching plan
whereby every letter was forwarded through missionaries or Christian
workers or officials to the distant home of the soldier. The whole
community gathers to hear the news from the Indian regiment on the
other side of the world, and a shout goes up from the village street
when they learn that their brave Sepoy is not dead, as rumor had
whispered. A message is sent back in eager gratitude from the wife,
children, and neighbors, and from the united heart of the little
village to the distant soldier and his fighting comrades. The Red
Triangle has spanned the gulf fro