mosque. Five times a day a devout soldier calls the faithful to
prayer, and on Friday about three-fourths of them come out to their
voluntary service. The Hindus, on the other hand, dependent upon
ceremonial rites, without their temple or priest and with no organized
public worship, have not a religion which holds them in such a vital
grip in this distant land.

As you pass down the camp, the band is playing for the draft that is
marching off to take its place in the trenches. The last good-bys are
being said and little groups are round the secretaries. The stalwart
Sikhs are wringing their hands or kneeling down to wipe the dust from
their shoes, or thanking them with tears of gratitude. They are great
child-like men, simple of heart, affectionate, but lonely and homesick
in a distant land. Here is a man who was once a hard drinker, living
an immoral life, but today he is keeping straight. Here is another who
has resolved to go back to India to lead a different life. There were
tears in the eyes of the secretaries themselves as they came back after
bidding good-by to the draft, and there was compensation after long
months of service in the gratitude of the men and in that inner voice
which says, "I was a stranger and ye took me in."

After Callan had launched the work among the Indian troops, he was
called upon to open up the work at a large British base camp behind the
lines in France. Here, beside the vast drill ground where Napoleon
used to marshal his troops, is a white city of tents, and between
100,000 and 200,000 men are always encamped there for training.

Life in the trenches for the moment drives men to God, but the life in
a base camp is one of fierce and insidious temptation. To hold the men
in the face of such temptations, Callan has erected his buildings in
the thirty principal centers of this base. Here is a typical hut
before us, built of plain pine boards, 120 feet long and 60 feet broad.
It accommodates from 2,000 to 3,000 men a day and is used by
three-fourths of the men in the camp, by practically all, in fact,
except those who are confined to their hospital beds. These thirty
huts will be filled all winter with an average of 60,000 men a day.
Each night at least 15,000 men will be gathered in meetings, lectures,
and healthy entertainments. Twice each week there are 12,000 men in
attendance at religious meetings, and not a week passes without
hundreds of decisions being made for the