WAR'S LESSER VICTORIES

Evening Star, Issue 16911, 7 December 1918, Page 9

WAR'S LESSER VICTORIES

A topic scarcely loss interesting to the homc-sisyir.g- population of the United Stales than the effect of the chaplains upon llio soldiers is the effect of the soldiers upon the chaplains (says an American writer). T'm Y.M.C.A.’s general field sr.crofary for' Franc* who has just ret-un.-cd to this country after a _ year’s absence, warns the congregations which have given their pastors leave "of absence for war work that they will find great changes in them. Ho illustrates his meaning by the story of a clergyman, who bad regarded his mission to Prance largely as an opportunity to conduct au anti-nicotine crusade. Ho was placed, in charge of a hut behind tho lines, After a night of infantry activity, there appeared at the. hut a detachment of man, some of them wounded. The sergeant in cha-.go asked for chocolate, which tho clergyman cheerfully supplied; then for cigarettes". After a little hesitation he produced them, and with them matches. Detachment after detachment: arrived, each asking for cigarettes. Ho yielded them up, and marked tho satisfaction of the men at the fust pull. By" and by his matches gave out. He still had cigarettes, and etiil the wounded and tha weary camo in asking for them “For the rest of the day/’ tho Y.M.C.A. secretary relates, “ this crusader against tobacco found himself doing the only thing that would enable him to look his wounded countrymen in the eye tvs they stopped at the hut for rest. He kept a cigarette glowing in his lip's all day long, so that each boy should he able to gob a light,”