The Project Gutenberg EBook of Your Boys by Gipsy Smith



This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under
the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or
online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license



Title: Your Boys

Author: Gipsy Smith

Release Date: 2005-09 [Ebook #16495]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8


***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YOUR BOYS***





Your Boys
By Gipsy Smith

With a Foreword
by The Bishop of London


New York
George H. Doran Company
1918






                             [_Cover Image_]

                               Cover Image





FOREWORD


I am writing this during an air raid at 12.30 at night, and I have just
finished a Foreword for the Bishop of Zanzibar’s new and tender little
book. He has been a water-carrier for the British force in German East
Africa, and Gipsy Smith has just come from the trenches in France.

You would not expect the two books to be similar, but they are: they are
both about “Jesus.” This devotion to “Jesus” binds all time Christians
together, and one day will bring us all more visibly together than we are
now. I love this breezy little book of Gipsy Smith’s; it is not only full
of the love of “Jesus,” but love of our “our boys.” They _are_ splendid. I
spent the first two months of the war as their visiting chaplain—went out
to give them their Easter Communion the first year of the war at the
Front. Gipsy Smith and I made friends together, speaking for them at the
London Opera House on the great day of Intercession and Thanksgiving we
had for them when the King himself called us all together.

Then I like the common sense of it! You must have robust common sense if
you are going to win “our boys.” Anything unreal, merely sentimental,
washy, they detect in a moment. You must draw them “with the cords of a
man and the bonds of love,” and those who read this book will find many a
hint as to how to do it.

                                                              A.F. LONDON.





YOUR BOYS


I have just come back from your boys. I have been living among them and
talking to them for six months. I have been under shell fire for a month,
night and day. I have preached the Gospel within forty yards of the
Germans. I have tried to sleep at night in a cellar, and it was so cold
that my moustache froze to my blanket and my boots froze to the floor. The
meal which comforted me most was a little sour French bread and some Swiss
milk and hot water, and a pinch of sugar when I could get it.

There are Y.M.C.A. marquees close to the roads down which come the walking
wounded from the trenches. In three of these marquees last summer in three
days over ten thousand cases were provided with hot drinks and
refreshment—free. And that I call Christian work. You and I have been too
much concerned about the preaching and too little about the doing of
things.

A friend of mine was in one of those marquees at the time, and he told me
a beautiful story. Some of the men sat and stood there two and three hours
waiting their turn, and the workers were nearly run off their feet. They
were at it for three nights and three days. There was one fellow, a
handsome chap, sitting huddled up and looking so haggard and cold, that my
friend said to him,

“I am sorry you have had to wait so long, old chap. We’re doing our best.
We’ll get to you as soon as we can.”

“Never mind me,” said the man; “carry on!”

As the sun came out he unbuttoned his coat, and when the coat was thrown
back my friend saw that he was wearing a colonel’s uniform.

“I am sorry, sir,” said my friend. “I did not know. I oughtn’t to have
spoken to you in that familiar way.”

“You have earned the right to say anything you like to me,” said the
Colonel. “Go right on.”

And then my friend said, “Well, come with me, sir, to the back, and I will
get you a cup of coffee.”

“No, not a minute before the boys. I’ll take my turn with them.”

That’s the spirit. Your boys, I say, are great stuff. They have their
follies. They can go to the devil if they want to, but tens of thousands
of them don’t want to, and hundreds of thousands are living straight in
spite of their surroundings. They are the bravest, dearest boys that God
ever gave to the world, and you and I ought to be proud of them. If the
people at home were a tenth as grateful as they ought to be they would
crowd into our churches, if it were for nothing else but to pray for and
give thanks for the boys.

They are just great, your boys. They saved your homes. I was recently in a
city in France which had before the war a population of 55,000 people.
When I was there, there were not 500 people in that city—54,500 were
homeless refugees, if they weren’t killed. I walked about that city for a
month, searching for a house that wasn’t damaged, a window that wasn’t
broken, and I never found one. The whole of that city will have to be
rebuilt. A glorious cathedral, a magnificent pile of municipal buildings,
all in ruins; the Grande Place, a meeting-place for the crowned heads of
Europe, gone! “Thou hast made of a city a heap”—a heap of rubbish. _Your_
city would have been like that but for the boys in khaki.

I was saying my prayers in a corner of an old broken chateau, the Y.M.C.A.
headquarters for that centre, with my trench-coat buttoned tight and my
big muffler round my ears. Presently I heard some one say—one of the
workers—“A gentleman wants to see you, sir,” and when I got downstairs
there was a General, a V.C., a D.S.O., and a Star of India man—a glorious
man, a beautiful character. He was there with his Staff-captain, and he
said,

“I’ve come to invite you to dinner to-morrow night, Mr. Smith. I want you
to come to the officers’ mess.”

“What time, sir?” I asked. “I cannot miss my meeting at half-past six with
the boys.”

“Well, the mess will be at half-past seven. We will arrange that.”

“Before you go, sir, I should like to ask why you are interested in me.”

“Well, I’ll tell you, if you wish,” he said. “Men are writing home to
their wives, mothers, sweethearts, and they are talking about a new power
in their lives. ’We have got something that is helping us to go straight
and play the game,’ they write. And so,” said the General, “we should like
to have a chat with you.”

I went the next night, and for an hour and a half I preached the Gospel to
those officers. It was a great chance; and it was the result of the
note-paper which I have sometimes given out for an hour and a half at a
time to your boys.

There are lots of people think you are not doing any spiritual work unless
you are singing, “Come to Jesus.” Put more Jesus in every bit of the day’s
business. Jesus ought to be as real in the city as in the temple. If I
read my New Testament aright, and if I know God, and if I know humanity,
and if I know Nature, then that is God’s programme. God’s programme is
that the whole of life should be permeated with Christ.

God bless the women who have gone out to help your boys. Women of title,
of wealth and position, serving God and humanity behind tea-tables.

In one of our huts I saw a lady standing beside two urns—coffee and tea.
She was pouring out, and there were 150 or 200 men standing round that hut
waiting to get served. The fellows at the end were not pushing and
crowding to get first, but waiting their turn. They are more good-natured
than a religious crowd waiting to get in to hear a popular preacher. I
have seen these people jostle at the doors.

But your boys don’t do that. They just sing, “Pack up your troubles,” and
wait their turn.

Well, these boys, wet and cold, were waiting for a cup of coffee, and one
of those red-hot gospellers came along, and he said, “Sister, stop a
minute and put a word in for Jesus. This is a great opportunity.”

“But,” she replied, “they are wet and tired; let me give them something
hot as soon as I can.”

“Oh! but let’s put a word in for Jesus,” urged this chap.

Then a bright-faced soldier lad called out, “Guv’nor, she puts Jesus in
the coffee.” That is what I mean when I say you have got to put Jesus into
every bit of the day’s work.

                                * * * * *

I have never once been asked by your boys to what Church I belonged. They
don’t stop to ask that if they believe in you. They want the living Christ
and the living Message. It isn’t creed; it’s need. And don’t you get the
notion that the boys can’t be reached, and don’t you think that the boys
are hostile to Christianity. They are not. I won’t hear it without
protest. The best things that the old Book talks about are the things the
boys love in one another. They don’t always think of the Book, but they
love the fruits of the Spirit in one another. They love truth, honour,
courage, humility, friendship, loyalty. And where do you get those things?
Why, they have their roots in the Cross—they grow on that Tree.

                                * * * * *

I had a dear friend who won the M.C.—a young Cambridge graduate. He was
all-round brilliant. He could write an essay, preach a sermon, sit down to
the piano and compose an operetta. The boys delighted in him. He would
always be at the front. He would always be where there was danger. I was
talking about him one day in one of the convalescent camps, and two of the
boys said to me afterwards,

“You have been talking about our padre. We loved him. We were with him
when he was killed, for the shell that killed him wounded us. Every man in
the battalion would have laid down his life for him.”

This old world’s dying for the want of love. There are more people die for
the want of a bit of it than with overmuch of it. Don’t stifle it—let it
out.

                                * * * * *

“I am afraid,” said a padre to me once, “the boys are sceptical.”

“Come with me to-morrow,” I answered. “I’ll prove to you they are _not_
sceptical.”

We were half an hour ahead of time and the hut was crowded with eight
hundred men. They were singing when I got in—something about “an old
rooster—as you used to.”

Do you suppose I had no better sense than to go in and say, “Stop this
ungodly music?” You can catch more flies with treacle than with vinegar.

I looked at the boys and said, “That’s great, sing it again.”

And I turned to the padre and asked, “Isn’t that splendid? Isn’t that
fine?”

While we were waiting to begin the meeting, I said, “Boys, we must have
another.”

“One of the same sort?” they shouted.

“Of course,” was my reply. And they sang “Who’s your lady friend?” and
when they had sung that, I called out, “Boys, we will have one more. What
shall it be?”

“One of yours, sir.”

I had not trusted them in vain.

I said, “Very well, you choose your hymn.”

“When I survey the wondrous Cross”—that was the song they chose.

And they sang it all the better because I had sung their songs with them.
Before we had got to the end of the last verse some of those boys were in
tears, and it wasn’t hard to pray. It isn’t far from rag-time to “When I
survey the wondrous Cross.”

When they had finished the hymn I said, “Boys, I am going to tell you the
story of my father’s conversion.” For I had to convince my padre friend
that they were not sceptical. I took them to the gipsy tent and told them
of my father and five motherless children, and of how Jesus came to that
tent, saving the father and the five children and making preachers of them
all.

I said, “Did my father make a mistake when he brought Christ to those five
motherless children?” And the eight hundred boys shouted, “No, sir.”

“Did he do the right thing?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What ought you to do?”

“The same, sir.”

“Do you want Jesus in your lives?” and every man of the eight hundred
jumped to his feet.

You say they are sceptical where Jesus is concerned. I’ll tell you when
they are sceptical—when they see the caricature of Jesus in you and me.

                                * * * * *

I was, as I have said, under shell fire for a month in one place—night and
day for a month—and never allowed out without a gasbag round my neck. I
slept in a cellar there at night when I did sleep—only 700 yards from the
Germans—and, as I have said before, it _was_ cold.

When the thaw set in, I put a couple of bricks down and put a box-lid on
top, so that I could stand in a dry place. We had two picks and two
shovels in that cellar in case anything happened overnight. I have been up
against it. Whenever I talked to the boys there they sat with their
gas-bags round their necks, and one held mine while I talked. It was quite
a common thing to have something fall quite close to us while we were
singing.

Imagine singing “Cover my defenceless head,” just as a piece of the roof
is falling in. Or—

“ In death’s dark vale I fear no ill With Thee, dear Lord, beside me— ”

then another crash! That makes things real. Every word was accompanied by
the roar of guns—the rattle of the machine gun and the crack of the rifle.
We never knew what it was to be quiet.

A shell once came and burst just the other side of the wall against which
I was standing and blew part of it over my head. I have suffered as your
boys have, and I have preached the Gospel to your boys in the front line.
I long for the privilege of doing it again.

                                * * * * *

If I had my way I’d take all the best preachers in Britain and I’d put
them down in France. And if the church and chapel goers grumbled, I’d say,
“You’re overfed. You can do without a preacher for a little.” And if they
were to ask, “How do you know?” I should reply, “Because it’s hard work to
get you to one meal a week. You only come once on a Sunday and often not
that. That’s how I know you are not enjoying your food.”

I love talking to the Scottish boys—the kilties. Oh! they are great
boys—the kilties. When the French first saw them they didn’t know what
they were, whether they were men or women.

“Don’t you know what they are?” said a bright-faced English boy. “They are
what we call the Middlesex.”

You can’t beat a British boy, he’s on the spot all the time—“the
Middlesex!” Some of you haven’t seen the joke yet.

                                * * * * *

I once went to a hut just behind the line, within the sound of the guns.
Buildings all round us had been blown to pieces. The leader of this hut
was a clergyman of the Church of England, but he wasn’t an ecclesiastic
there, he was a man amongst men, and we loved him.

“Gipsy Smith,” he said, “I don’t know what you will do; the boys in the
billets this week are the Munsters—Irish Roman Catholics. You would have
got on all right last week; we had the York and Lancasters.”

“Do you think they will come to the meetings?”

“I don’t know,” he replied; “they come for everything else! They come for
their smokes, candles, soap, buttons—bachelor’s buttons—postcards, and
everything else they want. But whether they will come for the religious
part, I don’t know.”

“Well,” I said, “we can but try.”

It was about midday when we were talking, and the meeting was to be at
6.30.

“Have you got a boy who could write a bill for me?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said, “I’ve got a boy who could do that all right.”

“Print it on green paper,” said I.

Why not? They were the Munsters. Why shouldn’t we use our heads? People
think mighty hard in business, why shouldn’t we think in the religious
world?

“Just say this and nothing more,” I said.

“’_Gipsy Smith will give a talk in the Hut to-night at_ 6.30.
_Subject—Gipsy Life_.’”

I knew that would fetch them.

At half-past six the hut was crowded with eight hundred Munsters. If you
are an old angler, indeed if you know anything at all about angling, you
know that you have got to consider two or three things if you are to stand
any chance of a catch. You have got to study your tackle, you have got to
study your bait, you have got to study the habits of your fish. When the
time came to begin that meeting, one of the workers said,

“Shall I bring the box of hymn-books out?”

“No, no,” I replied; “that’s the wrong bait.”

Those Munster boys knew nothing about hymn-books. We preachers have got to
come off our pedestals and not give our hearers what we want, but the
thing that will catch them. If a pretty, catchy Sankey hymn will attract a
crowd, why shouldn’t we use it instead of an anthem? If a brass band will
catch them, why shouldn’t we play it instead of an organ?

“Keep back those hymn-books,” I said. “They know nothing about
hymn-books.” I had a pretty good idea of what would have happened if those
hymn-books had been produced at the start.

I got on that platform, and I looked at those eight hundred Munsters and
said, “Boys, are we down-hearted?”

“_No_,” they shouted.

You can imagine what eight hundred Munsters shouting “No” sounds like.
They were all attention instantly. I wonder what would happen if the Vicar
went into church next Sunday morning and asked the question, “Are we
down-hearted?” I knew it would cause a sensation, but I’d rather have a
sensation than a stagnation.

Those boys sat up. I said, “We are going to talk about gipsy life.” I
talked to them about the origin of my people. There’s not a man living in
the world who knows the origin of my people. I can trace my people back to
India, but they didn’t come from India. We are one of the oldest races in
the world, so old that nobody knows how old. I talked to them about the
origin of the gipsies, and I don’t know it, but I knew more about it than
they did. I talked to them about our language, and I gave them specimens
of it, and there I was on sure ground. It is a beautiful language, full of
poetry and music. Then I talked about the way the gipsies get their
living—and other people’s; and for thirty minutes those Munsters hardly
knew if they were on the chairs or on the floor—and I purposely made them
laugh. They had just come out of the hell of the trenches. They had that
haunted, weary, hungry look, and if only I could make them laugh and
forget the hell out of which they had just climbed it was religion, and I
wasn’t wasting time.

When I had been talking for thirty minutes, I stopped, and said, “Boys,
there’s a lot more to this story. Would you like some more?”

“Yes,” they shouted.

“Come back to-morrow,” I said.

I was fishing in unlikely waters, and if you leave off when fish are
hungry they will come back for more. For six nights I told those boys
gipsy stories. I took them out into the woods. We went out amongst the
rabbits. I told the boys the rabbits got very fond of me—so fond that they
used to go home with me! I took them through the clover-fields on a June
day and made them smell the perfume. I took them among the buttercups. I
told them it was the Finger of Love and the Smile of Infinite Wisdom that
put the spots upon the pansy and the deep blue in the violet. And then we
went out among the birds and we saw God taking songs from the lips of a
seraph and wrapping them round with feathers.

And the boys saw Jesus in every buttercup and every primrose, and every
little daisy, and in every dewdrop, and heard something of the song of the
angels in the notes of the nightingale and the skylark. Oh! Jesus was
there, and they felt Him, and they saw Him. I took them amongst the gipsy
tents, amongst the woodlands and dells of the old camping-grounds. They
walked with Him and they talked with Him. I didn’t use the usual Church
language, but I used the language of God in Nature and the boys heard Him.

Towards the end of the week one of those Munster boys came and touched me
and said, “Your Riverence! Your Riverence!” he says. “You’re a gentleman.”

I _knew_ I had got that boy.

Now, if you are an old angler you know what happens if you begin to tug at
the line the first time you get a bite. When you hook a fish, if he
happens to be a Munster, you have got to keep your head and play him, let
him have the line, let him go, keep steady, no excitement, give him play.
I gave him a bit of line, that young Munster. I thanked him for his
compliment and then walked away—with my eyes over my shoulder, for if he
hadn’t come after me I should have been after him.

Presently he pulled my tunic and said, “Won’t you give me a minute, sir?”

“What’s the trouble?” I said.

“Sir,” he said, with a little catch in his voice that I can hear now,
“you’ve got something I haven’t.”

“How do you know?” I asked.

“It’s like the singing of a little song, and it gets into my heart. I want
it. Won’t you tell me how to get it? I want it.”

“Sonny,” I said, “it’s for you. You can have it at the same price I paid
for it.”

“Begorra,” says he, “you will tell me to give up my religion, you will!”

I said, “If God has put anything in your life that helps you to be a
better and a nobler and a braver man, He doesn’t want you to give it up.”

“He doesn’t?” he asked. “What am I to give up, then?”

And I replied, “Your sin.”

The boy said again, “You’re a gentleman.”

If I had said one word about his religion or his creed, my line would have
snapped and I would have lost my fish.

That night, when all the boys had gone, we got into a corner and we knelt
down, and when he went he said, “I’ve got it, sir. I’ve got the little
song—_and it’s singing_.”

                                * * * * *

At one of my meetings the boys were four thousand strong and the
Commandant of the camp was to preside. As they say in the Army, he had got
the wind up. He did not know me. When he saw the crowd there he began to
wonder what was going to happen. He called one of the officers to him, and
said,

“I don’t know what he’s going to do. I hope he’s not going to give us a
revival meeting or something of that sort. I hope he knows that one-third
of these fellows are Roman Catholics.”

Well, of course I knew, and I was laying my plans accordingly. What right
have you or I when we have got a mixed crowd like that to try to cram our
preconceived programme down everybody’s throat? The officer, who was one
of my friends, said to the Colonel, “I don’t think you need trouble, sir.
He’s all right, and knows his job.”

When we were ready, I went to the Colonel, and said, “We are quite ready
to begin, sir.”

The Colonel rose and announced, “Officers, non-commissioned officers, and
men, I now introduce to you Gipsy Smith, who will perform.”

Now, the first thing I wanted to do was to disarm all prejudice in the
mind of both officers and men. So I said, “Are you ready, boys?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, we’ll have our opening hymn, ’Keep the home fires burning.’”

And didn’t those boys sing that! Some of them were smoking, and I wasn’t
going to tell them not to smoke. That would have put their backs up. They
were British boys and they knew what to do when the right moment came. And
so I said, “Boys, you sang that very well, but you were not _all_ singing.
Now, if we have another, will you all sing?” And they answered, “Yes.” I
knew if they sang they couldn’t smoke. So we had “Pack up your troubles,”
and this time every smoke was out and every boy was singing. “We’ll have
another,” said I, when they had finished; “we’ll have—

“Way down in Tennessee
Just try to think of me
Right on my mother’s knee.’ ”

I knew if I got them round their mothers’ knees I should be all right.

“Now, boys,” I said, “what am I to talk to you about?” I let them choose
their subject very often.

“Tell us the story of the gipsy tent,” they called out.

And there I was at home, and it was all right, and for an hour I told them
the story of how grace came to that gipsy tent—the old romance of love.

“Now, boys, I’m through,” I said when I had spoken for an hour—and they
gave me an encore. When I had finished my encore, the dear old Colonel got
up to thank the “performer”—and he couldn’t do it; there was a lump in his
throat and big tears were rolling down his cheeks.

“Boys, I can’t say what I want to, but,” said he, “we have all got to be
better men.”

The Gospel was preached in that hut in a different way from what we have
it preached at home, but we got it in, and the thing is to get it in.

                                * * * * *

I was talking behind the lines to some of your boys. Every boy in front of
me was going up to the trenches that night. There were five or six hundred
of them. They had got their equipment—they were going on parade as soon as
they left me. It wasn’t easy to talk. All I said was accompanied by the
roar of the guns and the crack of rifles and the rattle of the machine
guns, and once in a while our faces were lit up by the flashes. It was a
weird sight. I looked at those boys. I couldn’t preach to them in the
ordinary way. I knew and they knew that for many it was the last service
they would attend on earth. I said,

“Boys, you are going up to the trenches. Anything may happen there. I wish
I could go with you. God knows I do. I would if they would let me, and if
any of you fall I would like to hold your hand and say something to you
for mother, for wife, and for lover, and for little child. I’d like to be
a link between you and home just for _that_ moment—God’s messenger for
you. They won’t let me go, but there is Somebody Who will go with you. You
know Who that is.”

You should have heard the boys all over that hut whisper, “Yes,
sir—Jesus.”

“Well,” I said, “I want every man that is anxious to take Jesus with him
into the trench to stand.”

Instantly and quietly every man in that hut stood up. And we prayed as men
can pray only under those conditions. We sang together, “For ever with the
Lord.” I shall never sing that hymn again without a lump in my throat. My
mind will always go back to those dear boys.

We shook hands and I watched them go, and then on my way to the little
cottage where I was billeted I heard feet coming behind me, and presently
felt a hand laid upon my shoulder. Two grand handsome fellows stood beside
me. One of them said,

“We didn’t manage to get into the hut, but we stood at the window to your
right. We heard all you said. We want you to pray for us. We are going
into the trenches, too. We can’t go until it is settled.”

We prayed together, and then I shook hands with them and bade them
good-bye. They did not come back. Some of their comrades came—those two,
with others, were left behind. But they had settled it—_they had settled
it_.

                                * * * * *

Two or three days after that I was in a hospital when one was brought in
who was at that service. I thought he was unconscious, and I said to the
Sister beside me, “Sister, how battered and bruised his poor head is!”

He looked up and said, “Yes, it is battered and bruised; but it will be
all right, Gipsy, when I get the crown!”

One night I had got about fifty boys round me in a dug-out, with the walls
blown out and bits of the roof off. I had taken some hymn-sheets, for I
love to hear them sing. I never choose a hymn for them—I always let them
choose their own hymns. There is wisdom in that. If they have asked for
something and don’t sing it, I can come down on them. Among the great
hymns they choose are these:

                        “Jesu, Lover of my soul,”

and I have heard them sing,

                       “Cover my defenceless head,”

with the shells falling close to them. I have heard them sing,

                           “I fear no foe ...”

with every seat and every bit of building round us rocking with the
concussion of things. And then they will choose:


     “The King of Love my Shepherd is,”
     “The Lord’s my Shepherd, I’ll not want,”
     “Abide with me,”
     “Rock of ages, cleft for me,”


and the one they love, I think, most of all is,

                   “When I survey the wondrous Cross.”

Those are the hymns they sing, the great hymns of the Church—the hymns
that all Christian people sing, about which there is no quarrelling. It’s
beautiful to hear the boys.

That night I said, “I have brought some hymn-sheets. I thought we might
have some singing, but I’m afraid it’s too dark.”

Instantly one of the boys brought out of his tunic about two inches of
candle and struck a match, and in three minutes we had about twenty pieces
of candle burning. It was a weird scene.

After the hymns I began to talk, and the candles burnt lower, and some of
them flickered out, and I could see a boy here and there twitch a bit of
candle as it was going out.

I said, “Put the candles out, boys. I can talk in the dark.”

It was a wonderful service, and here and there you could hear the boys
sighing and crying as they thought of home and father and mother. It isn’t
difficult to talk to boys like that.

                                * * * * *

There is no hymn of hate in your boys’ hearts. I have known them take a
German prisoner even after he has played the cruel thing; but there! he
looked hungry and wretched, and in a few minutes they have shared their
rations and cigarettes with him. I call that a bit of religion breaking
out in an unlikely place. The leaven’s in the lump, thank God!

                                * * * * *

I was speaking at a convalescent camp. Every one of the boys had been
badly mauled and mangled on the Somme. This particular day I had about
seven or eight hundred listeners. It was evening, and when I had talked to
the boys, I said,

“I wonder if any of you would like to meet me for a little prayer?”

And from all over the camp came the answer, “Yes, sir; yes, sir; yes,
sir.”

There was a big room there—we called it a quiet room—and so I asked all
the boys who would like to see me, just to leave their seats and go into
this room. I went to them and said,

“You have elected to come here to pray, so we will just kneel down at
once. I am not going to do anything more than guide you. I want you to
tell God what you feel you need in your own language.”

The prayers of those boys would have made a book. There were no
old-fashioned phrases. You know what I mean—people begin at a certain
place and there is no stopping them till they get to another certain
place. One of these boys began, “Please God, You know I’ve been a rotter.”
That’s the way to pray. That boy was talking to God and the Lord was very
glad to listen.

                                * * * * *

I was talking to one boy—an American; he was a little premature, he was in
the fight before his country.

“Sonny,” I said, “you’re an American?”

“Yes, sir. I was born in Michigan.”

“Well, what are you doing, fighting under the British flag?”

“I guess it’s my fight too, sir. This,” he said, “is not a fight for
England, France, or Belgium, but a fight for the race, and I wouldn’t have
been a man if I had kept out.”

I told that story to one of our Generals who died last September.

“Ah!” he said, “that boy got to the bottom of the business. It’s for the
race. It’s for the race.”

“Are you a Christian?” I asked.

“No,” he answered; “but I should like to be one. I wasn’t brought up. I
grew up, and I grew up my own way, and my own way was the wrong way. I go
to church occasionally—if a friend is getting married. I know the story of
the Christian faith a little, but it has never really meant anything to
me.”

Then he continued slowly, “On the Somme, a few hours before I was badly
wounded”—he put his hand in his pocket and drew out a little crucifix—“I
picked up that little crucifix and I put it in my pack, and when I got to
hospital I found that little crucifix on my table. One of the nurses or
the orderlies had put it there, thinking I was a Catholic. But I know I’m
not, sir. I am _nothing_. I have been looking at this little crucifix so
often since I was wounded, and I look at it till my eyes fill with tears,
because it reminds me of what He did for me—not this little bit of metal,
but what it means.”

I said, “Have you ever prayed?”

He replied, “No, sir. I’ve wept over this little crucifix—is that prayer?”

“That’s prayer of the best sort,” I said. “Every tear contained volumes
you could not utter, and God read every word. He knows all about it.”

I pulled out a little khaki Testament. “Would you like it?” I said. “Would
you read it?”

He answered, “Yes,” and signed the decision in the cover.

When I shook hands with him there was a light in his eyes. Have you ever
seen the light break over the cliff-tops of some high mountain peak? Have
you ever watched the sun kiss a landscape into beauty? Have you ever seen
the earth dance with gladness as the sun bathed it with radiance and
warmth? Oh, it’s a great sight; but there’s no sight like seeing the light
from Calvary kiss a human face as it fills the heart with the assurance of
Divine forgiveness.

                                * * * * *

One hundred and fifty-two thousand cups of tea and coffee are given away
monthly at one railway-station. I once happened to be at a railway-station
on the main lines of communication. There are women working there, women
of position and means, working at their own expense. I have seen rough
fellows go up to a British woman behind a counter—the first time they have
seen a British woman for months—and I have heard them say, “Madam, will
you shake hands with me?” I saw an Australian do that. He got her hand—and
his was like a leg of mutton—and he thought of his mother and his
home-folk. He forgot his tea. It was a benediction to have that woman
there.

Well, on this occasion two of these ladies said to me, “Gipsy, we’re
having a relief train pass through to-morrow, and one comes through up and
one comes through down.”

“I’ll be there,” I said.

The train that was coming from the front we could hear before we could see
it. And it wasn’t the engine that we heard, because that came so slowly,
but I could hear the boys singing as they came round the curve,

                 “Blighty, Blighty is the place for me.”

We served them with tea and coffee, French bread a yard long, and candles
and matches and “Woodbines,” and then we got that crowd off—still singing
“Blighty.”

They had been gone about five minutes when the other train _from_ Blighty
came in. We couldn’t hear them singing. They were quiet and subdued. We
served them with coffee and tea, candles, bootlaces, and smokes, and then,
as they had some time, they started having a wash—the first since they
left Blighty. The footboard of the train was the washstand, the
shaving-table, and the dressing-table. But they didn’t sing.

I saw in a corner of that little canteen a pile of postcards, and I said,
“Who says a postcard for wife or mother?”

Somebody asked, “Who’s going to see them posted?”

I said, “I am. You leave them to me.”

They said, “All right,” and I began to give out the postcards.

I started at one end of the train and went on to the other end. In the
middle I found two carriages full of officers.

“Gentlemen,” I said, “will you please censor these postcards as I collect
them, and that will relieve the pressure on the local staff, for I don’t
want to put any extra work on them?”

“Oh, certainly,” they answered, and I sent a dozen or twenty up at a time
to them, and in fifteen minutes that train was steaming out of the station
and the boys were singing, “Should auld acquaintance.”

When they had gone I collected the postcards that had been written and
censored—and there were 575. To keep the boys in touch with home is
religion; to keep in their lives the finest, the most beautiful
home-sentiment that God ever gives to the world is a bit of religion—pure
and undefiled.

                                * * * * *

How gloriously brave are the French women and Belgian women! I was talking
to one in London—a young girl not more than eighteen or nineteen. She was
serving me in a restaurant, and I saw she was wiping her eyes, so I called
her to me and said, “What’s the matter, my child?”

She answered, “Sir, I came over on the boat from Belgium early in the war,
and my mother and sisters got scattered, and I have never seen or heard of
them since.”

And the Madame of the restaurant came to me a little while afterwards, and
said, “We dare not tell her, but they were all killed.”

Many people at home don’t realise what is going on. Some are in mourning,
some have lost boys, some have lost husbands, brothers, but we have not
suffered as others have suffered. I was riding in a French train a few
weeks ago. Beside me sat a lady draped in mourning. I could not see her
face, it was so thickly veiled with crape. Beside her was a nurse, and the
lady wept, oh, so bitterly! I cannot bear to see anybody weeping. If I see
a little child crying in the street I want to comfort it. If I see a woman
crying in the street I want to comfort her. God has given me a quick ear
where grief is concerned—and I am thankful. I wouldn’t have it
otherwise—though I have to pay for it.

That woman’s tears went through me. Every little while she was counting in
French, “_Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq,_”—then she would weep again and
then she would count.

I said to the nurse, “Nurse, what’s the trouble?” and she said, “Sir, her
mind has given way. Before the war she had five handsome sons, and one by
one they have been killed, and now she spends her time counting over her
boys and weeping.”

And all that is for you and for me! What sort of people ought we to be, do
you suppose? Are we really worth—_that_?

                                * * * * *

I was talking to some Canadians one night—and the Canadians are fine boys.
I was putting my foot on the platform, just about to begin, when a bright
young Canadian touched me and said, “Say, boss, can _you_ shoot quick?”
and I replied,

“Yes, and straight.”

“Well,” he said, “you’ll do.”

I had a great time with those fellows. Hundreds of those Canadian boys
stood up to say, “God helping me, I am going to lead a better
life!”—hundreds of them. And then I put another test to them. “I want you
all to promise,” I said, “that you’ll kneel down and say your prayers
to-night in the billet, and those of you who will promise to do that come
up and shake hands with me as you go out.” I was kept one half-hour
shaking hands.

Now, there were nine fellows sleeping in one billet and not one knew the
other eight had been to the meeting. They all got mixed up, but all the
nine came up to shake hands, and the one that got back to billets first
told the story afterwards. This one had made up his mind he would kneel
down and say his prayers, but when he returned he found there was no one
there. Somehow he felt different then—he felt he couldn’t do it. He was
more afraid of nobody than he would have been of somebody. Then just
suppose the others came back and found him kneeling there!

“I funked it,” he said. “I got under the blanket, and tried to say my
prayers under the blanket, but it wouldn’t work. Then I heard one man come
into the room, then two, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight. And the
eighth man was the champion swearer of the company.”

“Boys,” said this man, “did you hear him?”

“Yes,” they said, “we heard him.”

And the little chap under the blanket said “Yes” too.

“Well, I shook hands with that man, and I promised him for my mother’s
sake that I’d kneel down and say my prayers to-night.”

And the little chap under the blanket jumped up, blanket and all, and
said, “So did I. I’m with you.”

And the others said, “So did we.”

“Well,” the last comer said, “the best thing we can do is to kneel down
now and say a little prayer.”

So they all knelt down, and they each said a little prayer—I wish I had a
record of those prayers—and they finished up with “Our Father.”

Then the champion swearer said, “Boys, I’ve cut it all out: no more
drink—not another drop.”

And they said, “All right, we are with you. We’ll cut it out.”

Then he said, “I’ve cut something else out. No more swearing.”

Eighty-five times out of every hundred that the boys in France use a
swear-word they mean no more than I do when I say, “Great Scott.”

“Do you, boys?” I ask them.

“No, sir,” they invariably reply.

“Well, then, why do you use these swear-words?”

And then I’ve got them and, out of their own mouths, they are condemned. I
tell them it is bad form, and I say, “Cut it out.”

These boys made a solemn compact that night that the first man who swore
should clean all nine guns, and before the week was out my champion was
cleaning nine guns.

But those eight boys didn’t go back on him. They were sporty.

I have seen a little bird’s nest all broken with the wind and torn with
the storm, and two or three little eggs, with a few wet leaves over them,
addled and cold and forsaken, and my little gipsy heart cried over those
poor little motherless things, for I was motherless too. And up in a tree
I have heard a thrush singing the song of a seraph and I have said, as I
looked at the eggs, “You would have been singers too, but you were
forsaken.”

These boys—they did not forsake their chum. They said, “Buck up, old boy.
We’ll help you.”

“No,” he said. “This is my job.”

So they stood by him and cheered him on. People, I say again, don’t die of
overmuch love, but for the want of a bit of it. These boys stood by my
champion swearer, and when he was putting the polishing touches on the
last gun he stood up, his face radiant, like a man that has fought a
battle and won: “Boys, this is the last gun I shall clean for anybody
under these conditions, because, God helping me, I’m going to see this
thing through.”

And he _is_ seeing it through.

                                * * * * *

I was at a home for limbless men the other day—there are over one hundred
and eighty of them in that home. I held my hand out to shake hands with
the first two men I met, and they laughed at me. I looked down for their
hands—they hadn’t got one between them! I took the face of one of those
dear boys and I patted it. I wanted to kiss it with gratitude. I wonder
how you feel!

I walked round amongst those boys—one hundred and eighty limbless! I found
one boy without legs and without an arm. He was just a trunk, and his
comrades, those who could, were carrying him around. He was the sunshine
in the whole place—not a grouse. They are doing no grousing—your boys
there. When they see you they just say, “Cheerio.”

A friend of mine, a minister, went to see one of these boys, and he was
wondering what he could say to him; he thought he had got to cheer him up.
The boy looked at the padre and said,

“Guv’nor, don’t get down-hearted. I am going to make money out of this
job. Why, I shall only want a pair of trousers with one leg, and I shall
only want a coat with one sleeve, and I shall only want a pair of boots
with one boot.”

It reminds me of the question I once asked: “Sonny, what struck you most
when you got in the trenches?” and the reply came sharp,

“A bit of shrapnel.”

Another of your boys, just picked up in the trenches by those tender
fellows, the stretcher-bearers, those men with the hands of a woman and
with the heart of a mother—God bless them!—called out as they came to him,
“_Home, John_.” And when he was passing the officer and they were carrying
him into the Red Cross train, he cried, “_Season_.” He had two gold
stripes already. That’s the spirit of your boys.

                                * * * * *

There was a dear old Scotchman from Aberdeen. A telegram had come to that
granite city to say that his boy was badly wounded, and he ran all the way
to the station and jumped into a train without stopping to put on a
collar. You don’t think of collars when your boys are dying. I saw him
when he landed. It was my job to help him. The dear old fellow was just in
time to see his boy die—and afterwards he came and laid his head on my
shoulder and he sobbed. And I wept too. He was seventy.

Presently he said, “It will be hard to go home and tell mother that her
only boy has gone, but I’ve got a message for her. ’Father,’ my boy said,
’tell mother I am not afraid to die. I have found Jesus. Tell mother
that.’”

There are some people who think you are not doing Christian work unless
you have a hymn-book in one hand and a Bible in the other and are singing,
“Come to Jesus.” I am glad I haven’t to live with that kind of people. I
call them the Lord’s Awkward Squad.

If you take “firstly,” “secondly,” “thirdly,” out to the front with you,
by the time you get to thirdly the boys will be in the trenches. I never
take an old sermon out with me to France. I write my prescription after
I’ve seen my patients.

I was talking to a thousand boys one day. “Boys,” I said, “how many of you
have written to your mother this week?”

Now, that’s a proper question. I wonder what would happen if the preacher
stopped in his sermon next Sunday morning and said, “Have you paid your
debts this week?” “In what sort of a temper did you come down to breakfast
this morning?”

If a man’s religion does not get into every detail of his life he may
profess to be a saint, but he’s a fraud. Religion ought to permeate life
and make it beautiful—as lovely as a breath of perfume from the garden of
the Lord.

The boys have given me the privilege of talking straight to them. “If you
don’t write, you know what you’ll get,” I said, and I began to give out
the note-paper. I can give boys writing-paper and envelopes and sell them
a cup of coffee or a packet of cigarettes with as much religion as I can
stand in a pulpit and talk about them. Why, my Master washed people’s feet
and cooked a breakfast for hungry fishermen. He kindled the fire with the
hands that were nailed to a tree for humanity. There are no secular things
if you are in the spirit of the Master—they are all Divine.

I went on dealing the note-paper out, and presently a clergyman came to me
and said, “Gipsy Smith, a man in my room wants to see you.”

When I got there, I saw he was crying, sobbing.

“I am not a kid,” he said; “I am a man. I’m forty-one. You told me to
write to my mother. Read that,” he said, throwing down a letter; and this
is what I read:

“MY DEAR MOTHER,
“It’s seven years since I wrote you last. I’ve done my best to break your
heart and to turn your hair grey. I’ve lived a bad life, but it’s come to
an end. I have given my heart to God. I won’t ask you to believe me, or to
forgive me. I deserve neither. But I ask for a bit of time that I may
prove my sincerity.

                                                         “Your boy still,
                                                                   “JACK.”

“Shall I put a bit at the bottom for a postscript?” I asked. “But first of
all, let us pray.”

We got on our knees, and I said, “You begin.”

“I’m not used to it,” he replied.

“Begin; never mind how. Did you ever pray?”

“Yes,” he said; “I prayed as a child.”

“Start with that, then—He loves cradle faith.”

It took him some time, but presently he began with his mother’s prayer,
“Jesus, tender Shepherd, hear me.” When he got to the third line there was
a big lump in his throat and one in mine, and then he gave me a dig with
his elbow and said, “You’ll have to finish”—and I finished.

I put my postscript to that letter. “God has saved him,” I wrote. “Believe
him. Write and tell him you forgive him.”

And when that mother got that she knew that giving out note-paper was
religion.

                                * * * * *

I was in a cemetery just behind the lines, walking among the graves of our
dear lads who have fallen, and weeping for those at home who weep over
graves that they will never see. There I found an old soldier who had been
to the woods and had cut a big bundle of box trimmings. He was setting a
little border of box round the graves.

“But,” I said to him, “they won’t strike. It’s not the right time of
year—and the ground’s too dry.”

“I know, sir,” he said, “but it will look as if somebody cares.”

God’s jewels lie deep, and if you will dig deep enough you will find
them—so I took the trouble to dig a little deeper. I said, “Nobody will
see them here.”

“Yes, sir, the angels will. You taught me to think like this in one of the
meetings in the huts, and since I can’t do any more in the fight”—for he
was disabled—“I am putting in my time caring for the boys’ graves, and if
the wives and mothers don’t see them—well”—and his face lit up with a
radiance that I can’t put into words—“the angels will, sir.”

                                * * * * *

I have had your boys say to me, “Gipsy, does it mean Blighty, or does it
mean West?” I have had to say to some of them, “It doesn’t mean Blighty.”

A sister took me to see one dear fellow. He was blown up by a mine, both
his legs and his arm were broken.

“I was lying out there, after the mine blew up, for twenty-four hours, and
I was half buried,” he told me.

Fancy lying out there in No Man’s Land for twenty-four hours with both
legs broken and an arm!

I said, “Sonny, you have had a rough time.”

And this was his reply: “They copped me, worse luck, before I had a pot at
them.”

You can’t beat these boys of yours, the nation’s boys, the best boys of
our homes, the flower of our manhood, the noblest and the dearest that God
ever gave to a people. These boys, they are worth everything in the world,
and there is _nothing_ you and I can do will ever repay them for what they
are doing for you and for me.

                                * * * * *

When the great end of the day comes, the greatest joy of all will be the
joy of knowing you have tried to make somebody else’s life happy. It is
the flowers that you have made grow in unlikely places that will tell—not
how much money you have made, not how big a house you have lived in, not
how popular you were in the world of letters, of science, of finance,
but—how many burdens have you lifted? How many dark hearts have you
lightened? You can’t do too much for your boys. Remember what they are
doing for you. Remember the lives that are being laid down for you.

I shook hands with a boy a little while ago in Scarborough, and he said,
“I believe I hold the record for having lost most in the war. I have lost
five brothers, my sister was killed in the war, and my mother died of a
broken heart through grief, but,” he said, “I’ll give my next week’s pay,
sir, towards this new hut.”

Another boy, when I was making my appeal, said, “I’ve been wounded and I
am discharged. I’ll give my next week’s pay,” and up jumped a war-widow
and she said, “I’ll give my next week’s pension.”

I was talking in Doncaster, and I had a batch of wounded men from one of
the local hospitals—a batch of twenty dressed in blue—and every one of
them gave something; and when I looked round and said, “Boys, why are you
giving?” one said, “Well, sir, we’re grateful for what it did for us when
we were there.”

People say, “What are you going to do with the huts after the war?” We
want to pick them up, and bring them back to this country and put one down
in every parish in the land, so that when the boys do come back they will
still have the Y.M.C.A. hut to go into, so that they can still keep up the
spirit of unity.

Woe be to the man who goes into the hut and tries to preach sectarianism.
The Y.M.C.A. is creating a spirit of unity amongst the boys, and that is
going on all the time. I want the limitations to vanish at home. I want
the ecclesiastical barriers to go. When you get to Heaven the Lord will
have to give Gabriel a job to introduce many Christians to one another.
You should see your boys, how they mix up. They come in—the Roman
Catholics, the Church of England, and the Nonconformists and Plymouth
Brethren and Salvation Army, and all sorts—you don’t know who’s who. We
are not quarrelling over religions at the front—we are fighting and dying
for the folks who are doing that at home.

Let’s stop our religious nonsense. Religion’s too big to be confined
within our four little walls. If our Church rules are so rigid that they
won’t let us come together, then our Church rules are wrong. God never
made rules which divide men—all God’s laws unite. Christ died that we
might be one, and it is time we got together. Your boys are bigger than
your Churches. You and I have got to rise to the opportunity. God help us
to do it!

                                * * * * *

Somebody asks, “Why does the Y.M.C.A. always want more new huts? Why not
move the old ones?” What will the boys do who take the places of those who
have gone forward? When the line goes forward, it does not come back—not
in these days; it abides—and the boys who come up as a support, they take
the huts the other boys leave.

The Y.M.C.A. stands for everything to your boys. It is their club, their
church, their recreation-room. It is their canteen—dry canteen, you may be
sure—it is their reading-room, it is their smoking-room, and why should
not the Church of Jesus Christ provide places of recreation for its own
people? Why should it leave the public-house and the theatre to do it all?
We have lost lots of people because we have been so slow—we have lost
them, you and I, but we are learning sense in these days, and the Y.M.C.A.
has come to the help of the Churches, to be the communication-trench
between the Churches and the people.

It is doing magnificent work.

As I write these lines I think of one dear boy, a young sergeant, a
Public-School boy. I had watched him grow up. I knew his home, and as he
leaned against me he said, “Gipsy, I’m homesick; I want my mother,” and
then, with a sob, he said, “Tell me more about Jesus.”

I was able to talk to him about his mother because I had lost mine, and
just because I love Jesus I was able to talk to him about the blessed
Jesus Who comes into a man’s heart when he is sad, lonely, and homesick,
and helps him.

He was lying on a stretcher, and it was my privilege to hold his hand and
to kiss him for his mother.

“Gipsy,” he said, “does it mean West?”

I said, “Sonny, it means West.”

As I held his hand it flickered for a moment and he said, “I am not afraid
to go. I know Christ. I found Him in your meetings, and—it’s great to die,
for freedom.”

And it was a great thing for me to be with your boy then.

                                * * * * *

_I thank my God upon every remembrance of your boys._




                                 THE END






***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YOUR BOYS***



CREDITS


Sept 2005

            Project Gutenberg Edition
            Roger Frank Online Distributed Proofreading Team

June 2006

            Added PGHeader/PGFooter.
            Joshua Hutchinson



A WORD FROM PROJECT GUTENBERG


This file should be named 16495-0.txt or 16495-0.zip.

This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:


    http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/6/4/9/16495/


Updated editions will replace the previous one — the old editions will be
renamed.

Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one
owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and
you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission
and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth in the
General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying and
distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the Project
Gutenberg™ concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered
trademark, and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you
receive specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of
this eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook
for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports,
performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given away
— you may do practically _anything_ with public domain eBooks.
Redistribution is subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
redistribution.



THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE


_Please read this before you distribute or use this work._

To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work (or
any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project Gutenberg”),
you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project Gutenberg™
License (available with this file or online at
http://www.gutenberg.org/license).


Section 1.


General Terms of Use & Redistributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works


1.A.


By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™ electronic work,
you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to and accept all the
terms of this license and intellectual property (trademark/copyright)
agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all the terms of this
agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy all copies of
Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your possession. If you paid a fee
for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work
and you do not agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement, you may
obtain a refund from the person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set
forth in paragraph 1.E.8.


1.B.


“Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be used on or
associated in any way with an electronic work by people who agree to be
bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few things that you can
do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works even without complying
with the full terms of this agreement. See paragraph 1.C below. There are
a lot of things you can do with Project Gutenberg™ electronic works if you
follow the terms of this agreement and help preserve free future access to
Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.


1.C.


The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the Foundation” or
PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the
collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an individual
work is in the public domain in the United States and you are located in
the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from copying,
distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative works based on
the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of
course, we hope that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of
promoting free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project
Gutenberg™ works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for
keeping the Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can
easily comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when you
share it without charge with others.


1.D.


The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern what you
can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in a constant
state of change. If you are outside the United States, check the laws of
your country in addition to the terms of this agreement before
downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or creating
derivative works based on this work or any other Project Gutenberg™ work.
The Foundation makes no representations concerning the copyright status of
any work in any country outside the United States.


1.E.


Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:


1.E.1.


The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate access
to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear prominently whenever
any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work on which the phrase
“Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project Gutenberg”
is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, copied or
distributed:


    This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
    almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
    or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License
    included with this eBook or online at http://www.gutenberg.org


1.E.2.


If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is derived from the
public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is posted with
permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied and
distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees or
charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work with the
phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you
must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7
or obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™
trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.


1.E.3.


If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted with the
permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution must comply
with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional terms imposed
by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked to the Project
Gutenberg™ License for all works posted with the permission of the
copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.


1.E.4.


Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™ License
terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this work or any
other work associated with Project Gutenberg™.


1.E.5.


Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this electronic
work, or any part of this electronic work, without prominently displaying
the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with active links or immediate
access to the full terms of the Project Gutenberg™ License.


1.E.6.


You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, compressed,
marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any word
processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or
distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format other than
“Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official version posted
on the official Project Gutenberg™ web site (http://www.gutenberg.org),
you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
request, of the work in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other form.
Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg™ License as
specified in paragraph 1.E.1.


1.E.7.


Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, performing,
copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works unless you comply
with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.


1.E.8.


You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing access to or
distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works provided that

    - You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
      the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method you
      already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed to
      the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has agreed to
      donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project Gutenberg
      Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid within 60
      days following each date on which you prepare (or are legally
      required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty payments
      should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project Gutenberg
      Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in Section 4,
      “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
      Archive Foundation.”

    - You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
      you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
      does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™ License.
      You must require such a user to return or destroy all copies of the
      works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue all use of and
      all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™ works.

    - You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
      any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
      electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
      receipt of the work.

    - You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
      distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.


1.E.9.


If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg™ electronic
work or group of works on different terms than are set forth in this
agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from both the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael Hart, the owner of the
Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in
Section 3 below.


1.F.


1.F.1.


Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable effort to
identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread public domain
works in creating the Project Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these
efforts, Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, and the medium on which they
may be stored, may contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to,
incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright
or other intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk
or other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot
be read by your equipment.


1.F.2.


LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES — Except for the “Right of
Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project Gutenberg™
trademark, and any other party distributing a Project Gutenberg™
electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all liability to you for
damages, costs and expenses, including legal fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE
NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH
OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE
FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT
WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL,
PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY
OF SUCH DAMAGE.


1.F.3.


LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND — If you discover a defect in this
electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can receive a refund
of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a written explanation to
the person you received the work from. If you received the work on a
physical medium, you must return the medium with your written explanation.
The person or entity that provided you with the defective work may elect
to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a refund. If you received the
work electronically, the person or entity providing it to you may choose
to give you a second opportunity to receive the work electronically in
lieu of a refund. If the second copy is also defective, you may demand a
refund in writing without further opportunities to fix the problem.


1.F.4.


Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth in
paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ’AS-IS,’ WITH NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.


1.F.5.


Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied warranties or the
exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. If any disclaimer or
limitation set forth in this agreement violates the law of the state
applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be interpreted to make
the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by the applicable state
law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any provision of this agreement
shall not void the remaining provisions.


1.F.6.


INDEMNITY — You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the trademark
owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone providing copies of
Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in accordance with this agreement, and
any volunteers associated with the production, promotion and distribution
of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs
and expenses, including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from
any of the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of
this or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or
additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any Defect
you cause.


Section  2.


           Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™


Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of electronic
works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers including
obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists because of the
efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from people in all walks
of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the assistance
they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s goals and ensuring
that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will remain freely available for
generations to come. In 2001, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation was created to provide a secure and permanent future for
Project Gutenberg™ and future generations. To learn more about the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations
can help, see Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation web page at
http://www.pglaf.org.


Section 3.


   Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation


The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the state of
Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal Revenue Service.
The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification number is 64-6221541.
Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf. Contributions to the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full
extent permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.

The Foundation’s principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr.
S. Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at 809 North
1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact information
can be found at the Foundation’s web site and official page at
http://www.pglaf.org

For additional contact information:


    Dr. Gregory B. Newby
    Chief Executive and Director
    gbnewby@pglaf.org


Section 4.


  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
                                Foundation


Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without wide spread
public support and donations to carry out its mission of increasing the
number of public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed
in machine readable form accessible by the widest array of equipment
including outdated equipment. Many small donations ($1 to $5,000) are
particularly important to maintaining tax exempt status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United States.
Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a considerable
effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up with these
requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations where we have not
received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND DONATIONS or
determine the status of compliance for any particular state visit
http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we have
not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition against
accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who approach us
with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make any
statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from outside the
United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation methods
and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other ways including
checks, online payments and credit card donations. To donate, please
visit: http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate


Section 5.


      General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works.


Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg™
concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared with
anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project Gutenberg™
eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed editions,
all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. unless a copyright
notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily keep eBooks in compliance
with any particular paper edition.

Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook’s eBook
number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII, compressed
(zipped), HTML and others.

Corrected _editions_ of our eBooks replace the old file and take over the
old filename and etext number. The replaced older file is renamed.
_Versions_ based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving
new filenames and etext numbers.

Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:


    http://www.gutenberg.org


This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg™, including how
to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation,
how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email
newsletter to hear about new eBooks.






***FINIS***