There were men in that company who had come from college classes where they had been taught the foolishness of blood atonement, and who had often smiled disdainfully at the Bible; there were boys from cultured, refined homes where Jesus Christ had always been ignored; there were boys who had repudiated the God their mothers trusted in; and there were boys of lower degree whose lips were foul with blasphemy and whose hearts were scarred with sin; but all listened, now, in a new way. It was somehow different over here, with the thunder of artillery in the near distance, the hovering presence of death not far away, the flashing of signal lights, the hum of the airplanes, the whole background of war. The message of the gospel took on a reality it had never worn before. When this simple girl asked if they would not take Jesus tonight as their Saviour, there were many who raised their hands in the darkness and many more hearts were bowed whose owners could not quite bring themselves to raise their hands.
Then a lassie's voice began to sing, all alone:
"I grieved my Lord from day to day, I scorned His love, so full and free, And though I wandered far away, My Mother's prayers have followed me. I'm coming home, I'm coming home, To live my wasted life anew, For Mother's prayers have followed me, Have followed me, the whole world through.
"O'er desert wild, o'er mountain high, A wanderer I chose to be--- A wretched soul condemned to die; Still Mother's prayers have followed me.
"He turned my darkness into light, This blessed Christ of Calvary; I'll praise His name both day and night, That Mother's prayers have followed me! I'm coming home, I'm coming home---"
Only the last great day will reveal how many hearts echoed those words; but the voices were all husky with emotion as they tried to join in the closing hymn that followed.
There were those who lingered about the speakers and wanted to inquire the way of salvation, and some knelt in a quiet corner and gave themselves to Christ. Over all of them there was a hushed thoughtfulness. When the workers started back to their own hut the crowd went with them, talking eagerly as they went, hovering about wistfully as if here were the first real thing they had found since coming away from home.