The song this time was just a few lines of consecration:
"Oh, for a heart whiter than snow! Saviour Divine, to whom else can I go? Thou who hast died, loving me so, Give me a heart that is whiter than snow!"
The dramatic beauty of the scene, the sweet, holy abandonment of that prayer-song with its tender, appealing melody, would have held a throng of thousands in awed wonder. But there was no audience, unless, perchance, the angels gathered around the little company, rejoicing that in this world of sin and war there were these who had so given themselves to God; but from that glory-touched room there presently went forth men and women with the spirit in their hearts that was to thrill like an electric wire every life with which it came in contact, and show the whole world what God can do with lives that are wholly surrendered to Him.
[Illustration: She called the little company of workers together and gave them such a charge as would make an angel search his heart]
[Illustration: The lassie who fried the first doughnut in France]
It was a bright, sunny afternoon, August 12th, when this first party of American Salvation Army workers set sail for France.
No doubt there was many a smile of contempt from the bystanders as they saw the little group of blue uniforms with the gold-lettered scarlet hatbands, and noticed the four poke bonnets among the number. What did the tambourine lassies know of REAL warfare? To those who reckoned the Salvation Army in terms of bands on the street corner, and shivering forms guarding Christmas kettles, it must have seemed the utmost audacity for this "play army" to go to the front.
When they arrived at Bordeaux on August 21st they went at once to Paris to be fitted out with French uniforms, as General Pershing had given them all the rank of military privates, and ordered that they should wear the regulation khaki uniforms with the addition of the red Salvation Army shield on the hats, red epaulets, and with skirts for the women.
A cabled message had reached France from the Commander saying that funds to the extent of twenty-five thousand dollars had been arranged for, and would be supplied as needed, and that a party of eleven officers were being dispatched at once. After that matters began to move rapidly.