A Prayer in a Sleeping Hut

The camp seemed to be sleeping under the quiet sky, and only a sentry’s footfalls broke the silence. Inside the military huts, however, voices and laughter could still be heard. “Lights out!” and yet in the darkness one hut was noisy with songs and jests and conversation unfit to be described. Thirty soldiers lay in their bunks, and some of them were half asleep: the rest sufficiently awake to utter their thoughts without restraint. Most of them had been but a short while in the Army, and they were strangers to each other, for their homes were widely scattered in all parts of the country: they had not been able to return thither to say good-bye, though they were to leave for France on the morrow, so they hid their feelings under mocking words and evil language.
Drowsiness was getting the upper hand of them by eleven o’clock. One man, evidently desiring to hear some higher, holier word before he slept, startled all the others by an abrupt question: “I want to know if there is one Christian man in this hut?” The man opposite asked why, not too politely.
“Well,” answered the first speaker, “I want to know if there is a Christian here who is man enough to stand up now and pray for us chaps, that we may have a safe passage to France tomorrow.”
There was a pause; every man seemed to be holding his breath. Then somebody stirred in his bunk and sat up, and a quiet young voice said: “I am a Christian. If you chaps really mean it, I’ll be glad to pray with you and for you.”
“Yes, chummy, I do mean it, thank you,” was the reply. “Now, you chaps, be quiet. Let’s hear him pray.”
A moment’s silence, while the Christian soldier slipped out of his bed and knelt down in the dark.
“Now, lad, go on.”
After the first sentence his words came easily, and he asked for a voyage untroubled by mines and submarines: then there stole into his mind other words, which were not his, but God’s, and he spoke out text after text that made plain the way of salvation. “The blood of Jesus. Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin.” “Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.” The clear tones went on, repeating similar verses, and they reached every corner of the sleeping-hut. It was changed from that moment. As the prayer ended― “for Jesus Christ’s sake”―a hearty “Amen” resounded from every bed; and then―
“Thank you, lad. Good-night.”
“Well,” muttered a soldier, thoughtfully, “there must be something in that chap to make a boy like him pray like that in front of all us wicked fellows!”
No wild word broke the stillness after that. The powers of evil were baffled. In the morning the man who had asked for prayer went to the lad and thanked him again, and at seven-thirty all who were leaving for “somewhere in France” hurried up to shake hands with him.
“Good-bye, and God bless you!” he kept saying.
So did the Lord Jesus Christ strengthen one of His soldiers to fight the good fight of faith, and to confess Him openly before men.