IN GERMAN PRISON CAMPS.

Taihape Daily Times, 6 November 1917, Page 6

IN GERMAN PRISON CAMPS.

HOW A NEW SPIRIT WAS . BROUGHT IN. “What has come over this camp?” ■was the Question ,of an astonished camp officer. Captains had told him that discipline had become easier. Irritations on both sides were passing away The major-general said to the captain who was noting the new spirit pervading the camp: “Here’s the man responsible for the transformation.” -Claus Olandis, an American Y.M.C.A. secretary, who up to January last served 14 prison camps in Germany with from 5000 to 52,000 men in each. Thanks to his organisation thousands of letters have found their way to homes and anxious friends telling that their sons who had been given up for dead for months were safe. The instruments furnished brought music and its hope and cheer to these music-loving peoples and most appreciated were the hymns of the church sung in vast volume and with the outgoing aspirations of the heart for God. Cynical, scoffing men got under Olandt’s sway_ Men thronged to his gospel meetings. Among them was a despondent French distiller on the verge of suicide. A Gospel of St. John was given him and his attention drawn to the third chapter. This opened a vista into a new life, led to victory and gave him heart and hope. In camp and afterward in a prison camp in Switzerland, he became a

pisacher of force. Men in the camps instead of “dojng one another” began to do for .one another and organised for the doing of it, so that the Christian message was interpreted by kindness and cursing and bitterness became less. This was especially marked in the soldiers recruited from illiterate and coarser labourers a 11( i business men. v Though arrangements made by the Association packages were secured for the many friendless prisoners, handled by the Germans free of charge These the prisoners shared with the poor men, because of this “new r spirit” injected. A call came from Olandt to visit a young Scot in a prisoners’ hospital. His greeting was: “I am a very sick man; I have given away all I’ve got In food clothes and the presents that have come tome. There is the poor dying Russian; I have helped .him and the Pole in the next bed and some of these in the next ward. I have done what I could to help the other men in trouble; now is there any more I can do? I want to be redeemed.” Olandt gave him the same words Moody or Drummond might have given: “You can’t buy it; you can’t pay for it; it’s a gift, .Will you take it?” And he said, “I will.” And he add. His was a long three months’ sickness, but he fought 5Ts way back to healthy his open lung wound recovered through the good food cooked and brought at Olandt’s suggestion, by a German professor’s wife whose brother had died at the West front This young Scot, too, is now preaching by word and works a‘ real Christianity—the gift of grace—in another prison camp in Switzerland. Brigadier-General Victor Odium of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, is

a great admirer of the work of the Y.M.C.A. “I want to let you know,” he wrote recently, “how much I was impressed by the work done by the Young Men’s Christian Association during the recent operations. It was simply magnificent. Almost before the place was consolidated your representative had a distributing centre .at the top of Hill 145, the crest of Vimy Ridge_ and was serving biscuits and chocolate to the men. All ranks were I have taken the liberty of recommexifTThg one of your officers for a Military Cross, and I sincerely hope it goes through. The Young Men’s Christian Association has endeared itself to the soldiers in France as no other institution has.” A notable feature of the Y.M.C.A. war work is the extraordinary variety of people who have united in using the Association as a channel of service to the soldiers. No one would have dreamed that the forces that have thus found their opportunity of service could have been brought together on any possible basis. Wbo Could have thought that Forbes-Rob-ertson and his wife (nee'Maxine Elliott), Harry Lauder and Lena Ashwell would have come to the platform of the Association huts for weeks of entertainment, or that the Bishop of London, of Chelmsford and Oxford, Father Crampton, and Jewish Gypsy Smith, and Campbell Morgan would have joined in holding their services for meii in Britisn Association huts? Who would have dreamed t of Queen Mary, or the Duchess of Westminster, the Countess of Besshorough, and the Prince of Wales serving tea and buns, cutting bread and even washing dishes therpy