France

3 Oct 1916

My dearest Mother

I know that I owe you a letter but then I also know that we understand each other so well that letters are hardly necessary. I have been miraculously preserved almost every day from great dangers so that now during a storm of shell fire I feel that if there is work for me to do I shall be given time to do it in and that if my work is finished there is no object in my staying here longer. This war is a wonderful thing - most wonderfully horrible always but at times bringing out evidence of divine character