LET us now see how the Bible has been used in war-time. On the 4th of August, 1914, war was declared between England and Germany, and in a very short time millions of men were called into "active service." Day after day, week after week, there were sorrowful, tearful partings between husbands and wives, parents and their sons, and sisters and their brothers. Some, they knew, perhaps very many, must fall upon the battle-fields. All would be in places of danger, and surely none could stand in greater need of the word of God than the men of the army and navy; and though many a loving mother or friend gave a Bible to the beloved one who was leaving home, perhaps never to return, all were not so provided for, and it is good to know that with the help of many friends, "The British and Foreign Bible Society" came forward to meet the need, and during the first years of the war published rather more than eight millions of Bibles, New Testaments and scripture portions in seventy-five different languages. Large numbers of the testaments were of pocket size, strongly bound in khaki, and sent out in such numbers that no soldier who cared to accept one as a free gift need be without one.
But did the men really care to have the testaments and gospels? Many letters from the front tell how gladly the books were received. One Christian officer wrote, "It has been my privilege to give away hundreds of copies of the New Testament in France. It would do you good to see how eagerly the books were accepted. Never have I had enough. When I offer testaments at the close of a meeting the men are round me like a swarm of bees, holding out their hands for a book, and I have reason to believe that the reading of these scripture portions has been made a blessing to many of our men.”
Military and naval hospitals were soon filled to overflowing with the sick and wounded, and many a suffering one welcomed the little testament and read and re-read it during the days that would otherwise have seemed to pass so slowly. It was noticed by doctors and nurses that in nearly every case when a wounded man had lost his testament he asked for another.
Behind the fighting lines in France were thousands of men forming the "labor battalions." There were brown and yellow men from Asia and black men from Africa. They spoke, it is needless to add, many languages; but for all who could read there was a gospel or testament in their own language. At one time there were about eighty thousand coolies from China. Several missionaries who, having worked in China, spoke Chinese fluently, rendered valuable service by acting as interpreters, and took care that they should be well supplied with Chinese testaments, many of which were, on the return of the coolies to China, taken to their far-away homes, sometimes at great distances from any mission station.
In a military hospital at Leeds a wounded soldier told how at Festubert, during a heavy bombardment, a Christian soldier from Scotland had both his legs blown off. As he lay dying, he begged his friend, a stretcher-bearer from Sunderland, to read Psa. 27. So in that blood-stained trench, within thirty yards of the German lines, the words were heard, "The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?.. Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord." The patient who told this story in hospital was near enough to hear the words.
The Scotch soldier died a few minutes afterward, and in less than a quarter of an hour the stretcher-bearer himself was killed.
A German Red Cross nurse wrote: "I have just received five hundred German testaments, also a number of Russian gospels, for which I am grateful. I write to let you know the blessing the word of God is bringing. Many of the men when they were wounded lost their whole kit and begged for fresh copies of the testament. I wish you could have seen how eagerly the men about to start for the front came round me asking for testaments; not only private soldiers, but quite a number of officers.”
Prisoners of war were not forgotten in the distribution of gospels and testaments, and perhaps by none were such gifts more needed; and many, there is reason to hope, learned for the first time in their lives how to find in the scriptures the courage and strength that helped them to be patient and hopeful through the long, weary months of imprisonment.
Perhaps on no part of the battle-field was greater interest shown in Bible reading and Bible study than by British soldiers in Palestine. Bibles with maps were in great demand. How many memories of home teaching or of Sunday school lessons must have been revived in the minds of many of the soldiers by such names as Bethlehem, Joppa, the Mount of Olives, and the Brook Kidron. And to many it seemed almost too good to be true that they could see for themselves places so connected with the life and ministry of our Lord, and that after the entry of Lord Allenby and his staff into Jerusalem, they could walk about the streets of the city over which the Savior wept.
A few dried flowers gathered upon the Mount of Olives, or in the fields near Bethlehem, are among the most cherished possessions of many a wife and mother in the homelands.