As a Christian working among the troops during the war, I encountered some rather hard cases. Ignorance, superstition, and false teaching were the constant foes to be met and conquered, if possible, by the glorious simplicity of the gospel of God's great love to man.
One big, rough fellow, a sergeant, proved to be a hard nut to crack. For every statement of gospel truth presented to Sergeant Jack he responded with voluminous arguments and scoffing disdain. To me this was a most serious matter, since these soldier lads were constantly exposed to sudden death. How terrible to think of one being hurled into a Christ-less eternity! Each time we met I sought, by the leading of God's Spirit, to reach the hardened heart of the lost man and lead him to the Savior.
While traversing the trenches one day, I came face to face with Jack. In the narrow space he could not avoid me. With a fervent prayer for divine help I greeted the sergeant with a question, "Is your heart right with God, Sergeant? Have you settled accounts with Him yet?"
He shook his head and answered hesitantly, "I don't know as I have, sir. There's nothing to go on. Nobody has ever come back to tell us."
"Christ came back," I said. "And one who had passed over to the other side said, if we 'believed not Moses and the prophets,' we should not believe `though one rose from the dead'
"But there is something to go upon—a way by which we may be sure we are right. It is the word of Christ Himself. 'If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine.' And that will—the will of God—is that we should believe on His Son. Now come, Sergeant, will you put it to the test?"
"Well, what I say is—," he began.
"No," I interrupted, "we will not argue about it. Will you put it to the one sure test of Scripture?"
"It wants thinking over," he said as he turned away.
Some weeks passed before we met again, and then the poor fellow was in blue instead of khaki. He had had a tough experience on the firing line; he had been badly wounded, and his arguments were shaken. I sat down beside him on a bench outside the hospital while he told me his story. It was a tragic one.
"We had gone over the top," he said quietly, his whole manner subdued and altogether unlike his former self. "Fritz caught us in the open. There was nothing for us but to go on. Talk of facing the music! It was worse than being in a drum with all the madmen in a lunatic asylum banging away for all they were worth. Men were falling all around us. The earth was churned into a scum of choking dust—powdered chalk and rock. We went on until we could go no further, blinded and lost. My old pal Bill lurched up against me, and we both plunged headlong into a shell hole. 'I'm done for this time, Jack' he said."
The sergeant paused. To my suggestion he should not continue the sad story, he answered gravely: "It is easier talking of it than thinking endlessly about it."
He continued: "Poor old Bill and I had stuck to one another like leeches ever since we joined up together. When I looked at him, I knew he was done for; but I wasn't going to leave him. I ripped off one of my puttees and made a bandage of it to stop the blood. 'Don't mind me, Jack,' he said. 'Look after yourself for your wife and kiddies' sakes—and for mine too.'
"Fritz was dropping them like coals down a chute. Some of the medic chaps found us and helped me to get Bill on to my back. We crawled towards a hole; and then, before I could creep in, a piece of shell caught Bill and hurled him off my back. He may have already gone west—I don't know—but he was dead when I bent over him.
"Six of us made it into the hole and huddled together while shells screeched over us. None of us spoke—not a soul. For hours we were like that. Pray? I don't think I ever had prayed before, not in all my life. Now I did. It wasn't that I might be spared, for I wanted a shell to strike and put an end to my torture. Then I remembered the line of a hymn: 'Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to Thy cross I cling.'
"For the first time in my life I flung all my excuses and arguments away. Helpless and in agony I clung—clung to Jesus Christ, who died for me. And that's where I am today—just clinging to the cross of Christ."
I knew then why Sergeant Jack had been so anxious to tell me his story. Here and there one may find a man ready to recount some terrible experience, but men of the sergeant's type are slow to speak of the horrors through which they have passed.
"And so you have been spared to serve Christ, Jack," I said.
He responded, "I want to. That was the first thought that came to me after we had buried my old pal, for he was a real chum to me. True as steel was Bill. Not a chap to say much; he left that mostly to me. But He was a solid-souled clean-living Christian. If I had followed his example instead of arguing, I would have a good deal less to be sorry for. With God's help I can look after his wife and kiddies when I get back. And I'll never stop praising Him for that mighty work on the cross of Calvary."