SOME time ago a number of soldiers were about to go to the front, when copies of the Holy Scriptures were distributed amongst them, One of the recipients was a young soldier, who received a Bible with a loud laugh, adding as he turned aside to his comrades, "We are likely to be short of paper; this will make pipe-lights for some time to come." Several of the careless in the ranks joined in the laughter, and amidst their jeers the giver of the Bible walked away. In a little while away went the soldiers, and away went the Bible in its new owner's keeping.
A short time afterward these men took part in a fierce battle, and many were killed and wounded, but our soldier was mercifully preserved. True to his word, he had been using the leaves of God's precious book for pipe-lights, and very soon but few of them remained. Noticing one day how rapidly the book was decreasing, the young soldier lightly remarked, that if he was to know what it was like, he must begin to read it. Suiting the action to the word, he looked at the first remaining page, and began to read: " Marvel not at this; for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation." (John 5:28, 29.)
These words seemed to speak to him as a voice of thunder, and he trembled at the thought of meeting in his sins the rejected Son of God. Becoming alarmed at his condition and danger, he carefully read on about the story of God's matchless love in giving Christ to die for the ungodly, and of the pardon and forgiveness of sins to all those who believe in the finished work of Christ on the cross. The young soldier's heart of stone was melted, and he gladly rested his guilty soul upon the Savior of sinners, the One he had so long despised and rejected.
Shortly afterward another battle took place, and amongst the wounded of that day's fight was the newly converted soldier. After examination he was found to be mortally wounded, and he was brought home to his friends to die.
The servant of Christ, who had given him God's word, went to see him, but arrived only in time to see his shattered body, for the precious life had fled, and the ransomed soul had departed to be with Christ.
Before passing away the soldier had written inside the cover of the Bible his name, and the date when he received it. He also described why the greater portion of it was missing, and the result to him of reading what remained. This was the only Bible the soldier had ever possessed, but mutilated though it was he had read what remained, and through the reading of it by God's grace had learned to trust Christ for salvation. His closing days amidst much suffering were marked by the triumphant testimony which he bore to the saving value of the blood of Christ. For him it was indeed a home-going. He could say:
“Farewell mortality, Jesus is mine;
Welcome eternity, Jesus is mine.”