The following is a true account recorded in the Reader’s Digest some time ago: On a warm Thursday afternoon of October, 1958, over a hundred men went down to work in a mine in Springhill, Nova Scotia. That day a tremor occurred 12,000 feet down. Seventy-five men were killed immediately and about twenty more were trapped in the pit. Twelve of these managed to get together to face what seemed certain death. One had a leg broken in three places; another had his leg badly crushed and turned black from internal bleeding, and still another suffering from excruciating pain had his shoulder dislocated and his ribs battered.
By Saturday evening their oil supply was exhausted, and their only remaining lamp flickered its last glow, plunging the twelve men into darkness. One of the men, a Christian named Caleb R——, started humming a tune. “Let’s have a song,” said one of his mates, and Caleb sang to them the hymn — The Stranger of Galilee — with its stirring chorus:
And I felt I could love Him forever,
So gracious and tender was He:
I claimed Him that day as my Saviour,
That Stranger of Galilee.
On Sunday morning, Caleb brought the dial of his watch close to his face. “It’s going on seven. They’ll be getting ready for service soon,” he said. Without another word, those men began praying, some almost incessantly. Occasional drifts of methane gas brought an added danger; it could kill any one of them and the others would not know.
But God heard and answered their cry for deliverance, although they were nearly a week facing death in some form or other. Truly the gates of death seemed to open to them. Rescuers arrived at 2:25 on Thursday morning, and they were taken to fresh air and to safety.
“They cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and He saved them out of their distresses.” Psa. 107: 13.
ML 04/23/1967