MANY years ago, when a wicked king was on the throne, the people were forbidden to read the Bible. A party of soldiers with their cruel leader were riding along a country road one day. A little way on before them, they saw a boy walking with a large book underneath his arm. Coming up to him, the leader asked, “What book is that you carry, boy?”
Looking up fearlessly into his face, the boy said,
“It’s the Bible.”
“Throw it into the ditch, then,” shouted the fierce commander.
“No, no,” replied the boy in his broad Scotch accent, “I cannot do that, it is the Word of God.”
A second order from the enraged commander to the same effect was given, but the boy hugged the Bible more fondly to his bosom.
“Then pull your cap over your eyes, for you shall die,” cried the wicked man foaming with rage, and at the same time giving the word to his men,
“Soldiers, prepare to fire.”
For a moment the soldiers hesitated, thinking that probably the boy would yield and throw away the Book. But he stood firm and true.
Dear boy! he had found in the Book that he carried, the way of life; he had trusted his soul to Jesus the Saviour of the lost, and he knew that the soldiers’ bullets would only send him into the bright and blessed presence of his Lord, where others who had not flinched to die for Him had gone before.
“I will not cover my eyes,” said the brave youth, “I will look you in the face, as you will have to look me in the face in the day of judgment.”
He stood calm and peaceful while the soldiers prepared their muskets, and in another moment he was shot through the heart. His body fell on the green grass, and the Book for which he died fell with it, but his ransomed spirit freed from its earthly house was with the Lord. And surely angels around the throne would have felt it an honor to stand where that noble boy so boldly witnessed for his Lord that day.
Would to God there were more of our boys and young men of the same spirit, not afraid to stand firm and true to Christ with faces like a flint.
The times no doubt are changed; we do not fear the troopers’ bullets now. But there is the same enmity against God, and hatred to Christ and His Word, now in the world, although it may be manifest in other forms, and it is the privilege of all who are saved to stand firm and true to Christ, confessing His name, and obeying His Word, whether amid the opposition of the devil as a roaring lion, or as a subtle serpent.
ML 11/05/1933