Chapter 12: Thou Art Worthy
IT IS A TRIUMPH SONG, sung in Heaven. Listen! Can we catch its meaning?
Worthy is the Lamb that hath been slain to receive the power, and riches, and wisdom, and might, and honor, and glory and blessing.
It is a song of joy and praise, the Hallelujah Chorus of the universe.
And who are the singers, there? Those redeemed out of “every tribe and tongue and people and nation,” many of whom came from the furnace of affliction, but whose tears are forever wiped away. It is the sublimation of art earth’s “songs in the night,” from hearts that suffer for and with their Lord.
The Christian sings, and sings in tribulation. Prison walls heard the praises of Paul and Silas, and Peter’s epistles of suffering are the pages that tell of “joy unspeakable and full of glory.”
The Christian is the greatest of all paradoxes: a being who is “corrupt and yet purified, mortal and yet immortal, fallen but yet exalted far above principalities and powers, sorrowful yet always rejoicing.” And his sorrows become fruitful in blessing for others. So the enemy overreaches himself. Not only is he unable really to harm any child of God, but he is unable to stay the triumph of the truth, though he seeks to quench it in blood.
When Patrick Hamilton was burned in Scotland, someone dared to say to his persecutors: “If you are going to burn any more, you had better do it in a cellar, for the smoke of Hamilton’s burning has opened the eyes of hundreds.”
“It is always so,” Spurgeon commented, “suffering saints are living seed.”
Such seed has been sown the wide world over through the experiences of John and Betty Stain and their little one, and the harvest is being reaped with wonder and thankfulness. Why did seven hundred students stand up in that great memorial service held in the Moody Bible Institute to consecrate their lives to missionary work wherever God might call them? Whence the vision that is dawning upon young people in many lands of the privilege of sacrifice and suffering in fellowship with Christ?
What has this tragedy really done?
It has opened the deep springs of faith and love in countless hearts. How they are flowing today! How they bear witness to the true, underlying oneness of the people of God! By a single mail Dr. and Mrs. Scott received letters of comfort from Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Arabia, Sweden, Hong Kong, Canada, England, and the United States. And not letters only; gifts, especially to little Helen Priscilla, came from all directions. They came from humble, unknown believers, from Chinese Christians, from Presbyteries, from a Bishop, from the General Assembly of a great church, and from student and college faculties, notably that of Wilson, Betty’s Alma Mater.
From the Moody Bible Institute, the late Dr, James M. Gray wrote to Mr. and Mrs. Siam in Paterson:
It is needless to tell you of the high standing attained by your son and his wife in our student body, where they will be long and tenderly remembered for the witness they bore to Christ by their lives as well as their lips....
I trust that already in the poignancy of your grief you have had strength to lift your eyes to the glory that awaited them, as beyond the veil they met their Saviour for whom they died. No higher honor on earth could come to parents than that which is now yours, and I pray that you are walking today in the holy joy of it.
In a city of the Middle West, a Hollander came to the pastor of his church with two checks for fifty dollars each. One of them was for the China Inland Mission. He was deeply moved as he said:
“We are not rich: but we have enough. Peter Stam gave his son John. What is this in comparison?”
A fellow student of Betty’s wrote with a full heart:
I am Billie, the bugler from Indian Hill Camp. It was Betty who led me to the Lord there and gave me my first Bible.... Her friendship was very precious to me, and I thought you would like to hear from one at this time whom she led to the Lord. Salvation is such a precious thing that we can’t help having a special love for the one who led us to Him.
There was not a dry eye in the memorial service at Wilson College. Students have written of it as the most impressive service, spiritually, that they ever attended. President Warfield got up from a sick bed of weeks to we the address. And of a similar occasion at one of the chapel services, a member of the faculty wrote:
Dr. Warfield sat in a front seat. After the sermon, trembling, he ascended the platform and in a voice broken with emotion he spoke of Betty and the baby and claimed the latter for Wilson College in the sweetest paternal fashion.
We are going to watch the development of God’s wonderful grace that will surely come out of all this.
A fellow worker in China wrote with vision:
We all go Home in some way! Your dear daughter and her husband have gone in a of fire.... Now, full of vigor, their lives, their personalities, their work, their witnessing are known in every town and city of our land. A life which had the long-span of years might not have been able to do, one-hundredth of the work for Christ which they have done in a day.
And another China missionary told of the reaction of some of her students:
Yesterday, seventeen young women sat around my table as I told them the story of Betty and her husband.
“Just to think,” said one of them, “that little baby will one day say to us, ‘My mother gave her life that you might know of Jesus.’”
It was a memorable hour.
But to come closer home; what springs of faith and love have been released in the hearts of those most bereaved! What echoes catch in their letters of the triumph song of Heaven! To Dr. and Mrs. Scott, their daughter Helen (Mrs. Mahy) wrote:
Dearest Daddy and Mother, you don’t need to hear me say how much we love you and are thinking of and praying for you in these last days. Surely as you know your children, you know how united we are in this, every one of us, though it is hard to find words to express it....
I have such a radiant picture of Betty and John standing with their palms of victory before the Throne, singing a song of pure joy because they had given everything they had to their Master, that I cannot break loose and cry about it as people must expect. Crying seems to be too petty for a thing that was so manifestly in God’s hands alone; but my heart is very, very sore for you.
From Davidson College, North Carolina, came the younger brother’s comfort letter:
Many people would call our loss of Betty and John a terrible tragedy that should fill us with misery and despair. But I do not see it in this way, because I am a Christian and can see God’s hand behind it all. Instead of throwing us into despondency, it fills us with a greater trust in God, and a greater determination to serve Him with our lives. We do not see the meaning of it all, now, but some day we shall understand.
In God’s work the value of a life lived for Him is measured not by length but by quality of service, and by the fulfillment of His purposes for that life. Surely His purposes were fulfilled in Betty and John, and are being fulfilled: so their service was completed.
The older brother at Princeton Seminary was, as he wrote, “badly shocked” and full of grief for his parents. Yet he could say:
Knowing your faith, I know this thing has not got you down. That’s what it means to be Christians—that no trial of life can be too heavy for us, for we can see the hand of God operating in the dimness of the shadows... We have God Himself, who doeth all things well in His infinite wisdom and goodness, as the guardian and buttress of our hearts at this time.
I know, if your experience has been at all like mine, that this wicked deed has jolted us powerfully out of the spiritual lethargy into which we had slipped, and that even though we thought we were giving our best, it wasn’t enough and lacked the depth of consecration and the power of witness that we ought to have as God’s ambassadors to men. May God release to the whole Church new power through this tragedy, and a deeper consecration and more faithful witness to the wonderful cause of Christ, for which true followers all down the ages have been ready and willing to die.
And from the Congo came understanding letters from John’s missionary brother, Harry Stain, who had heard the news by cablegram:
How sad and yet how glorious! How sad to think of the sin and hatred in the heart of man! And death is still an enemy. But how glorious the welcome that was theirs in Heaven, as they met their Lord and Saviour face to face! It almost makes one envy them, just a little, to think of the infinite tenderness with which He must have said, “Well done... thou hast been faithful....”
We do not expect that wounds will not hurt; but we know that years ago you gave us all to the Lord, and He will in these days be speaking blessed comfort to your hearts, as He is to ours. It seems I cannot think of much save the glory of it.... It daily becomes more wonderful to rest in His perfect will. “Blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me.”
In Paterson one lady said with grief: “Oh, why did they go there!”
“Because the love of Christ constrained them,” Father Stain replied. “They loved the Lord and the Chinese people—that’s why they went to China. We were glad to see them go, and would gladly have let them go again, because we look not at the things which are seen. They were not after money or comfort, but after souls.”
“John and Betty had heavenly perspective,” wrote Dr. Scott. “Given that, all other things fall into their proper proportions.”
“Heavenly perspective”—thank God, many young heart, looking forward to life’s opportunity is being brought to John’s and Betty’s point of view. From Washington and Lee University, Virginia, one of the sons of the martyred missionary referred to in a previous chapter wrote to Mr. and Mrs. Stain; As my father was captured and killed by bandits three years ago in North China, I feel that I may offer you my sympathy. But what a blessed privilege is ours in having our own dear ones go the limit in service for the Master! To me, this joy has taken the place of sorrow.
And another brother, also a student at Washington and Lee and a prospective missionary, added:
I am so glad to hear that the little girl is safe. Who knows but that some day she may serve the Lord—as I hope to, by His help—in that land where I was born and which I love.
When Dr. Glover wrote to a friend of Betty’s already a candidate for the China Inland Mission, to test her reaction to the situation in China, he was moved by her reply:
I really believe that I have faced the possibilities and counted the cost.... These tragic and fearful happenings do not scare me out, but rather make me re-gird myself with the armor of the Spirit.
But these are young recruits, it may be said, who have not seen service on the field. Yes, but from Anhwei itself, Mr. Hanna writes of the attitude of John’s and Betty’s own colleagues, those who are left to close up the ranks and carry on the work:
We thank God for the steadfastness of our fellow workers during those trying days. Not one hesitant or despondent note has been heard, but all remain constant and true— “rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer.”
To them and all who stand for us—nay, for Him—in the high places of the field, Betty’s vision of our incomparable Leader must appeal:
Oh, the tongues of flame about Him were scarlet and hard and hot; But the. Son of man, with the eyes of God, loved the world and faltered not.
What has this tragedy really done?
Above all, it has set free streams of divine power and blessing. Never was there a more dreadful tragedy than that of Calvary. God’s own Son went to the depths of suffering and humiliation. And then, for that very reason, God could work. “Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him.” And more than this: it was not only power that was set free, but deeper springs of divine love. For the Lord Himself said: “Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life for the sheep.”
Does not a great, unchanging principle lie behind the words, “Wherefore God also”? Betty caught a glimpse of it in her “Song of Sending,” when she wrote:
“That man I need to move the world
Who gives Me all, to Me his all.”
For sacrifice in carrying out the divine purposes of redemption sets free the great reserves of divine power and love.
We see it in the Triumph Song, “Worthy art thou, for thou wast slain.” We see it all down the ages, in the experience of those who “follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth.” We see it today in the suffering and victory of John and Betty Stain, which have set free divine forces the extent of whose working none can measure.
What share have we, each one, in this glorious forward movement of God’s redeeming grace? What is there in our lives that He can recompense? What is there to call forth that deeper response of His love?
A Song of Sending
When Christ the Saviour lived on earth,
Long, long ago, long years ago,
He bade us tell to all the world,
“God loves you so! He loves you so!”
He gave command to heal the sick
From sin-wrought woe, all sin-wrought woe;
He said to cleanse the leper, too,
As white as snow, yes, white as snow.
Lord Jesus, Thou art waiting still.
We hear Thee call, so clearly call;
‘Who loves Me, forth! and follow Me!’
Though weak and small, so weak and small,
In God’s own Spirit shall he go,
He shall not fall, no, never fall;
That man I need to move the world,
Who gives Me all, to Me his all.
See, all the careless multitudes
Are passing by, now passing by.
The world is sick with sin and woe.
All men must die, some day must die,
The time set for our Lord’s return
Is drawing nigh, draws ever nigh.
Send us in all Thy cleansing power—
Lord, here am I! Here, Lord, am I!