WEARY and sad, a dear servant of the Lord was returning one night from Sebastopol to his poor lodgings in an old stable in Balaklava. He had labored all day with unflagging energy, and now his strength was gone. He was sickened with the sights he had seen, and was depressed with the thought that the siege was no nearer an end than ever. As he trudged along in the mud knee deep, he happened to look up and noticed the stars shining calmly in the clear sky. Instinctively his heart mounted heavenward in sweet thoughts of the “rest that remaineth for the people of God,” and he began to sing aloud the verses beginning:
How bright these glorious spirits shine! “Whence all their white array?”
Next day was wet and stormy, and when he went out to see what course to take, he came upon a soldier standing for shelter below the veranda of an old house. The poor fellow was in rags, and all that remained of, shoes upon his feet was utterly insufficient to keep his naked toes from the mud. Altogether he looked miserable enough. The kind-hearted missionary spoke words of encouragement to the soldier, and gave him at the same time half a sovereign with which to purchase shoes, suggesting that he might be supplied by those who were burying the dead. The soldier offered his warmest thanks, and then said, “I am not what I was yesterday. Last night, as I was thinking of our miserable condition, I grew tired of life, and said to myself, Here we are, not a bit nearer taking that place than when we sat down before it. I can bear this no longer, and may as well try and put an end to it. So I took my musket and went down yonder in a desperate state about eleven o’clock, but as I got round the point, I heard some person singing, ‘How bright these glorious spirits shine,’ and I remembered the old tune and the Sabbath school where we used to sing it. I felt ashamed of being so cowardly, and said, here is some one as badly off as myself, and yet he is not giving in. I felt he had something to make him happy of which I was ignorant, and I began to hope I too might get the same happiness. I returned to my tent, and today I am resolved to seek the same thing.” “Do you know who the singer was?” asked the missionary. “No,” was the reply. “Well,” said the other, “it was I;” on this the tears rushed into the soldier’s eyes, and he requested the missionary to take back the half sovereign, saying, “Never, sir, can I take it from you, after what you have been the means of doing for me.”
Is it not beautiful to see how the Lord used the faithfulness of this dear servant? Weary himself, yet he could lift his heart to God and sing. And were the notes which rang out on the still night air of that dreary scene, lost? Ah! no; what happy fruit they bore.
Dear Christian reader, is the sound of your voice, lifted to God, bearing fruit also?
ML 04/17/1904