We passed many wooden crosses placed on the graves of those buried on the battlefield. We did not know the tragedy of those deaths, but we could imagine the hurried interment amid the thunder-blasts of carnage, the service read by the chaplain, amid the bursting of shrapnel and the thunder of big guns. Then the soldiers’ last farewell of their comrade as they left him lying there.
“Where the rough rude crosses stand,
To mark their last advance.”
I read the following solemn battlefield episode:—
THE SAFEST PLACE
It could hardly have been called a dug-out; it was merely a depression in the ground, covered with tarpaulin. Guarding the entrance stood, or rather crouched, Captain Day, while Second-Lieutenant Phillips, in much the same attitude, occupied a position at the farther end. Both men were strangely silent; indeed, there seemed little chance of conversation amid the deafening roar of the incessant shell-fire outside. But presently the elder man spoke.
“Phillips,” he said, “will you change places with me? It is no use mincing, matters in such times as these. You are in the safest place, man, and―you understand, don’t you? My life would be considered more valuable than yours just now.” The boy—he was scarcely more―rose to obey. Six months previously he had given his heart to the Lord Jesus, so although his face whitened and his lips trembled a little, yet he was brave in the knowledge that all must be well with the Christian.
“Certainly, sir,” was his simple reply, and he moved forward to the place where his chief had been stationed. A moment later a shell burst close at hand, and a mighty piece of shrapnel hit the safest place. To his horror, Phillips saw his companion struck down before his eyes. It was a terrible shock to the boy. Only one minute before! ―his brain reeled to think of it. And then, in that awful moment, he realized God’s marvelous deliverance on his own behalf.
The safest place! Well may we ask where it is. We cannot find it in our own strength; it may prove to be the most dangerous if we leave it to our own judgment. “Whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe,” says a verse in Proverbs; and that is the secret. If we yield our lives up to Him, complete trust in Him will follow, and then just where He leads each day will prove to be our safest place.
L. Laing.