ONE day early in 1916, Lance-Corporal D―, 6th Batt. Cameron Highlanders, was on duty in.a communication trench leading from the front line of battle in France. Round the corner came two stretcher-bearers carrying their sad burden.
“Had some casualties?” queried the Lance-Corporal.
“Yes. Germans, have knocked out one of our machine guns,” was the reply.
“Bad case?”
“Mortally wounded; won’t last long.”
“Who is it?”
The Lance-Corporal was taken aback at the answer:
“D―, verse” (Private D — 13th Royal Scots, won the verse at “Hill 70”).
At this moment a feeble voice calm from the stretcher: “Put me down, chaps, I’m dying. I can feel the life flowing out of me.”
The stretcher-bearers obeyed, and the dying verse hero was laid at the Lance-Corporal’s feet.
Thank God that Lance-Corporal was a converted lad, a real Christian; and what followed, shall be told in his own words as nearly as possible, as he told it to me seated by a Scottish fireside while on a short leave from the Front.
“I put my hand under his head, and asked how he, felt without getting any reply. I then asked, ‘How is it with your soul in view of meeting God?’ At this he opened his eyes and looked at me with distress written on his face, which seemed to say, ‘I don’t know.’
“I pulled out my pocket Testament and read him these words: ‘For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life’ (John 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)).
“I read those words again, and as I did so there came into my mind what I had heard a preacher say about that text. So what I remembered I repeated to the dying man.
“D―,’ I said, ‘this verse is full of blessing for you. God so loved the world, and you are part of the world that He loved; so the world means you. Put your name in. Read it, God so loved D — that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever — now that is another big word which will take you in — whosoever believeth — so if you but believe in God’s Son, and trust your soul to Him for time and eternity, we can put your name in there.
“ ‘So we can read it in this way, that God so loved D― that He gave His only begotten Son, that if D— believes in Him, he shall not perish, but have everlasting life.’
“Suddenly he reached out his hand, and, yipping mine, he said, with an emphasis not easily forgotten, ‘Man! I see it! I see it!’
“The stretcher-bearers by this time had taken off their hats. It was a scene that instinctively moved them to reverence. He then again lay with his eyes closed, so I said to him, ‘Shall I sing to you?’
“ ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘do’
“Thereupon I sang those well-known words: —
‘Safe in the arms of Jesus,
Safe on His gentle breast,
There by His love o’ershadowed,
Sweetly my soul shall rest:
Hark! ‘tis the voice of angels
Borne in a song to me,
Over the fields of glory,
Over the jasper sea.
‘Safe in the arms of Jesus,
Safe on His gentle breast,
There by His love o’ershadowed,
Sweetly my soul shall rest.”
“By the time I had finished it really looked as if he had breathed his last, so I said to the bearers, ‘You’d better carry him away, chaps. He’s gone, I think, and the trench must be kept clear.’
“They bent down to again lift their burden. However, as they began to move him, he once more opened his eyes, and, turning his head toward me, he said quite distinctly, ‘Cameron, we shall meet again.’ (Soldiers usually address one another by the name of their regiment).
“Another moment, and they were out of my sight. I never saw him again, but heard later that they never got him to the dressing-station alive.” They had not proceeded far before D―, the verse hero, was dead.
Dead, did I say? Yes, for his body lies mouldering in the blood-drenched soil of France. Yet his spirit is not dead. He lives to God, for at the last he became a possessor of eternal life, and most evidently he knew it.
The much-coveted V.C. he earned by a deed of extraordinary valor. It became his when he was in the full flood-tide of martial energy and prowess. Eternal life became his when lying a dying man, without energy or ability of any kind. Had it to be earned, it were indeed utterly beyond his reach; and yet, oh, miracle of grace, as the life-blood flowed out of his body eternal life flowed into his soul.
And what was it that brought in this saving tide of life and virtue? Faith; just simple FAITH, “I see it!” was his cry as his eyes were growing dim in death. He saw it with the eyes of faith. The Word of God set forth before his soul the love of God, the gift of the only begotten Son, His death on the cross after the pattern of the serpent lifted up in the wilderness (see John a 15), the danger of perishing and yet deliverance from perishing, and, lastly, the gift of eternal life. He saw these things, he believed them, and as he gripped them in faith the life was his.
Let God be praised for such grace as this, but do not forget that the same grace waits upon you, with the same life and blessing to be received in just the same simple way.
Neglect not that grace until your dying hour, lest it be yours then to slip into the dark unknown without a friendly word of Gospel light, but rather my friend, decide for Christ today.
F. B. HOLE.