Where Captain Fryatt Was Shot
Captain Fryatt, the heroic commander of the ss. Brussels, had his ship sunk near the lighthouse at Zeebrugge. When I saw the ship it had been raised, and was being cleaned, and made fit to be taken away. Captain Fryatt was imprisoned in Bruges at the Barracks. Admiral von Schroeder, the Commandant of Bruges, ordered him to be tried and shot within half an hour. No clergyman or minister was allowed to see him, and when he was led forth to die he was placed against the wall (the protruding part shown in our picture), and while he faced the firing squad the young German officers were smoking and laughing, and playing with their dogs, and Von Schroeder himself, we are told, was laughing when this brave man died. I heard these details from one en Bruges who had known it all. I went to the Barracks, and was shown by an officer where Fryatt was shot. I saw also the spot where many other unhappy Belgians were killed, and one place where three women were put to death. I was shown Captain Fryatt’s grave, in the Cemetery at Bruges (where he was buried after his execution), by a gentleman who saw the funeral, and he told me that so hurriedly had the coffin, that held his body, been put together, that blood came from it all the way to the grave. Such is man’s inhumanity to man. And as I walked through the Cemetery and saw the graves where English soldiers were buried, and Germans, and Belgians, my heart was filled with sorrow at the havoc sin had brought into the world. Tens of thousands lamented over Captain Fryatt’s murder at Bruges, and Edith Cavell’s at Brussels, and rightly too, but how few there are who grieve over the death of the sinless Victim who was slain on Calvary nineteen centuries ago. Even the one who was His judge said, “I find no fault in Him.” He was innocent, and yet He was condemned to death. He was the Son of God, and the Saviour of the world, and yet He was crucified. Captain Fryatt’s blood has stained the soil of Belgium, but the blood of Jesus Christ, shed upon Calvary, stains the whole world: It rests, a crimson shadow, on all the destinies of man. Three times Pilate said, “I find no fault in Him.” Judas, His betrayer, cried, “I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood.” he Jews cried, “His blood be upon us and upon our children.” But that innocent blood, shed so wantonly on the cross, is the precious blood that cleanseth from all sin. Pilate could never wash his guilt away when he washed his hands before the multitude saying, “I am innocent of the blood of this just person.” He was not innocent, and no sinner on earth will be proved innocent of the blood of Jesus Christ unless it has washed their sins away. May God grant that you may be sheltered by His precious blood, who died the “Just for the unjust to bring us. to God.” Men mocked around the cross of Jesus when He died, as those German officers laughed when Fryatt was slain. The German nation is guilty of the death of this man, but the whole world is guilty of the death of Jesus Christ. Oh! sinner, stand by the cross of Christ now and say, in deep repentance and believing faith,
“Yes, I have crucified my Lord;
‘Twas my sins nailed Him there.”
Then His dying prayer will be heard in heaven for you: “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.”