During the late World War, a Christian doctor in England gave a patient of his a copy of "Notes on Exodus," by C. H. M. She in turn gave it to a clergyman who had called to see her on his return from the front on leave. He afterward wrote and told her that he had read the book, and it had opened his eyes at last to the reality of divine things.
He was not engaged at the front in the capacity of Army Chaplain, but was acting as stretcher-bearer. One day while about to carry a mortally wounded soldier to the rear, the other bearer was shot down. He then dragged the stretcher to a safer place and lay down flat beside it.
Shortly afterward the wounded lad said, "I'm going, sir. Give me a Christian kiss and tell my mother I am safe in the arms of Jesus!" On raising himself to respond to the dear fellow's wish, the clergyman himself was shot in the back by a sniper. However, he remained conscious and able to talk to the wounded lad, who soon passed away. When they were found, the dead boy's arms were clasped around the now unconscious clergyman's neck so tightly that it took some time to separate them.
When in the hospital this clergyman wrote to his friend, telling her what a blessing the book on Exodus had been to him. He was writing while he could, for he himself was mortally wounded; but he wanted the book to be sent to his mother.
His brother, once a colonel in the Guards, who had been discharged through drink, wished to see the book that had meant so much to his dead brother. He read it, and through it he too was converted.
While traveling by rail into London shortly afterward, this same colonel was mortally wounded by a bomb during an air raid! A friend who was traveling with him at the time said: "I never could have believed that conversion could have wrought such a change as I saw in him! It was a modern 'miracle.'”
And so it was, thank God! This is one of many such miracles of grace that God is working today, and by similar means.
Here are two of the most unlikely cases, and of the very opposite kind, yet reached by what some might think the most unlikely means. One man, it might have been suggested, was "too good" to need salvation; and the other was "too bad" to receive it. Both statements are false, whoever may suggest them.
The young soldier lad had already the satisfaction of knowing that to be "safe in the arms of Jesus" was something more than a bit of religious sentiment. To him it was a great and blessed reality.
His faithful stretcher-bearer, after years of the unreality of a Christless profession, had also found the joy and peace that accompanies simple faith in Christ.
What passed between these two in those solemn moments we do not know; but this we know, that to put the kiss of love upon the brow of the dying lad, the devoted stretcher-bearer paid the heavy price of his own life.
How this reminds us of the Savior of the lost! In order to enable God righteously to imprint the kiss of forgiveness upon the cheek of the dying sinner, His Son had to leave the infinite honors of the throne and stoop to the unutterable shame of Calvary. There He gave "His life a ransom for many" (Mark 10:4545For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. (Mark 10:45)).
Is such love as this nothing to you, dear reader? Have you requited this love by a full confiding trust in Him who so expressed it, or do you still hold Him at arm's length?