I have seen it; I have walked through it. My eyes have viewed battlefields where millions of brave men have bled and died. I have witnessed scene after scene of unimagined horrors, that the intolerable wickedness of man has brought upon a stricken earth. Over hundreds of square miles the blast of desolating destruction has turned smiling landscapes into the very shadow of death. Proud cities, filled with the labors and homes of centuries, have been laid in ruins. Every landmark of civilization has been destroyed, and as far as eye could see, north, south, east and west, nothing has been left but heaps of debris. The very stones seemed crying to the arching heavens against the awful barbarities of man. Millions of trees, lifeless and leafless, standing stark and bare, seemed in their pathetic loneliness the sentinels of death among the dead.
At one Exhumation Camp I visited, I was told that 20,000 British dead lay on the battlefield. A large cemetery has been made to receive them. I was told also by the Commanding Officer something that made my heart praise God: it was that our Testaments were found on many of the dead when they were exhumed. Perchance those dying eyes read some glorious promise from the Book before they closed in death, or some grand invitation from the Saviour’s lips brought happiness and peace in the last moments of earthly life. Not in vain, dear friends, have these Testaments been sent. As I passed along the empty trenches, and went into the dug-outs, I could recall many a scene that had been described to me in the hundreds of soldiers’ letters that I have received. The reading of the Word in the trenches before the command was given to go “over the top.” The meetings in the dug-outs for prayer, and the listening to the gospel story. I seemed to hear the supplications of earnest men around me, and the refrain of many a hymn that has glorified hours of suffering and death: “Rock of Ages cleft for me, let me hide myself in Thee,” and “Jesus, Lover of my soul, let me to Thy bosom fly,” and “O God, our help in ages past,” etc. The voice of many of these singers will be heard no more on earth, but the songs of Zion begun here will be continued in His presence for all eternity.
Death has reaped on these battlefields the greatest harvest ever known in the world’s history, and I am sure that a mighty harvest of immortal souls has been reaped for heaven. I am certain, too, that the presence of the Saviour has brought the glory of heaven to many. Over those areas of death, dying eyes have seen Him, and His voice has spoken peace to tens of thousands that have felt their need of Him. “Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” The prayers, “God be merciful to me a sinner” and “Lord, save me,” are petitions that have reached His ears from hundreds of thousands of dying men, and not one heart-petition has remained unanswered. Take comfort, mothers and wives, weeping over your dead―many lying in unknown and lonely graves―your prayers have been answered, and be sure that when they cried God heard, and when they came to Christ He received them. Our hearts were full of sorrow when we stood on the spot where our own son died, but we thanked God for the star of hope shining brightly: “absent from the body, present with the Lord.” Our loved ones cannot return to us, but we shall meet again.
I only wished, when face to face with these terrible realities of war, that I had been ten times more in earnest about these precious souls; but I cannot express my gratitude in words to all the dear friends who made it possible for us to send those hundreds of thousands of Testaments and tracts to these dear men.
We have sown together, in tears oftentimes, but there will be singing in the Harvest Homes of heaven when sowers and reapers rejoice together.