A LITTLE child was asked, “When did you begin to love Jesus?” “I don’t know, sir,” she answered, “but I, think it was when I began to love my mother.” Let us ask our hearts the question, “Do I love Jesus? Do I believe in Him?” He is despised and rejected of men to-day, and yet He will be either the Saviour or the Judge of every man or woman in the world. He will be our Saviour the moment we ask Him to be so. Will you ask Him this moment to be your Saviour? For “whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
A dear friend who is not a doctor of the body, but who seeks to save the souls of men and women, has sent me the following, as one of the best of spiritual-tonics for the heart:
JESUS
Many names are dear, but His is dearer;
How it grows more dear as time goes on;
Many friends are near, but He is nearer,
Always what we want, and all our own.
Jesus! Jesus! let us ever say it,
Softly to ourselves as some sweet spell;
Jesus! Jesus! troubled spirit lay it
On thy heart, and it will make thee well.
What wonderful healing for soul and body is in that precious name! We have that name before us in all our work, we fight under the banner of the Crucified Redeemer. In the battle between the Italians and the Austrians on the last and most precious peak of the ridge of Monte Santo, lies an Italian infantryman of the line, holding aloft in his dead hands the signal of advance. There he lies — a symbol of insistence — the signal in his dead hands upon the peak of victory. And so we as Christ’s soldiers must press on upon our upward way. We must scale peak after peak of service for our Saviour, saying with Paul, “I press towards the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” Living or dying, we belong to Christ. This is illustrated by a touching incident from
STORIES FROM THE FRONT, BY A MOTHER
In the summer of 1914, a Highland regiment was quartered at Cairo, Egypt. Three of them were very bright, earnest Christian boys. They frequently attended the Mission Services, and helped the Missionary, who was not strong. Often if he seemed to be weary, these young soldiers would step forward and relieve him. The natives preferred to hear them preach. Well, as you know, August, 1914 saw the commencement of this awful War, and these Highlanders were called from the garrison to France. They gave their farewell addresses, and one of them, the night before their departure, sang as a solo:―
“Some day the silver cord will break
And I no more as now shall sing;
But oh, the joy when I awake
Within the palace of the King.
Some day, till then; I’ll watch and wait,
My lamp all trimmed and burning blight;
That when my Saviour opens the gate,
My soul to Him may take its flight.”
There was not a dry eye in the meeting. The young men felt they were very near the day when “the silver\cord would break,” and they would see their Lord. They left Egypt, and landed in France. One of them had been told of a minister who had passed away while praying for someone. Scott said, “I should like nothing better than to die praying for a soul.” God gave him his wish. In one of the fierce engagements, a lad was in awful trouble at the thought of death while unsaved, and Scott knelt down to pray with him, there on the battlefield. While thus engaged, a bullet went through his head, and he went home.
Martin was shot and died in hospital. Skene, the third was captured, and cruelly flogged, to make him tell the movements of the British Army, but as a brave soldier he refused. He, with others, were-handcuffed, but they managed to escape, got safely through the barbed wire, and started to run down the hill, hoping to get clear away, but in the darkness they ran into more wire, hung with tins. These gave the alarm, and a shower of lead followed. Skene fell mortally wounded.
This is only the story of hundreds, nay thousands, but this is the point. These three men were ready; they were not afraid to face their Saviour, Their officer said of them, “They lived what they professed.” They professed to be followers of Jesus, sinners saved by grace, and their lives witness to it. Are you ready? If the call comes to you on the battlefield, would your answer be “Ready, aye ready?”