At the annual meeting of the Colonial and Continental Church Society, the Archbishop of Armagh told how his son, an officer in the Gallipoli campaign, was asked by an officer of the R.A.M.C. whether he had any water to spare. He replied that his water-bottle was full. “Then,” said the R.A.M.C. officer, “there are forty wounded men out there dying of thirst, with swollen tongues. Can you give them some?” Mr. Crozier willingly consented, and, going out to the first wounded man, said, “Here’s some water; but go easy with it, for there are thirty-nine other men like yourself.” To the second he said, “There are thirty-eight other men as bad as yourself.” And so on, until he got to the last man. A soldier’s water-bottle is not a very large vessel. The magnificent self-denial and restraint of these poor thirsty fellows may be judged when the Archbishop added, “There was more left to drink for the last man than any of the others had.”
In order that He might give us the “water of life” freely, He who made all the rivers and all the seas, and who commands the rain to fall upon the just and the unjust, cried, “I thirst,” upon the cross of Calvary, when He died to save our souls from the endless thirst of hell.