A MILITARY officer, young, full of energy, health and spirits, went out one day to bathe. Plunging fearlessly in, but miscalculating the depth of the water, his head came in violent contact with the ground, and in an instant he was paralyzed. Injury to the brain and spine reduced him in a moment from vigor to helplessness as complete as a new-born infant. The unfortunate man would have found there a watery grave, but that his leap had been witnessed by some people, who rescued him and bore him to hospital.
When the poor sufferer realized the full extent of his injury his agony of mind was terrible. He cursed his misfortune—and cursed the action of those who drew him from the water. Why did they not lei him drown? What use was life to him now, a helpless log that he was? Why didn’t they let him die? He wished he were dead. And so the wretched man raved, in his misery and despair; and no one could soothe him, for he would lister to none.
Mrs. B—, one of the visitors at that hospital, was told of this sad case, and entreated to say something that would bring him peace and comfort.
Walking slowly down the ward in which he lay on her way to visit another patient, she simply said very quietly, as she passed the officer’s bed, “Thy happiest person I ever saw in my life was a woman who was completely paralyzed, and who had lain on her back for twenty-five years.” She did not add another word, but passed on; and he made no sign that he had heard.
Another day, on passing his bed, she repeated the words without comment; still there was no sign or movement, and she passed on.
A third day she was there, and once more she said, just in the same manner, “The happiest person I ever saw in my life was a woman who was completely paralyzed, and who had lain on her back for twenty-five years.”
But this time the officer was watching her, and when she had finished speaking, he said, “This is the third time you have repeated those words. Who was that woman? Tell me about her.”
Thankful for this first awakening of an interest in something beyond his own trying circumstances, Mrs. B—related the story of the one alluded to; one to whom Christ was precious; poor, almost blind, but intensely happy; rejoicing in having God, and, having Him, wanting nothing more. She told the story without any remarks of her own, and then quietly turned away to visit another patient.
When she next appeared in that ward, it was evident the officer was eagerly on the look-out for her; and as she came near, his first words were, “Tell me about that woman again.”
With deepened interest he listened to the strange and touching story, and now Mrs. B—saw that the time had come, for which she had so earnestly prayed, when he would not refuse to listen to God’s message of love. Opposition had vanished.
About this time someone slipped a card over the screen by the side of his bed, having on it “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). Little by little the light broke in upon his soul, with the consequence that life and happiness came also. He became a changed man, for, as he told Mrs. B—, “The text and the story had done their work.” To say that he was perfectly contented with his lot does not express one-half the truth. He thanked God for what had befallen him, and acknowledged that it was the best thing that could possibly have happened him, and that he would not have had it different if he could.
When Mrs. B—, before going abroad, called to take leave of him, he said to her—” When you tell the story of the happiest woman, tell my story also, and say that you knew another paralytic who, though he lost all that he most valued on earth, yet, having found Christ, he found far greater happiness than he had ever known before.”
Soon afterward he died, rejoicing. It was no leap in the dark, as when he plunged into the shallow water, ignorant of its depth, and not knowing what was below the surface. He knew that the plunge into eternity would only land him safe with the One who had loved him and died for him. One for whom he had never cared when all went well with him, but whom he had learned the love of when drawn aside from the world by what the “world” would call an accident. So, he fell asleep in Jesus.
Surely, on hearing a narrative like the foregoing, we must exclaim, “What hath God wrought” (Num. 23:23). What a miracle of love and mercy. It is for our profit that He sends trials and sorrows. Submission to God’s will and confidence in His love can take all bitterness from sorrow, and can bring a flood of ineffable happiness into the soul. But deep, true, lasting happiness is only found by the Christian who, “reconciled to God” (2 Cor. 5:20), is reconciled to His will, and knows that “all things work together for good to them that love God, who are the called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8).
ANON.
IF I look at my sins in connection with the claims of God as a Judge, I find, in the cross, a perfect settlement of those claims. God, as a Judge, has been divinely satisfied—yea, glorified, in the cross. But there is more than this. God had affections as well as claims; and, in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, all those affections are sweetly and touchingly told out into the sinner’s ear; while, at the same time, he is made the partaker of a new nature, which is capable of enjoying those affections and of having fellowship with the heart from which they flow.
C. H. M.