IT had a very small beginning. There was not much to alarm! First a house on fire, which everyone expected would soon be under control; but in a few hours the great city of Constantinople was a roaring furnace, and before the fire had ended its destructive course the greater part of the city had been reduced to ashes, and forty thousand people had lost their homes.
There was plenty of water, for the city was almost surrounded by the Bosphorus, with the Golden Horn running nearly through it, but the fire-brigade pumps refused to work, and the wind fanned the flames over the town to its ruin.
Mary was an English' girl, living there with her parents. Her father had come to Constantinople to tell to all he could the good news that God loved the Turks and had sent His beloved Son to die for them, and when the fire broke out was visiting in the city.
So Mary found herself alone in the house with the servants. People all round them were terrified and trying to save themselves and their belongings. Already some had lost their lives and others had been seriously injured.
Mary had never been so frightened in her life. If only her father would come back and tell them what to do. The flames were coming nearer and nearer and their house would soon be attacked! For the first time in her life Mary began to realize that she was not ready to meet God.
“Supposing," she thought, "that I am burned or injured, what will happen to my soul?”
She asked herself this question again and again, and going up to her room she knelt down and told God that if He would save her life now she would turn to Him at the first opportunity. Going downstairs again she found two strong-looking sailors from one of the British men-of-war in the harbor offering their help.
“We saw your house was in the line of fire, Miss, and the captain has given us leave to come ashore and try to save what we can. Now, Miss, the most valuable things first. You direct, and we'll work.”
“The piano first and then the pictures," said Mary, greatly relieved to see these energetic fellows.
“We'll do what we can, Miss, but we shan't save the house.”
They worked with a will and got out all the most valuable things, but the house and much that was in it was burnt to the ground, and so many were homeless that Mary's father was obliged to take his family back to England.
On the voyage Mary often thought of the kind sailor's words, " The most valuable things first.”
She had attended to the least valuable things first. Her precious soul which was to live forever had had very little attention, but her body which would one day perish she had cared for daily.
She knew she was guilty before God. “SEEK YE FIRST THE KINGDOM OF GOD AND HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS." No, she hadn't done that. So she owned it to God, and made it her great concern to attend to the most valuable things first.
For two years Mary read her Bible and prayed and tried to be better, but at the end of that time she felt she was not right with God, and she would not have liked to have died, the very thought of such a thing frightened her.
So she went to a friend, and told her of her trouble and how God had spared her life during the great fire, and what she had vowed to Him. Her friend saw where the trouble lay, and no doubt she told her that her eyes were on the wrong person; and that it is "the outside look that gives the inside peace" and "if she turned her face to the sun her shadow would fall behind her.”
Who was the Sun? The Lord Jesus Christ, who had died for her to put away her sins. Where was He now? In the glory, shining in His glorious might, at the right hand of God.
Perhaps she told her that she was like the poor Israelite, bitten by serpents in the wilderness. Supposing a dying girl had said then, "Mother, I'm bitten by a serpent and dying, but I'll do what I can, I'll try and crawl a little nearer to the serpent of brass, which Moses has put on the pole, perhaps if I struggle hard I may reach it and touch it and be healed.”
“But, my child, listen! What did Moses say? What was God's message? ‘Look, and you shall live.' Don't try to move, but look and you will live.”
"But, mother, it seems too easy, it can't be true!”
“God has been merciful to us, my child, and made the way of life so simple that even the babies and the helpless need not die.”
"LOOK UNTO ME AND BE YE SAVED.”
Mary's friend was able, with God's help, to turn her eyes in the right direction, to see what Jesus had done, not at what she had been trying to do; and she believed in her heart and confessed with her mouth that God had raised up Jesus from the dead.
I expect you would like to see Mary. She is still living and putting the most valuable things first, so that other boys and girls may do as she did, and look away from themselves to the Lord Jesus Christ, her wonderful Savior and Friend.