“And this is Donald?” “Yes, sir. He is my youngest brother. Will you be moving him up when ye mak’ the changes at New Year?” The new superintendent of the Sunday School smiled kindly at the lad. “Well, yes, he must go up into a higher class, I think. Miss Smith will be your teacher, Donald.”
That was how Donald McWhirter became a thorn in the side of Miss Smith. She yearned over the attractive boy who adopted such a hardened face and manner whenever she tried to approach him, and yet she could not restrain a sigh of relief on the Sundays when he did not appear.
He had some good points, and among them was a retentive memory; he could repeat or sing numbers of hymns without any help from the book. Secretly Miss Smith nurtured a hope that one of them might remain in his memory as seed stored up, and spring into life at some later day.
On one Sunday in particular she noticed Donald’s vagrant gaze traveling round the school while he was shouting—with utter lack of attention to the solemn words―the hymn beginning, “There is a Fountain filled with blood.” just like a parrot he went through it to the end―what was the use of knowing the mere words so well? Years passed, and they were wild ones for Donald. He shook off the control of his parents, he said good-bye to the Sunday School, Miss Smith, and the kind superintendent, and he launched forth into all sorts of ungodliness. For seventeen years he never entered a place of worship.
He was one of the first to enlist when war broke out, but his record in the Army did not prove a good one. He paid frequent visits to the canteen, and had much confinement in the guardroom in consequence. At last he found himself in a camp where some Christian people were running a highly successful hut, where good food could be cheaply obtained, and the interior was bright with decorations and gay furnishings, writing tables, etc. Donald knew all this, but he heard from others that there was also religion in the hut, so he stayed at the canteen.
“Donald, mon, are ye no coming to the hut the night?”
“What for, then, sud I be coming? They’ll be ramming religion an’ Bible texties loon ma throat. Na, na, not for me. It’s whusky I’m wanting.”
“Na, mon,” said his persuasive friend. “It’s na ramming, onything doon your throat they are. It’s joost Hame from name,’ an’ there’s a big tire an’ lights an’ games an’ a’.”
Happily, Donald was persuaded. The hut was all his friend had said, and Donald visited it again and again, sitting at the far end and taking no part in what went on after the singing of hymns began; but nobody buttonholed him, and as he liked music he found himself, at last, joining in the chorus and whistling the old familiar tunes when he had left the hut.
Then there came a night when something awoke within him. Have you ever planted a seed and seen the faint breaking of the brown earth, and the rising up of the little green blade that tells of life out of death. Something like that happened with Donald. The first sign of it came with a tune and some words that haunted him: both had been well known to him long before, he felt certain, but he could not remember where they could be found.
“Choose your own hymns, lads,” the leader in the hut said one evening, and Donald was seized with a desire for that tune, those words, that haunted him. He must have them.
“I’m wanting one, sir,” he called out from the far end. “All right. How does it begin?”
“‘Tis joost that I canna tell ye. If I had a wee buikie, maybe I cud be finding it.”
“Well, lad, there’s a book for you. Find the number and we’ll sing it for you.”
For quite a long time Donald sat in his place, laboriously turning page after page. Then he called, “I’ve found it, sir.”
“Good, let’s have it. Speak up so that we can all hear, and read out just the first verse.”
Donald, getting to his feet, began to fire out the words:
“ ‘There is a Fountain filled with blood
Drawn from Immanuel’s veins,
And sinners, plung’d beneath that flood,
Lose all….’”
The big soldier suddenly dropped on to his seat and covered his face with his hands. “And sinners.” What a sinner he had been! That was the thought that mastered him. The other men rose up and sang the hymn loyally, so as to hide their comrade’s emotion; there was a lump in the leader’s throat as he saw Donald’s bowed head and shaking shoulders.
“Who will wash in the Fountain tonight?” he cried, as the hymn ended. “Ah, who will?” There was a silence, and then Donald’s voice came from the far end: “I will” His example was followed by many others, and “I will!” sounded from all over the room.
Then followed a sacred talk with one of the workers. Confessions of the wasted past were poured out, and the repentant man was led to the Lord Jesus Christ. When he went back to his billet he was singing, with earnest faith and sincere devotion, the hymn that he had shouted, parrot-fashion, in the old days at Sunday School.
So the seed, sown by a discouraged teacher, brought its harvest in due time. Let us sow on: some day we too shall reap. Above all, let us sow in the hearts around us the great,, central truth, that only the Blood which was shed for us can wash away the “guilty stains” of sin.
M. Hicklry.