The Book of Courage Part 16

The speaker's mistake is repeated every day, not merely by men on the platform, but by everyday people in the home, in the school, and at work. It is fatal to usefulness to put ourselves in the foreground; but those who forget self and remember others are welcome wherever they go.

IV

GETTING CLOSE TO THE BIBLE

One of the blessings that came to the world out of the anguish of the Great War was a new appreciation of G.o.d's Word on the part of many who had never paid much attention to the inspired Book, and the formation of the habit of Bible reading by tens of thousands of those who were once heedless of G.o.d's Word.

Absence from home in hours of danger, privation and suffering, opened the way for testing Him who reveals his power to give infinite blessing by saying tenderly, "As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you." The sense of absolute powerlessness in the face of barbarism led to dependence upon G.o.d who holds the worlds in His hands.

Realization of the uncertainty of life and familiarity with death made easy and natural the approach to the Lord of life and death.

Probably there were soldiers who laughed at the words of Field Marshal Lord Roberts, spoken when the first British troops were crossing the Channel:

"You will find in this little Book (the Bible) guidance when you are in health, comfort when you are in sickness, and strength when you are in adversity," but the day came when one of the soldiers themselves, Arthur Guy Empey, wrote:

"How about the poor boy lying wounded, perhaps dying, in a sh.e.l.l hole, his mother far away? Perhaps to him even G.o.d seems to have forgotten; he feels for his first-aid packet, binds up his wounds, and then waits--years, it seems to him--for the stretcher-bearers. Then he gets out his Testament; the feel of it gives him comfort and hope. He reads.

That boy gets religion, even though when he enlisted he was an atheist."

A Young Men's Christian a.s.sociation secretary told of an incident when the soldiers were just leaving for the trenches. "He saw a young lad nervously making his way up to the counter. He knew the boy wanted something, and was afraid to ask or was timid about it. He said, 'Want something, lad?' 'Yes, sir, I have got a Bible and I don't know much about it. I'd like you to mark some pa.s.sages in it. I am going out to the trenches to-night.' 'Sure!' said the secretary. 'Mark some good ones, now,' said the lad.

"While he was marking the first lad's book half a dozen other boys came up and said, 'Mark mine, too, sir!' And for half an hour this secretary was busy marking verses in the Bibles of those boys. An interested observer asked him what he marked, and he said, 'Matthew 10:23; 11:28; 6:19, 20; John 3:16; Romans 8:35-39.'"

"Fighting" Pat O'Brian, of the Royal Fighting Corps, whose marvelous escape from his German captors thrilled mult.i.tudes, said:

"I haven't been given to talking much about religion, but when, after two months of flight through an enemy country as an escaped prisoner, going without food except such as I could pick up in the fields and eat raw, and time and again coming within a hair's breadth of being caught, I finally got through the lines on to the neutral soil of Holland, I was mighty glad to get down on my knees and thank G.o.d that He had got me through. A lot of men who have never thought much about religion are thinking about it now. I believe they will read those little khaki Testaments, and I am sure they will get help from them."

That "those little khaki Testaments" were going into the hands of the soldiers pleased General Pers.h.i.+ng, who said, "Its teachings will fortify us for our great task." And Secretary of the Navy Daniels rejoiced that the books were going to the sailors, for he said, "The Bible is the one book from which men can find help and inspiration and encouragement for whatever conditions may arise."

V

THE BIBLE AND ONE MAN

In June, 1862, John E. Clough was graduated from an Iowa college. He had been eager to make a name for himself. Many promising avenues of secular work had opened to him, and he had tried to take one or another of them.

But always he knew that it was not right for him to plan for anything but the ministry. The impression was deepened when the president of the college took for the text of his baccalaureate sermon, "For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself." So the young graduate left the college feeling that he was no longer free to go out and use his education for the career he had dreamed of.

But he did decide to teach for a year. With Mrs. Clough, he made an engagement to teach a public school one year. But he did not dare stay for a second year, because the people were so good to the new teacher, and there was so much evidence of this popularity, that the Bible words kept ringing in his ears, "Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you." He knew he was not in the right place. In later life, when opposition came to him because he was doing faithful Christian work, he was strengthened by the memory of this text that had once been anything but a comfort to him.

At last came the beginning of the work in India that made the name of John E. Clough famous. His success was due, in large measure, to the fact that he emphasized G.o.d's Word. One of his first acts was to prepare a tract in Scripture language, telling the things necessary for salvation, and this proved useful throughout his services.

Everywhere he went he quoted Scripture to the people. He felt that whatever else he might say to them, this would be most effective. One text was used more than any other, in private conversation and in sermons, the invitation of Jesus, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." This, he said, was always new, and the people received his explanations gladly. Once, during a time of grievous famine, when about them millions of the natives died of want and disease, these words proved especially effective.

As a measure of famine relief the missionary took the contract for a section of the great Buckingham Ca.n.a.l. Under his leaders.h.i.+p the natives were set to work on this. Native evangelists as well as white missionaries toiled day after day, and this gave a splendid chance for preaching the gospel. "The name of Jesus was spoken all day long from one end of our line to the other," Mr. Clough wrote in his autobiography. "The preachers carried a New Testament in their pockets.

It comforted the people to see the holy book of the Christians amid all their distress. They said, when they sat down for a short rest, 'Read us again out of your holy book about the weary and heavy laden.' That verse, 'Come unto me all ye that labor,' was often all I had to give the people by way of comfort. The preachers were saying it all day long. It carried us through the famine. We all needed it, for even the strongest among us sometimes felt our courage sinking."

All through Dr. Clough's missionary career there was one verse in particular that carried him far. When he was out on tour among the people, often many miles distant from home, Mrs. Clough was accustomed to send after him a messenger who would take to him, for his encouragement, the message she felt he needed. Knowing his fondness for the text, "Be still, and know that I am G.o.d; I will be exalted among the heathen," she sent the words to him on more than one occasion. In the story of his life he told of a day when the text came to him with special force:

"I was tempted to shake the dust off my feet and go. My helpers and I had camped in a new place, and had been trying hard to get the people to come and listen to the gospel, but they would not. I concluded that it was a hard place, and told my staff of workers that we were justified in leaving it alone and moving on elsewhere. Toward noon I went into my tent, closed down the sides, let the little tent flap swing over my head, and rested, preparatory to starting off for the next place. Just then a basket of supplies was brought to my feet by a coolie, who had walked seventy miles with the basket on his head. In the accompanying letter Mrs. Clough quoted my favorite verse to me. While reading this, some of the preachers put their heads into the tent and said, 'Sir, there is a big crowd out here; the grove is full; all are waiting for you. Please come out.'"

Once the two verses that were the keynote of the missionary's life were especially prominent. For a long time he had been discouraged because results seemed slow and difficulties were great. But the day came when he stood before thousands and preached to them the Word, strong in the a.s.surance of the presence of Him who said, "Be still, and know that I am G.o.d: I will be exalted among the heathen." The text that day, as so often before, was "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden."

For an hour the people listened to his words. Then they began to plead for baptism, and would not be denied. At length, after rigid examination, baptism was administered to 3,536 within three days. And he had not baptized one soul in fifteen months before this time!

G.o.d's Word gave courage to Clough; it enabled him to give courage to others; and it will give courage to you.

VI

OUT OF THE DEPTHS

During the year 1538 an Italian spent long weeks in a noisome underground prison cell, where he was kept on account of religious differences. For a precious hour and a half of each day, when the light struggled in through a tiny window, he read the Bible, especially the Psalms. Among the Psalms that meant most to him was the one hundred and thirtieth, whose beginning "Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord," expressed the longings of his heart for companions.h.i.+p and comfort.

Exactly two hundred years later, on May 24, 1738, John Wesley, then in the midst of the greatest anxiety and longing for G.o.d, heard the choir at St. Paul's Cathedral sing, "Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord." The words brought joy to him. From the depths in which he found himself that afternoon he cried unto G.o.d, and that evening there came to him the knowledge of G.o.d's presence that gave him strength to begin the wonderful work that built up the great Methodist Church.

These same words meant much to Josiah Royce, the American teacher of philosophy, who died in 1916. In one of his later books, he wrote:

"We come to such deep places that we can only cry. We are astonished that we can cry. And then we become aware that our cry is heard. And he who hears is G.o.d. And so G.o.d is often defined for the plain man as 'He who hears man's cry from the depths.'"

One who knew Professor Royce well wondered if he did not enter the depths from which he cried to G.o.d and received such satisfying response, after the death of his only son. In the same way those who delight in the message of Psalm 130 wonder what could have been the experience of depression that opened the way for his reception of G.o.d's blessing.

We can only speculate about these things. But there is one thing of which we can be absolutely sure: there is no depth so low that the cry of one of G.o.d's children will not reach from it to the heart of the Father; no sorrow so crus.h.i.+ng, no anxiety so overwhelming, no pain so intense, no difficulty seemingly so unsolvable, no sin so awful, that eager, earnest prayer will not bring G.o.d to the relief of the sufferer.

"If out of the depths we cry, we shall cry ourselves out of the depths,"

one has said who has written of the words that Professor Royce found so helpful. Then he asks: "What can a man do who finds himself at the foot of a beetling cliff, the sea in front, the wall of rock at his back, without foothold for a mouse, between the tide at the bottom and the gra.s.s at the top? He can do but one thing, he can shout, and, perhaps, may be heard, and a rope may come dangling down that he can spring at and catch. For sinful men in the miry pit the rope is already let down, and their grasping it is the same as the psalmist's cry. G.o.d has let down His forgiving love in Christ, and we need but the faith which accepts it while it asks, and then we are swung up into the light, and our feet set on a rock."

Each one has depths peculiarly his own, and longs to be out of them.

Then why not call to Him who hears men's cry from the depths, with the quiet confidence of quaint old Herbert, who wrote:

Of what an easie quick accesse, My blessed Lord, art Thou! how suddenly May our requests thine ears invade!

If I but lift mine eyes my suit is made; Thou canst no more not heare than Thou canst die.