Corliss looked at her curiously, studied the radiant look on her sweet face, and wondered at it. “Well, I wish I could feel that way about missing things and seeing uncomfortable things coming ahead. But I can’t,” she said.
“Well, perhaps that is because you do not know my Lord Jesus yet. That makes all the difference in the world. When you know somebody well, you know whether you can trust him or not. Do you see?”
“No, I’m not sure I see at all,” said the girl. “What about all those people over in the war and all those people in Europe? Don’t you suppose there are any of those who know God? Don’t they pray and trust Him? And He doesn’t do anything for them, does He?”
“Oh yes,” said Dale quickly, “there are a lot of God’s children over there, and a lot who are trusting Him, too. I know. I have a few friends, some among the fighters, some among the people who have lost their homes and their dear ones, and they are just resting in the Lord and waiting patiently for Him to set the world right. They believe He will do it. And while they are suffering, they are trusting, too, and they understand that this is all going to work out in the end for righteousness and for good to all.”
“Well, I don’t see that,” said Corliss. “I couldn’t trust that way, not with things going wrong the way they are. It doesn’t seem kind in God.”
“But you see, dear, you just don’t know Him, and you don’t understand what He is working out for the world. There is the question of sin that is everywhere, sin that has to be conquered. Sin for which He died to make a way for us to escape. And just as if He had sinned instead of us, He deliberately took our sins upon Himself and bore their punishment as if they had been His sins. We’ve nothing left to do but believe that He did it and accept what He did and take Him as our personal Savior, and we are free from it all.”
The boy had stopped working with the puzzle and was looking at her, taking in all that she said, weighting it, pondering it. “I’d like to hear more about that,” he said at last as he turned back to his puzzle. “It sounds reasonable, but not very likely. I don’t know anybody that would do that for people. Die for them. Is all that in the Bible? That’s a book I’ve never read. Just heard a snatch or two now and then read in school. But does it have real things like that in it?”
“Oh yes,” said Dale with shining eyes. “I’d be glad to show you some of them if you would be interested.”
“I think I would,” said the boy.
And then suddenly the doorbell rang and Dale went to see who had come, although both the young people started up anxiously as if they thought they should go, and Dale realized that they always had in the back of their minds now the possibility of some change coming to their mother, the anxiety of what might happen next.
“It’s all right, George,” she said as she hurried to the door. “Probably some neighbor. I would likely have to go anyway.” But they followed to the hall and hovered in the shadow until they heard it was a special-delivery letter, and as they couldn’t possibly figure out how that could have anything to do with their affairs, they went back to the jigsaw puzzle again.
They heard Dale tear open the envelope, saw through the doorway how she paused eagerly to read the brief letter, and they looked up curiously to see the bright color in her cheeks and the glad, yet sorry, look in her eyes. But she went quietly over to her chair and sat down. “It’s only a note from a dear friend who is probably being sent overseas, or somewhere, on a dangerous mission. He wanted me to know that he was starting, though he cannot tell me where. It is just sort of a good-bye, for the time being.”
The two young people were very quiet for a long time, and the jigsaw puzzle grew into a semblance of the story it was to tell when finished. At last Corliss asked a question. “Does he—the one who wrote that letter—know God?”
Dale looked up with a bright smile. “Oh yes,” she said happily. “He knows Him very well, and he is trusting in the Lord to help him through, whatever way He will, either to bring him back home or to his heavenly home.”
“Do you mean there is any fighter, a young man, who feels that way about war and dying and all that?”
“Yes, I know a good many. Somehow didn’t really trust God before they went over, but who have come to need Him and cry out for Him since they have been surrounded by death and terror. But this man especially really knows and trusts and is happy in the Lord.”
It was just at that point that the kitchen door opened and Hattie walked in with a tray bearing three cups of hot chocolate topped with whipped cream and a heaping plate of delicious sandwiches. The young people pounced upon the food eagerly, and the subject for the time being was forgotten. Or was it? Did the two cousins, after they had retired for the night, lie awake pondering these things, which they had never known or thought of before? And Dale knelt long beside her bed praying for them.
But once more before she turned out her light she read the precious letter over again, then folding it she put it under her pillow before she lay down.
The letter was very short.
Dearest:
Only a minute to write. Orders have just come through. We are about to leave for an unknown port and probably no opportunity to write again for some time. Be praying, and so will I. Remember, “All through the night” our Savior will be watching over us, and “Joy cometh in the morning.” Trust on, beloved.
David
So when she lay down and closed her eyes, the bright words of faith from that letter illuminated her dark room. Out there beyond her window was the dark night and the hovering images of fears that might be threatening her beloved, but those words of trust made the difference in what might have been a message full of fear. So Dale, trusting, slept sweetly in spite of tomorrow, and more tomorrows, looming large and portentous ahead in a dreadful future, could not disturb her sleep because her faith was fixed upon the Rock, Christ Jesus.
Chapter 15
And while they slept, a long way off a ship slid out on the ocean, beginning its perilous way into the night.
David Kenyon had not expected this change to the new duties to which he had been transferred. He was ready to be an unimportant cog in the machinery of this war he had already given many weary months and much bravery to for the cause of righteousness. But to be put into a position of trust in place of a notable man whose health had failed in a crucial time had not been within the possibilities of his thought. Yet here he was, ordered to have charge, for the time, of a convoy transport, which there was every reason to suppose would be followed and bombed by the enemy from both under and on and over the sea. He had not known definitely just what his orders were to be when he wrote that note to Dale, yet now as he thought about it with the full responsibility of the new duties upon him, he was glad he had written as he had. It was his farewell to her for the time, and together they would be praying and trusting their all.
He watched the dim lights of the harbor disappear into blackness and wondered if he would ever see them again. It seemed a solemn time to him, almost like standing at his own deathbed, watching himself die. It was going to be his duty, presently, to watch for the enemy. Would he be equal to the task? He thought of the lives that would be dependent upon him, of the responsibility that would be his, and then as he went below to the bunk room to prepare for the night’s duties, it came to him that it was not only his own deathbed that he might be set to watch but that of all the others, who were his comrades. He did not know them all very well yet, for he had been with most of them for only a few hours on the train across the country, but those other fellows were his responsibility, too. It might be their deathbeds also, as well as his own. And were they ready to die? With him it was right either way, for his heart was fixed on the eternal.
He cast his eyes around on the fellows in the bunk room. It was comparatively quiet. Only an occasional attempt at a joke, for all seemed thoughtful, suddenly brought to realize what might be before them that night. They were all getting dressed for their coming duty, a night on deck.
Some of their young faces looked hard and bitter, some careless, trying to whistle and laugh off the solemn thoughts that must come at a time of stepping into a night of peril.
There was one, a young lad, younger than any of them, who had recently come among them, and he looked exceedingly blue. The others had been kidding him, trying to find out what made him look like that, but the boy’s face grew only more desperate. Somehow it reminded David of the way he used to feel when he had his first taste of danger. The other fellows had all had experience, too, though he could see that some of them were grave with apprehension even yet, whenever they were still long enough to let their thoughts take over. But this young lad touched David’s heart deeply.
“What’s the matter, kid?” he asked pleasantly. “Scared?”
He spoke with a heartening grin, but the boy lifted that desperate face to him and did not smile.
“Sure.” he said solemnly. “Aren’t you?”
“No,” said David firmly, “not scared. Feeling a little solemn, perhaps, because this thing we’re in is real, not just a game that doesn’t matter, and of course death is stalking these waters, underneath and overhead as well. But we knew that would come sooner or later when we joined up with the outfit, and I don’t feel that God is dead. I know He’s looking after me.”
“How’ll that help you when the bombs begin to fall?” asked the boy. “I guess they’re all good and scared, if they’d just own it, aren’t you, fellows?”
Several of the men lowered their glances and gave a shamed assent.
“What I’d like to know,” said the boy, looking straight at David, “is why you’re not scared? Is it just because you’ve been in battles before? Have you got used to it and don’t mind it anymore, or what?”
David shook his head. “No, Phil,” he said gently. “It’s because I have a Savior in whom I trust. I know He’ll do the best for me, whatever comes. He’s wise and powerful, and He’s watching over me continually.”
“Aw, that’s all bunk,” sneered an older man. “Nobody that was a God would be bothered watching over a lot of tough fellows that didn’t give a hang about Him or never had paid any attention to Him. You just got brought up that way, Dave, and swallowed a lot of old traditions, that’s all. But you can’t tell me when you see bombs coming your way that you ever think about God or that your beliefs ever help you get by without being scared stiff.”
“But it isn’t like that, fellows,” said David earnestly. “You’ve got it all wrong. In the first place, it isn’t a lot of traditions. It’s a Person whom I know and love and whose love has been with me through a good many years, in a lot of other troubles, so I know He’ll not forget me now, and whatever He does for me will be the best that could come to me.”
“Yes, but you see, I haven’t got any such friend as that,” said Phil, in a sort of contemptuous quiver. “I wasn’t brought up with traditions. My folks never even went to church. And you can’t just rest down and trust somebody you don’t know and you’re sure don’t care a hang about you.”
“Oh, but He does. He cares very much about you, Phil.”
“What gives you that idea?” sneered the boy.
“Because He’s said so, and all you have to do is believe it. He loved you so much that He gave His life for you, so that you might know you could be saved forever.”
“I don’t know how you could possibly know that.”
“Because He has said so in the Bible, and I believe it. ‘For God so loved the world… that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’ Then, there’s another: ‘He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.’ There are a lot of other proofs. I can show them to you if you care to read them, but aren’t those enough for a start?”
“I suppose so, if I was sure He said it. If I was sure He was God and able to carry out His promise,” said the kid miserably.
“Yes—well,” said David thoughtfully, “if you were driving through an unknown country and lost your way and you came to a road that had a sign on it directing you to the place of your destination, would you stand there and debate and say, ‘How do I know this is the right way? How do I know that somebody hasn’t put this sign up just to fool me? Just to lead me into trouble? Or how do I know that it isn’t a joke somebody is trying to play on me?’ Would you go around looking for another road? Or would you turn down the road and try it out and see if it led to your city?”
“Well, I don’t know. Maybe I’d looked for another road first.”
“So?” said David. “Well, have you looked for another road yet? Is there any other way in a time like this when danger is on the way? Do you know any other way to meet God and not be afraid?”
“I suppose you can just trust to luck,” said another young fellow dismally. “I suppose if you’re going to get through you will, and if you aren’t there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“That doesn’t sound very hopeful, Sam. Do you think it does? Just swing out into the blackness and trust to luck?”
The boys sat earnestly, thoughtful, their heads bent. One caught his breath in something that sounded like a suppressed sob.
“Luck’s no good. It’s nothing to trust to,” said another gloomily.
“Well, at home I used to go to Sunday school every Sunday for years, and just before I left home I joined the church to please my mother,” said another tall boy with a tentative question in his voice.
They were all looking at David, so after a minute he answered, “Are you satisfied to offer that as your entrance ticket into eternity, Jim?”
The tall fellow sank down on his bunk and collapsed, burying his face in his crossed arms. “Oh, I don’t know,” he answered. “I don’t feel sure about anything.”
“Isn’t it safer to take the condition Christ offers? He says, ‘He that believeth.’ If you’re going to trust something, better get the conditions straight. Couldn’t you just accept that offer of His and swing off and trust Him, and let Him prove it to you? That’s what trust or belief really is. Letting God have the chance to prove it to you. I took it that way ever since He’s given me peace. He’ll give it to you, too, if you’ll take it and try Him out.”
There was a great silence for a long moment broken by the distant sound of an explosion. They had been hearing those at intervals all day, but somehow this one seemed to deepen the silence.
“We may not have much time ahead to accept that offer,” suggested David.
The lad called Phil suddenly looked up, his eyes wild with fright. “I’ll do it,” he said with sudden conviction. “What do you have to do?”
“Just tell Him so,” said David, coming close to the boy and drawing him down on his knees beside the bunk, kneeling with his arm around the lad, and so he began to pray for him: “Oh God, our Creator, who loved us all and sent Your own Son to take our sin upon Himself and die the penalty for it, as if He had been Himself the sinner, we are coming to You, because You have said You love us and want to save us, and we do not know any other way to be saved except to believe what You have said. We know that we are going out in a few minutes into what may be sudden death for us all, and we know no power on earth can help us. So we are casting ourselves on You knowing that You will do the best for us that can be, because You love us and have died for us. So take us, and make us, whether in life or in death, Yours to all eternity, because You have promised and we have believed that promise and are trusting ourselves to it.”
There was a brief pause, and David sat quietly. “Now, Phil, will you tell Him you accept Him as your personal Savior?”
Another pause, and then Phil’s low, solemn voice, scarcely heard above the sounds of engine and waves: “Lord, I’m believing You and I’m taking You for my Savior now and forever. I’ve done a lot of sinning, but You said You’d take care of that. Thank You. And now, whatever comes, I’m Yours, Lord. Amen.”
It had been very still there in the dim narrow bunk room. But one by one the other five fellows that were there had knelt down, and in a kind of group, with their faces buried in their folded arms. And as the two remained kneeling after their prayers, there came other voices.
“Lord, save me, too. I want my sins forgiven!”
“Lord, I’m afraid to die. Stay with me. Help me!”
“Oh God, I haven’t been very good. I haven’t pleased You, but won’t You forgive me, too?”
“Lord, I’m scared stiff! Get me ready to die, too, please.”
The man called Jim who had said he had no friend in God was the last to kneel down, and when he tried to speak his voice was broken with sobs: “Lord, I’ve been an awful sinner, and I’ve never believed or thought anything about You before, but here I am, and if You can do anything with me, Lord, save me!”
Then David’s clear voice took up the prayer: “Lord, we believe. Help our unbelief and save us in the midst of all this terror. To live, or die, Lord, we commit ourselves to You.”
Then from above them came a signal. It was time to go on duty. They all sprang up, a new look on their solemn faces, almost a smile on the face of the lad Phil as he brushed away a tear and gripped David’s hand, saying fervently, “Thank you!” and dashed away to take his place in the line of duty.
And the others, with frank tears still on their faces, came by David Kenyon and gripped his hand. “Thanks, Dave,” said one, “I’m all right now.” And they all felt, as they moved out to meet what the night had in store for them, that there was a bond between them that nothing would ever break, in time or in eternity.
And suddenly a great joy came to David, such as he had not dreamed there could be on a night of peril like this one. He felt as if the blessing of the Lord had been bestowed upon him. For there had never been a joy like this one, to know the wonder of leading those needy souls to know Him, to know what it was to have the Lord with them. They joy that came to his own soul to have all fear of death removed, and then to know that, living or dying, all was well with those other fellows, too. Was that what was meant by “the joy of the LORD” in the Bible? Was it that He allowed His children to share in His own joy in saved souls who had accepted His wonderful salvation? His heart thrilled and thrilled again as he made his way out to the place where duty called him, praying as he went, Oh Lord, help me to give the right orders at the right time. Show me how to do my whole duty tonight. And please order the outcome according to Your will.