^ I once heard of a young father who fought a battle with fate on this wise. He was smitten with a deadly disease; he knew it, and was told that his only chance of life was that he should suffer some one to minister to him, and for the rest of his days — short days, too — he should take things quietly and rest and wait for death. " Let others suffer, and let otliers strive ; be still," said the doctor, " that is your only chance of life." But he had two little babes, so he took another course. He might have turned bitter, and cursed and railed against fate, and, with it, God. Or he might have pitied himself and taken the easier course, and called upon others to provide for these his loved ones. But he did not; he went out as if nothing had happened, back to
^ Danske Carolina Dandridge. ' 0. Jerdan,
4o6 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
his work with double intensity. He could not leave his children to the mercy of the world. It is not that the world is so very unkind, but it forgets. He determined they should have their chance when he himself was gone. He uttered no complaint ; he never presented to them any story of his own heroism. He just went on with brave heart and cheerful face. For years that man sang the death-song of Christ, and no martyr going to the stake ever sang it better.^
^ There are many different ways in which brave men go forth to meet suffering and death. Some face the last enemy with defiant front, some with reckless abandonment, some with absolute gaiety. The Christian, no less brave than the bravest of all, meets it in a way entirely his own — with a sacred song upon his lips. That was how Margaret Wilson met it at the water of Blednoch in the days of the Covenant. Hoping that the sight of her comrade's last agony would dismay her into submission, they bound the older woman to the stake farthest out in the stream, and when the drowning waves of the incoming tide were doing their pitiless work, they asked the girl what she thought of her companion now. But in that awful hour of trial she neither faltered nor failed. Opening her New Testament, she read aloud the eighth chapter of the Epistle to the Eomans — the great chapter which tells how the condemnation of sin is cancelled by the Saviour ; and how the spirit of adoption delivers from bondage and fear ; and how nothing, neither death nor life, can separate from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. The chapter finished, she sang her farewell psalm —
My sins and faults of youth
Do thou, 0 Lord, forget; After thy mercy think on me,
And for thy goodness great.
And so singing she went forth to be done to death by cruel and wicked hands. Was she not treading the ancient track which the Lord had trod before her ; and in the same spirit and style too? 2
^ When Bishop Hannington was taken prisoner by Mwangu, he says : " Suddenly about twenty ruffians fell on us, and threw me to the ground. Feeling that I was being dragged away to be murdered at a distance, I sang, ' Safe in the arms of Jesus,' and then laughed at the very agony of the situation." At the same time three native Christian lads were taken prisoners. They were tortured ; their arms were cut off, and they were bound alive
* R. J. Campbell. ' A. Suiellie, Men of the Covenant, 345.
ST. MARK 407
to the scaffolding, under which a fire was made, and so they were slowly burned to death. Their enemies stood around jeering, and told them now to pray to Jesus, if they thought that He could do anything to help them. The spirit of the martyr at once entered into these lads, and together they raised their voices and praised Jesus in the fire, singing till their shrivelled tongues refused to form the sound, Killa siku tunsifu — a hymn translated into the musical language of Uganda. These were the words they sang —
Daily, daily, sing to Jesus,
Sing, my soul, His praises due; All He does deserves our praises,
And our deep devotion too : For in deep humiliation,
He for us did live below; Died on Calvary's Cross of torture,
Kose to save our souls from woe!^
' Hymns and their Stories, 188.
The Prayer in Gethsemane.
Literature.
jBaxry (A.), First Words in Australia, 93. •Burrell (D. J,), Christ and Progress, 200.
Cameron (A. B.), From the Garden to the Gross, 43.
Dawson (W. J.), The Evangelistic Note, 171.
Hall (N.), Gethsemane, 58.
Hull (E. L.), Sermons preached at King's Lynn, iii. 58.
Lewis (A.), Sermons preached in England, 61.
Maclaren (A.), Expositions of Holy Scripture, Matt, xviii.-xxviii., 261.
Murray (A.), With Christ in the School of Prayer, 222. ^Robertson (F. W.), Sermons, iv. 23.
pewter (G. A.), Trial and Triumph, 175.
'Spurgeon (G. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xlvii. No. 2715. 'Westcott (B, F.), Village Sermons, 120.
Christian World Pulpit, i. 344 (Stanley).
Expository Times, xx. 356.
4x0
The Prayer in Gethsemane.
And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee ; remove this cup from me : howbeit not what I will, but what thou wilt. — xiv. 36.