SUNDAY READING

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 144776, 4 September 1915, Page 10

SUNDAY READING

Notes of a sermon preached by the REV. A. B, CHAPPELL, M.A., in the Whiteley Memorial Church. KILLED IN ACTION: A PROBLEM ' OF THE AFTER-LIFE. Text; “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?”—Genesis, xviu., 25. The death-roll of these last few days has brought untold sadness into our island home so far removed from the chief scene of the Herculean task of] our Empire. The shadow;,of the wm> cloud has darkened many a door and obscured many a fair outlook. In these dark days are being forged bonds of sympathy, whose links, “heated hot with burning fears, and dipt in baths of hissing tears, and battered with the shocks of doom,” will abide in strength. Swift death has snatched away so many so many of our brave sons and brothers that scarcely one amongst us is outside the great circle of sorrow. ■ Anxious questionings have arisen concerning some thus suddenly swept away, and pointedly it has been asked—“ What have the Churches to say about the chances in the after-life for some amongst them who seemed careless and unprepared ? These brave lads and men have given up their lives for ns; they have made the supreme sacrifice, and in doing so have suffered a shortening of their opportunities for religious and spiritualculture. Have they smaller chance of heaven than the poorspirited stay-at-homes, whose deliberate neglect of high duty has meant the prolonging of their time on earth?" To such inquiry I would answer, as 1 think, in the light of reasonable religion and Scriptural Christianity. The question is one for such rational discussion. It cannot bo. dismissed with either the Mohammedan belief that every warrior slain in a righteous cause wins a certain place in heaven or the shallower sort of evangelicalism that seems to delight in consigning to hell all who fail to make noisy profession of religion. The case of men killed in action on land or sea presents a problem that docs not yield to such rough-and-ready treatment. The problem has

SOME UNIQUE ELEMENTS.

As we take an outlook (ipon death under the normal conditions of peace, wo may confidently say that those who, by trust in God’s message of love through Christ and by repentance, have made their peace with God have nothing to fear in death. It is the portal of a heavenly homo. Others, rejecting Christ after having had adequate opportunity of profiting by His revelation of < God’s love, may well bo fearful. Neither reason nor Scripture can be .used to justify a light estimate of . life's earthly close for them. That close is charged with issues of solemn moment. It is true that Scripture , teaching about the doom of the impenitent is marked by ambiguities and indefiniteness. Neither Old nor New Testament has any original word or phrase that consistently means absolute endlessness; there is nothing that clearly corresponds to our AngloSaxon “everlasting.” It is true also that Eastern imagery abounds in it, such words as ‘‘worm,” “smoke,” “fire,” even “death” itself, being employed in a way that has not justified our habitual Western literalness in interpretation. It is quite true, too, that Scripture is really as silent about ultimate happenings as it is about events prior to the coming into being of our universe. It is a revelation limited in its scope, being bounded “fore and aft” "between its “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” and “Then cometh the end, when He. shall deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father,” Dogmatism about ultimate happenings becomes unreasonable and un-ocriptural in the light of such self-acknowledgment by the Bible. But, while these things are so clearly true that no well-equipped Bible student needs to be told them, death for those who have neglected to use earthly opportunity for making their peace with God is an event of solemn and awful import. But what about those who have not had that adequate opportunity? What, for instance, of the millions, in all parts of our earth, who have died without ever hearing of Christ? What of the myriads who have had but an unintelligent evangel, an inefficient witness, concerning Christ? What of the countless host, even within our Christianised area, who by reason of the pagan conditions of their birth and early life may almost be said to have been “born damned?” What of this great host of human beings WITHOUT ADEQUATE OPPORTUNITY to know God’s forgiveness in Christ? Is no heaven to be theirs? Wo can but say, in the language of the ancient patriarch as he contemplated the threatened cities' of the plain, ‘.‘Shall not the Judge of all the earth'do right?” That is the final word, Our knowledge of "His justice and mercy, gained through Scripture and especially through Christ, reassures us in our reasoned hope for them? He will act in keeping with our best conception of Him, as furnished ’in Christ. So much for a rapid survey of the general question of the import of doath as it bears ufon men’s fate in the afterlife. We come to. the unique case of the men who have been “killed in action.” The'uniqueness in their death does not consist in its suddenness merely : there are many deaths as sudden, even where war plays no part. The DISTINGUISHING FEATURES are three, quite apart from that. First, there is the fact that by their own choice they have exposed themselves to imminent and sudden death: a soldier’s yoCation is not to kill, —he is by no means like the public hangman,—but (as Ruskin clearly defines it) to be killed. Ho voluntarily exposes himself to the peril. Second, in his death there is more or less or real heroism. Third, the soldier makes a vicarious sacrifice of himself: he risks death, and he is more or less heroic in it, for the sake of others. These things are at the heart of the problem. Of course, there are many sincere, earnest Christian men who fall in war; and for them sudden death at the hands of the enemy has no spiritual terrors. But what of the careless and godless? men ask. Do they imperil their chance of heaven by exposure to a death that cuts short their opportunities of religious preparedness ? The “careless and godless?” One should say “the seemingly careless and godless,” for there is

AN UNKNOWN ELEMENT in this problem. We do not know what transpires in the depths of others’ .spirits, and it is in the depths of onr spirits that our relation with God is established. In Christ’s own day He had undeclared disciples. He doubtless has them still. The speech of the soldier is not the best index of his heart. The necessarily grim work of the trenches may call up expressions of a rough character that belonged to a coarse habit of days long since left, or involve expressions that are by no means habitual. “Let the deed speak”; let all the deeds speak. They often reveal unsuspected goodness of heart. In one of our soldier’s letters is this unaffected story: “I saw the poor beggar,” he writes, referring to a German shot down or bayoneted a yard or two away from one of our trenches, “with his face working a-murnmring ‘wasser’ or something like it, just outside where I was sheltering in two feet of water. So 1 just hiked my water-bottle round, crawled out and gave the poor beggar a sip. My God, didn’t the beggars popper me. But I got back safe enough. And he, well, he just looked up and smiled. I think the poor chap thought I was his mother." Surely, despite the easy oath, that was no godless deed. It shows

THE DIRECTION OF THE SQUL, and brings the doer within the scope of the comforting assurance of Christ "Whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only, in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward." There are many such eloquent incidents. Men who have won the Victoria Cross, men who have been mentioned in dispatches, men who have shown heroic love for their comrades and loyal devotion to their officers, men who have sacrificed their lives in endeavours to comfort a dying enemy, —men such as these, a groat host of them, have evidenced their real worth m a way more convincing than speech could have done. Deeds of this order lend weight to Ruskin’s final declaration on war—“l know certainly that the most beautiful characters yet developed among men have been formed in war.” Scores of letters attest —so the Rev. R. Lee Cole, of Carlisle Memorial Church in Belfast, declares —that scarcely a soldier goes into battle without putting up a prayer, and that in nearly every British knapsack and in nearly every khaki hat there is a small portion of Scripture in some form or other. Our Now Zealand chaplains’ testimonies bear out the assertion. “Seemingly godless” is the worst* at all events, that we .can truthfully say about the irroligion of many of our soldiery. We must, I repeat, honestly admit that there are many things in others’ heart experience we do not know. There is a mystic communion to which no other being but ourselves and God can bn admitted. “The wind bloweth where it listeth; thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not toll whence it cometh or whither it goeth: so is every one that is'born of the Spirit.” The dying thief’s receiving of Christ's promise of Paradise encourages cur hope of speedy and effective birth "of the Spirit” for godless men. We may expect such wondrous happenings; for it is unthinkable that the ceaseless and well-nigh universal prayer for these men can he unavailing. But, to press the case of men who are ■killed in action without having so happily made their peace with God, what of them? Are they irrevocably condemned for ever? We can but say “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” and view their case iu tho light of the sense of right He has given us. What jf we had to share the bench with Him, and had to judge these—not with the sentimental feeling that would forgive them all unheard, out with rational trial ? The suggestion is not irreverent, for OUR SENSE OF JUSTICE has its origin in His. Well, wo should not think it just that their chances of heaven should oo made fewer by their sacrifice for others; and we should urge that their sacrifice itself should be taken into acbouut, for it has been Christ-liko in its devotion. They counted not their lives dear unto - them, but laid them down for others. We may be sure that, in His dealing with them, the great Judge will not violate the sense of justice with which Ho has endowed His icreatures.

Do yon recollect Aircheebald MacKittrick, the bibulous postman of lan MacLaren’s Drumtochty, in “The Days of Anld Lang Syne?” Posty was not an orthodox saint. His personal habits were hardly a recommendation for church membership; but one day he plunged into a swollen mountain torrent to rescue a little soven-year-old girl. He rose to the surface, with the child in his grasp, but a huge bloody gash across his forehead. _ When the child had been lifted from his arms, safe, ho fell back exhausted into the water and, whirled down-stream again, was battered to death. “When the new Free Church minister was settled in Drumtochty, Jamie (that was Jamie Soutar) told him the story on the road one day, and put him to the test. ‘What think ye, sir, becam’ o’, Posty on the ither side?’ The minister’s face grow whiter still. ‘Did you over read what shall be done to any man that.hurts one of God’s bairns ?’ ‘Fine,’ answered Jamie with relish': ‘a millstane aboot his neck, an’ intae the depths o’ the sea.’ ‘Then, it seems to mo it must bo well with Posty, who wont into the depths

and brought a bairn up at the cost of his life'; and Carmichael added softly ‘Whose angel doth continually .behold | the face of the Father.’ I Vir haund, I sir,’ said Jamie. Jamie predicted a j theological triumph for Carmichael in the heresy hunt that began at Muir- I town. God’s possible treatment of “Posty” carries us into a realm where our limited knowledge is baffled somewhat. His mind and heart are infinite in wisdom and in love; and we are finite in outlook and compassion. But our highest thought, ns taught by Christ, and our deepest pity, as developed by Christ, are surely some guide. Ijs there, then, any likelihood of a second chance for such men, whose earthly opportunities are cut short through their noble self-sacrifice? No man will lightly dogmatise. Bible in hand, it is no light task to prove that there is such a second chance. But (I speak my own deep and reasoned conviction) equally, Bible in baud, and (better) Bible in head, .and (best of all) Bible in heart, no man can assert that such have hot an added opportunity. The limited scope of the Bible’s revelation of the after-life throws us back upon , i THE NATURE OF GOD

as revealed in Christ. Knowing His infinite love and unequalled justice, we may rest assured that He will “do right.” George MacDonald, in one of his books (“Robert Falconer”) has a pitiful prayer of an old Scotch woman for her prodigal son—“Och hone! ooh .hone!” said grannie from her bed, “I've a sair, sair heft. I’ve a sair hert in my breist, 0 Lord! Thou knowest. My ain Anerew I To think of my baimie that 1 carriet i’ my ain body, that sookit my breists, and leucht i’ my face—to think o’ him turnin’ reprobate! 0 Lord couldna he bo eleckit yet? Is there nae turnin’ o’ Thy decrees? ■ Na, na, that wadna do at a’. Glaidly wad I luik upon’s dcid face gin I cud believe that his sowl wasna aniang the lost. But eh! the torments o’ that place! and the reik that gangs up for ever an’ ever, smorin’ the stars! And my Anerew down i’ the hert o’ it cryin’! And me no able to win till him! 0 Lord! I catuia say Thy will be done. But dinna lay it to my chairge; for gin ye was a mithor yerseP ye widna pit him there! 0 Lord,' I’m very ill-fashioned. 1 beg yer pardon. I’m near oot o’ my min . Forgie me, 0 Lord, for I hardly ken what I’m sayin’. He was my ain babe, my ain Anerew, and ye gae him to me yersel’l” The Almighty Father has at least the 1 , e of a human mother's heart. Christ’s parable of the prodigal son is full of hope. There the son returned, it is true; but he had not actually reached home. The father saw him a groat way off, and had compassion, and ran, and took him to his heart. SupEose he had not come within sight of ome, but, after setting out from the far country, had fallen with hunger and weariness and the Onslaughts of wild beasts, or even more brutal men, —supEose the father had gone out and found im bleeding, bruised, dust-coverod; stricken to death, lying with his hands stretched towards the old home,' — would he regard him still as a prodigal reprobate? So many a man has .done no more—has had opportunity to do no more —than “ask the way to Zion with his face thitherward.” Divine pity will not, surely, leave such upon the road. With calm confidence in God’s wise justice and tender mercy we may think of our respected dead, “killed in action.” And what of ourselves? In this guarded, neaceful land, far from the scene of peril, we have the greatest chances of devoting ourselves to God. In all the wide world there are none so favourably circumstanced as are we. The Saviour waits for us to he His soldiers and servants, and to accept Him as our King? We have an opulence of opportunity. May wo use it gladly, wisely, devoutly.