The War Romance of the Salvation ArmyHill, Grace Livingston
History
The War Romance of the Salvation Army
Hill, Grace Livingston
World War, 1914-1918 -- War work -- Salvation Army
After the torpedoing of the _Aboukir_ two sailors found themselves
clinging to a spar which was not sufficiently buoyant to keep them both
afloat. Harry, a Salvationist, grasped the situation and said to his
mate: “Tom, for me to die will mean to go home to mother. I don’t think
it’s quite the same for you, so you hold to the spar and I will go
down; but promise me if you are picked up you will make my God your God
and my people your people.” Tom was rescued and told to a weeping
audience in a Salvation Army hall the act of self-sacrifice which had
saved his life, and testified to keeping his promise to the boy who had
died for him.
When the _Empress of Ireland_ went down with a hundred and thirty
Salvation Army officers on board, one hundred and nine officers were
drowned, and not one body that was picked up had on a life-belt. The
few survivors told how the Salvationists, finding there were not enough
life- preservers for all, took off their own belts and strapped them
upon even strong men, saying, “I can die better than you can;” and from
the deck of that sinking boat they flung their battle-cry around the
world— _Others!_
_Man!_ Sometimes I think God has given us special eyesight with which
to look upon him, We look through the exterior, look through the shell,
look through the coat, and find the man. We look through the ofttimes
repulsive wrappings, through the dark, objectionable coating collected
upon the downward travel of misspent years, through the artificial
veneer of empty seeming-through to the _man_.
He that was made after God’s image.
He that is greater than firmaments, greater than suns, greater than
worlds.
Man, for whom worlds were created, for whom Heavens were canopied, for
whom suns were set ablaze. He in whose being there gleams that immortal
spark we call the soul. And when this war came, it was natural for us
to look to the man-the man under the shabby clothes, enlisting in the
great armies of freedom; the man going down the street under the spick
and span uniform; the man behind the gun, standing in the jaws of death
hurling back world autocracy; the man, the son of liberty, discharging
his obligations to them that are bound; the man, each one of them,
although so young, who when the fates of the world swung in the
balances proved to be _the man of the hour;_ the man, each one of them,
fighting not only for today but for tomorrow, and deciding the world’s
future; the man who gladly died that freedom might not be dead; the man
dear to a hundred million throbbing hearts; the man God loved so much
that to save him He gave His only Son to the unparalleled sacrifice of
Calvary, with its measureless ocean of torment heaving up against His
Heart in one foaming, wrathful, omnipotent surge.
Wherein is price? What constitutes cost, when the question is _The
Man_?
Preface by the Writer
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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