Through Five Republics on Horseback, Being an Account of Many Wanderings in South AmericaRay, George Whitfield
Religion
Through Five Republics on Horseback, Being an Account of Many Wanderings in South America
Ray, George Whitfield
Ray, George Whitfield, 1868- -- Travel -- South America; South America -- Description and travel
At his urgent request, I promised I would accompany him to the
spot--sanctified by his sorrow and watered by his tears--where he had
laid his dear one. Early the following morning a native servant saddled
two horses, and we rode in silence towards the hallowed ground. In
about thirty minutes we came in view of the quiet tomb. Encircling the
grave he had built a high stone wall. When he silently opened the gate,
I saw that, although all the pasture outside was dry and withered, that
on the mound was beautifully green and fresh. Had he brought water from
his house, for there was none nearer, or was it watered by his tears?
His greatest longing was, as he had explained to me the previous night,
that she should have a Christian burial, and if I would read some
chapter over her grave he would feel more content, he said. As with
bared heads we reverently knelt on the mound, I now complied with his
request. Then, for the first time in the world's history, the trees
that surrounded us listened to the Christian doctrine of a resurrection
from the dead. "It is sown in corruption, it is raised in
incorruption." And the leaves whispered to the mountains beyond, which
gave back the words: "It is sown a natural body, it is raised a
spiritual body."
Never have I seen a man so broken with grief as was that lone Scotsman.
There were no paid mourners or idle sightseers. There was no show of
sorrow while the heart remained indifferent and untouched. It was the
spectacle of a lone man who had buried his all and was left--
"To linger when the sun of life,
The beam that gilds its path, is gone--
To feel the aching bosom's strife,
When Hope is dead and Love lives on."
As we knelt there, I spoke to the man about salvation from sin, and
unfolded God's plan of inheritance and reunions in the future life. The
Lord gave His blessing, and I left him next day rejoicing in the Christ
who said: "I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in Me,
though he were dead, yet shall he live."
As the world moves forward, and man pushes his way into the waste
places of the earth, that lonely grave will be forgotten. Populous
cities will be built; but the doctrine the mountains then heard shall
live when the gloomy youth of Uruguay is forgotten.
THE WORD OF GOD CONTRASTED WITH THAT OF THE R. C. CHURCH.
"Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou
serve."--The Christ.
"Mary must be the first object of our worship, St. Joseph the
second."--Roman Catholic Catechism.
"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or any likeness of
anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or
that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself
to them, nor serve them, for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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