I am old now, and the end draws near. For half a century I have loved and served Him. I have known trials and sorrows not a few, but His presence has upheld me. The promise he gave his disciples the night before his death has been my mainstay: "Lo, I am with you alway!" In the faith of that promise I have seen men and women die with the light of heaven on their faces, heroic amid the flames, triumphant before the lion's eyes. I have heard them once and again protesting with their last breath, "Christianus sum! I am a Christian!"
I, too, am a Christian, and humbly proud of it. The cross in my time has been transformed from an emblem of shame into a symbol of triumph. And the Christ who suffered upon it has been made unto me wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. He is my first, my last, my midst and all in all. I have learned somewhat of the meaning of his life and death and glorious resurrection. Many wonderful hopes have I; but the best is this, that I—the soldier who had charge of his crucifixion—may yet behold his face in peace; that I, who bowed that night with broken heart beneath his cross, may some day look upon the King in his beauty and fall before him, crying, "My Lord and my God!"