“Ah!” he said, “that boy got to the bottom of the business. It’s for the race. It’s for the race.”
“Are you a Christian?” I asked.
“No,” he answered; “but I should like to be one. I wasn’t brought up. I grew up, and I grew up my own way, and my own way was the wrong way. I go to church occasionally—if a friend is getting married. I know the story of the Christian faith a little, but it has never really meant anything to me.”
Then he continued slowly, “On the Somme, a few hours before I was badly wounded”—he put his hand in his pocket and drew out a little crucifix—“I picked up that little crucifix and I put it in my pack, and when I got to hospital I found that little crucifix on my table. One of the nurses or the orderlies had put it there, thinking I was a Catholic. But I know I’m not, sir. I am nothing. I have been looking at this little crucifix so often since I was wounded, and I look at it till my eyes fill with tears, because it reminds me of what He did for me—not this little bit of metal, but what it means.”
I said, “Have you ever prayed?”
He replied, “No, sir. I’ve wept over this little crucifix—is that prayer?”
“That’s prayer of the best sort,” I said. “Every tear contained volumes you could not utter, and God read every word. He knows all about it.”
I pulled out a little khaki Testament. “Would you like it?” I said. “Would you read it?”
He answered, “Yes,” and signed the decision in the cover.
When I shook hands with him there was a light in his eyes. Have you ever seen the light break over the cliff-tops of some high mountain peak? Have you ever watched the sun kiss a landscape into beauty? Have you ever seen the earth dance with gladness as the sun bathed it with radiance and warmth? Oh, it’s a great sight; but there’s no sight like seeing the light from Calvary kiss a human face as it fills the heart with the assurance of Divine forgiveness.