The Odd Man

HE was brought in by the orderlies, and not a man in the barracks from whence he had come was sorry he had “gone sick.” In a few hours there was not a patient in the ward where he was who did not wish he had been taken somewhere else. He was an “odd man,” without any friends outside the barracks; and he never tried to make any inside. No one ever knew him to do a comrade “a good turn,” while it was well known how many bad ones he had done.
In the ward the nurse was prepared to treat him more kindly than the other patients, having been told his character, and with a desire by kindness to make a change for the better, but she soon found her mistake. In oaths and curses he took delight; believed neither in God, man, or devil; knew he was dying, and that no one would be sorry when the end came; and yet he lay in his cot doing his utmost to make all within his reach as miserable as he could. He would watch the chaplains come and go, listen to their talks with a sneer on his face, fling aside the books and papers left on his cot with a contemptuous laugh, and make himself so disagreeable that one and all dreaded coming near him.
But one day, there came a new chaplain to the ward where the odd man lay, slowly dying; a chaplain with a bright, cheery smile and face, one who knew nothing about this patient; who just said a few words as he passed between his cot and the next, the cot of a man who had “gone sick” the day before. The chaplain sat down and began to talk to the man he had come to see; and the patient whom he had not come to see listened to the conversation, trying, out of curiosity, to hear what the new comer had to say. Some words stuck to him: —
“God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son… that the world through Him might be saved” (John 3:16, 17).
These words haunted him, they kept him awake that night, and the next day he was so quiet that the others thought he really was dying. They asked him, “What’s up?” And the odd man looked at them, and asked the new chaplain’s name. “Oh, he’s the one at the Soldiers’ Home down in the town. They always look up their men when they’re gone sick. It doesn’t matter what’s your religion, it’s all the same; if a man comes to the Home he’s looked after.” “Belongs to the Home, does he? the odd man said, then was silent.
Suddenly, in the night, the orderly found him so much worse that he got the surgeon, who thought he could not live till morning. They listened while his words came painfully, and found he wanted to see the chaplain of the Soldiers’ Home. In the dead of night, the chaplain was aroused from his sleep by a loud knocking at his door, and, after hearing the message, was taken to the odd man’s cot. Then the man, who the day before had been thinking, put his thoughts into words. “You said God loved — God sent His Son to die for the world. Does that mean me?” When assured that the words certainly meant him, he said, slowly and distinctly, “I never knew anyone who loved me — my mother I don’t remember — my father died in penal servitude — I have no relatives or friends — I want you to tell me what love means — and why God loves me — I have longings for someone — to show me what love means — I have had a hard life—I have hated and been hated in return—but I have never loved or been loved.”
So there in the hospital ward, in the stillness of the night, with the screen drawn around the cot (for they thought he was dying), the chaplain who belonged to the Soldier’s Home, told the grand old, old story of Jesus and His love, and with such effect that the odd man burst into tears. “God loves me,” he repeated over and over again, “and all my life I have fought against Him; now I am dying — I can do nothing for Him—nothing for Him who loves me — GOD LOVES ME.”
Then he lapsed into unconsciousness. The chaplain, with others, waited to see the end. But the end did not come. After a little the odd man roused himself, and, looking straight at the man who told him of God’s love, he said, “Are you quite sure God loves me?” “Quite,” was the answer. Then the odd man received a new lease of life, and rallied — the crisis had passed. “I’m going to live,” he said. “I’m going to show I love Him — I’m going to do something here — in this hospital — for Him who loves me — GOD LOVES ME―GOD LOVES ME. “When the chaplain left the odd man was still repeating” God loves me.”
Next day the men in the ward noticed a great change in the odd man. As the days passed he grew stronger for a time, and he was on the watch to do little deeds of kindness for the others. He offered to read aloud to the man in the next cot whose eyes were painful. The odd man read well; he had that rare gift of reading as if he felt an interest in what he read. He had learned to read in a reformatory, and his reading delighted his comrades. This was one thing he could do for Him who loved him, and he did it well.
The days came and went, and so did the men in the hospital. The Chaplain from the Home came and went, too; and the odd man was the helper of all, the brightest there. As he grew weaker, so the men’s eyes grew dim with sorrow, for the odd man had become the odd man from quite another standpoint. He was the man everyone loved, and who seemed to love everyone. He told the secret of his changed life and the story of God’s love; some thought if God could save and keep him, He could save and keep them, so they “Believed on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 16:31), and were saved. After a time the end came; the odd man’s voice failed, and he had to stop his readings, and suddenly the surgeon sent for the chaplain, but before he arrived the odd man had gone into the Home from which there is no return. “He just had a smile on his face, and he stretched out his arm, and raised his hand,” said the orderly who was attending him, while the tears glistened in his eyes, “I thought he wanted something, so I went up, and I heard the words, “GOD LOVES ME―GOD LOVES ME.” The chaplain said, “Yes, those were his favorite words. I am not surprised they were his last.” And then he waited; for the orderly, although he had ceased speaking before the chaplain spoke, seemed to have more to say. But he did not say another word; the odd man had been his care, he loved him, he had been led to Jesus through the dead man’s influence, and he could not trust himself to say another word. There was hardly a dry eye in the ward. Somehow this odd man, who was brought in as an unloved being, was loved by all with whom he came in contact, when the messenger of death was sent to bring him home. And the secret of this lay in the fact that this man had been so anxious to show that “we love Him because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19).
There was the usual funeral, and as the strains of the Sicilian Mariner’s Hymn sounded, and the procession passed on its way to the odd man’s last resting place, the eyes of many of the men were filled with tears. The coffin on the gun-carriage bore three wreaths — one from the men in the ward, another from the men in his company, and the third from those whom he had led to God. As they fired over his grave, the echo seemed to repeat the odd man’s favorite words, “GOD LOVES ME―GOD LOVES ME.”
E. C. R. W.