By the Editor

“Peace, perfect peace, death shadowing us and ours?
Jesus has vanquished death and all its powers.”
So wrote the saintly Bickersteth, Bishop of Exeter, in that hymn which has comforted thousands of sorrowing, harassed hearts. Its sweet solace seems to hush the soul, and lift the weary head bent down with care, until through the mist of human tears we see the face of Jesus.
“Peace, perfect peace, with sorrows surging round?
On Jesu’s bosom naught but calm is found.”
The writer has passed into his rest, and is now with Christ. We are left to face the sorrows of these awful days, but with “death shadowing us and ours,” and “sorrows surging round,” may we be kept “in perfect peace,” with our minds stayed upon God.
Had the Bishop been living today the shadow would have fallen upon him, as the following touching incident will tell. I give it as sent me by the writer: —
“He being dead, yet speaketh” (Heb. 11)
I asked my dear friend, Miss Bickersteth, daughter of Bishop Bickersteth, late Bishop of Exeter, if I might publish in “A Message from God” part of a beautiful letter that his grandson, the late Lieut. Lionel Bickersteth Rundall, wrote to his mother a few days before he and his brother, Captain Rundall, were killed in battle last December. His regiment was the 1st Battalion 1st Goorkha Rifles, King George’s Own. I think the words of one, who so willingly gave his life for his King and his country, will come home with power to any soldier or sailor, or indeed any one, who reads his fearless words.
He wrote: “None can die before or after God wishes him to, and all the shots and shells in the world will not account for him till that time comes. It simply means this: I trust that the life which ceases on earth will be more useful elsewhere, and if one has trusted one’s poor existence to CHRIST till now, why not ALL THE MORE so at the present time? I am confident, mother, that not all the enemies in creation can finish one till the time comes when one is needed elsewhere for higher work.”
Miss Bickersteth writes: “God knows that in all the storm and tempest He still says to us, ‘Peace, it Isaiah 1’ By all means use my sweet boy’s message, as I should love to feel it helped others.”
“HE BEING DEAD, YET SPEAKETH.” Dear reader, see to it that you have, as this young officer did, yielded yourself to the Lord Jesus Christ before you are called to the Front or to a dying bed. Make sure that you are His now.
Emily P. Leakey