A World Want of Testaments

During the last few days we have sent parcels abroad to Panama, South India, Arabia, Tunis, Demerara, Hong Kong, Cuba, France, Germany, etc., etc. We ask your prayers that we may be able to maintain this important sowing of the good seed.
HOW A SERGEANT-MAJOR DIED
Granville Barker tells us this:— “Sergeant-Major T—was sitting on the wall for observation when he was shot straight through the head. For a few minutes he had consciousness and sang a hymn. But he died almost directly after.”
THE HEAVY GUN (LANGE MAX) AT LEUGENBAUM
At the end of August of last year my wife and I drove from Bruges to Ypres. We saw the vast devastation that had been wrought there, and places where our troops and the Canadians fought so bravely. On our way back we came to a small village called Couckelaere. Here we left our carriage and walked about two miles through lanes and fields, in beautiful quiet pastoral scenery, until we came to a very lovely spot called Leugenbaum. Here, right in the heart of the countryside, we reached a place surrounded with barbed wire, and with sentries on guard. They undid the wire for us to enter, and then, after a short distance, we came face to face with the great 17in. gun erected in this charming spot to bombard Dunkirk. Out of the muzzle of this terrible cannon shells weighing three-quarters of a ton each, were fired, and they carried their fearful missiles between twenty-five and thirty miles, bringing destruction to Dunkirk twenty-five miles off. How this enormous engine of destruction could have been brought to this secluded place and be hidden as it was, showed the awful ingenuity of man when bent on destruction.
Amid the quiet fields, with cattle grazing, and cottage dwellings with flowers embowered, this monster every now and again vomited to the skies its burden of death, which fell, after its journey of twenty-five miles, upon a flourishing city, killing men and women and destroying their homes. We were glad to know that this haunting horror was silenced now.
This reminds me of some words of the apostle Paul when speaking of the condition of a sinner. He speaks of destruction and misery being in the sinner’s way, “the destruction that wasteth at noonday.” The result of the bombardment of a sinner by the terrible artillery of hell. The daily destruction of the sinner’s life goes on; the mental and physical deterioration caused by natural and Satanic influence swaying the life. Millions are perishing in the ways of death; stern laws can scarcely restrain the unhallowed impulses of sinners devil-driven.
Ah, sinner, think of it. The heavens are bending over you as if to woo you to your God. The flowers bloom fair upon a thousand fields. The birds sing out the happiness of rejoicing hours, and forests wave their leafy banners to catch the winds of God. The cattle on a thousand hills are His, but you are the devil’s plaything. You are in the track of the devil’s destroying power. And yet God is calling; Christ is waiting to save you. He has destroyed him who had the power of death, even the devil. If you trust in Christ’s salvation you need not fear the wrath of Satan one moment, any more than the French or Belgians fear the power of the huge gun at Leugenbaum now, conquered and helpless. Satan is conquered and helpless, as far as the believer in Christ is concerned. So let the misery of your sinful days be over; rejoice in the liberty wherewith Christ has made you free.