18 Sermon Illustrations on Suffering For Christ

Misjudged by a fellow missionary, David Livingstone gave up his house and garden at Mabotsa, with all the toil and money they had cost him, rather than have any scandal before the heathen. He began in a new place the laborious building of a house and school, and gathered the people around him. His colleague was so struck with his generosity that he said if he had known his intention, he never would have spoken a word against him. Parting with his garden cost Livingstone a great pang. "I like a garden," he wrote, "but Paradise will make amends for all our privations here." Paul says, "I endure all things for the elect's sakes, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus" (2 Timothy 2:10).

"It was a fashion, in the primitive persecutions, to invest Christians with bears' skins, and then to bait them as bears; and it is a usual practice of Satan and his instruments, first to blast the reputation of religious persons, and then to persecute them as offenders." It is written of the worthies of old that

"they had trial of cruel mockings." Tertullian says that in the primitive times the saints were called herds of asses, vile fellows, the disciples of a man crucified, Galileans, Nazarites, eaters of men's flesh, and drinkers of men's blood. The heathen painted the God of the Christians with the head of an ass, and with a book in his hand, to signify that, though Christians pretended to knowledge, they were a company of fools. The like custom remains still. Good men are first slandered and then censured. They lay to our charge deeds which we never dreamed of, and then they pile on the adjectives of denunciation, and condemn us without mercy. Thanks be to God, a saint in a bear's skin is none the less a saint: the Lord knows the wolf in the sheep's skin, and the sheep in the bear's skin: he is not deceived by falsehood so as to judge his children unjustly. Not even for the present are the reputations of the godly injured in the sight of God, and as for the future, they shall suffer no tarnishing. Soon there shall be a resurrection of good names as well as of bodies: the Lord shall restore the honour and renown of each slandered believer. Meanwhile, let us not be so easily led into harsh judgments as we have been. Let us refuse to regard our own brethren as wild beasts because wicked men thrust the bear's skin upon them. From us, at least, let them receive tokens of the charity which thinketh no evil. Persistently let each follower of the Lord Jesus say of reproach cast upon a brother, "I will not believe it." A believer in Christ should be an unbeliever in the world's many lies: this rule would rob slander of half its power. By holy confidence in our fellow-Christians we should snap the bowstring of malice, and burn its arrows in the fire. As for ourselves, we are not made of such pliant stuff that we would alter our course to escape the calumny of men. We will not move a hair's-breadth because of "'the dread of tyrant custom, and the fear Lest fops should censure us, and fools should sneer."

Mr. James Jones of Amoy, an eye-witness, says, "The cross was of the Latin form, the foot being inserted in a stout plank; and the criminal, standing on a board, had nails driven through his feet, his hands stretched and nailed to the cross-beam. His legs were fastened to the cross with an iron chain, and his arms bound with cords; and on the cord round his waist was inserted a piece of wood, on which was written his name and offence. A similar piece on his right arm contained his sentence; namely, to remain on the cross day and night until he died: another on his left arm had the name of the judge, with his titles and offices. The criminal was nailed to the cross inside the yamun, in the presence of the magistrate, and then carried by four coolies to one of the principal thoroughfares leading from the city, where he was left during the day, but removed at night inside the prison for fear of his friends attempting to rescue him, and again carried forth at daylight in charge of two soldiers. He was crucified at noon on Wednesday, and at five in the evening complained of pain in the chest, and thirst. On Thursday he slept for some hours, when the cross was laid down within the jail enclosure. No one was allowed to supply him with food or drink; and, during the day, there was quite a fair in front of the cross, people being attracted from a distance, and the sweetmeat venders driving a large trade. On Saturday he was still alive, when the taotal was appealed to by a foreigner to put an end to the wretch's sufferings; and he immediately gave orders that vinegar should be administered, which he expected would produce immediate death: but the result was otherwise; and at sunset, when the cross was taken within the jail, two soldiers, with stout bamboos, broke both his legs, and then strangled him."

Santa Fina is scarcely known beyond the walls of the little town of San Gemignano. She was not properly a martyr, not having died a violent death; but long and cruel sufferings from disease, endured not only with patience, but cheerfulness, during which she worked with her hands as long as it was possible, and ministered to the poor, procured her the honor of canonization. The people regarded her, while living, with enthusiastic veneration; and it is related, that, at the moment of her death, all the bells in San Gemignano tolled spontaneously, untouched by human hands. Mrs. Jameson.

A soldier who had lost his right arm from the shoulder said to an agent of the Christian Commission, "It seems to me I can't be grateful enough for losing my arm. It made me thoughtful, and opened the way for your delegates to visit me, and ended in my finding Christ. 'It is better.' I think, 'to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than, having two hands or two feet, to be cast into everlasting fire.'"

During the battle of Gettysburg, Chaplain Eastman was so badly injured by a fall of his horse as to be compelled to lie down on the field for the night. As he lay in the darkness, he heard, a voice say, "O my God!" and thought, "How can I get at him?" Unable to walk, he started to roll to the sufferer, and rolled through blood, among the dead bodies, till he came to the dying man, to whom he preached Christ. This service done, he was sent for to attend a dying officer, to whom he had to be carried by two soldiers. Thus he passed the long night; the soldiers carrying him from one dying man to another to whom he preached Christ, and with whom he prayed, while he was compelled to lie upon his back beside them.

M. Delleglaie being ordered from a dungeon at Lyons, to the Conciergerie, departed thither. His daughter, who had not quitted him, asked to be admitted into the same vehicle, but was refused. The heart, however, knows no obstacles; though she was of a very delicate constitution, she performed the journey on foot; and followed for more than a hundred leagues the carriage in which her father was drawn, and only left it to go into some town and prepare his food; and in the evening, to procure some covering to facilitate his repose in the different dungeons which received him. She ceased not for a moment to accompany him, and watch over his wants, till the Conciergerie separated them. Accustomed to encounter jailers, she did not despair of disarming oppressors. During three months, she every morning implored the most influential members of the committee of public safety, and finished, by overcoming their refusals. She reconducted her father to Lyons, happy in having rescued him. She fell ill on the road, overcome by the excess of fatigue she had undergone, and, while she had preserved her beloved parent's life, she lost her own.

John Lambert suffered in the year 1538. No man was used at the stake with more cruelty than this holy martyr. They burned him with a slow fire by inches. But God was with him in the midst of the flame, and supported him in all the anguish of nature. Just before he expired, he lifted up such hands as he had, all flaming with fire, and cried out to the people with his dying voice, with these glorious words, "None but Christ! None but Christ!" He was at last bent down into the fire and expired.

### 219. Love to Christ, Assurance of.

In the year 1754, a dreadful war broke out in Canada, between the French and the English. The Indians took part with the French, and made excursions as far as Pennsylvania, where they plundered and burned all the houses they came to, and murdered the people. In 1755, they reached the dwelling of a poor family from Wirtemberg, while the wife and one of the sons were gone to a mill, four miles distant, to get some corn ground. The husband, the eldest son, and two little girls, named Barbara and Regina, were at home. The father and his son were instantly killed by the savages, but they carried the two little girls away into captivity, with a great many other children, who were taken in the same manner. They were led many miles through woods and thorny bushes, that nobody might follow them. In this condition they were brought to the habitations of the Indians, who divided among themselves all the children whom they had taken captive.

Barbara was at this time ten years old, and Regina nine. It was never known what became of Barbara; but Regina, with a little girl of two years old, whom she had never seen before, were given to an old widow, who was to them very cruel. In this melancholy state of slavery these children remained nine long years, till Regina reached the age of nineteen, and her little companion was eleven years old. While captives, their hearts seemed to have been drawn towards what was good. Regina continually repeated the verses from the Bible, and the hymns which she had learnt when at home, and she taught them to the little girl. They often used to cheer each other with one hymn from the hymn book used at Halle, in Germany:

"Alone, yet not alone am I, Though in this solitude so drear."

They constantly hoped that the Lord Jesus would, some time, bring them back to their Christian friends.

In 1764, the hope of these children was realized. The merciful providence of God brought the English Colonel Bouquet to the place where they were in captivity. He conquered the Indians, and forced them to ask for peace. The first condition he made was, that they should restore all the prisoners they had taken. Thus the two poor girls were released. More than 400 captives were brought to Colonel Bouquet. It was an affecting sight to see so many young people wretched and distressed. The colonel and his soldiers gave them food and clothes, brought them to the town of Carlisle, and published in the Pennsylvania newspapers, that all parents who had lost their children might come to this place, and in case of their finding them, they should be restored. Poor Regina's sorrowing mother came, among many other bereaved parents, to Carlisle; but, alas! her child had become a stranger to her; Regina had acquired the appearance and manner, as well as the language of the natives. The poor mother went up and down amongst the young persons assembled, but by no efforts could she discover her daughters. She wept in bitter grief and disappointment. Colonel Bouquet said, "Do you recollect nothing by which your children might be discovered?" She answered that she recollected nothing but a hymn, which she used to sing with them, and which was as follows:

"Alone, yet not alone am I, Though in this solitude so drear; I feel my Savior always nigh, He comes the weary hours to cheer. I am with him, and he with me, Even here alone I cannot be."

The colonel desired her to sing this hymn. Scarcely had the mother sung two lines of it, when Regina rushed from the crowd, began to sing it also, and threw herself into her mother's arms. They both wept for joy, and the colonel restored the daughter to her mother. But there were no parents or friends in search of the other little girl; it is supposed they were all murdered; and now the child clung to Regina, and would not let her go; and Regina's mother, though very poor, took her home with her. Regina repeatedly asked after "the book in which God speaks to us." But her mother did not possess a Bible; she had lost every thing when the natives burnt her house.