"Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous but grievous: nevertheless, afterward, it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby." —HEBREWS xii:11.
"Six months passed within the danger zone, produces a subtle but marked change. Bright lads become men, who bear all the marks of having passed through a solemn purification by fire. And the subtle influence, as thus depicted, is communicated to us.... To say that the horrors of war have subdued and overawed them is but part of the explanation. It seems nearer to the truth to add, that these harrowing experiences, whatever they may have been, have only helped to make our young men susceptible to spiritual influences of the highest quality. In fine, they have been following in the footsteps of Him who is The Great Sacrifice, and even amid the bursting shells have caught a glimpse of wounds that transform and consecrate their own."
—The Great Sacrifices, JOHN ADAMS.
My heart grew bitter in me when the news came of Harry's operation. I had been half relieved when I heard that he was wounded, and that the wound was not dangerous. For the grim alternative was seldom out of my thoughts, and at least his dear life was safe. Now I was crushed by the brave, pathetic letter in which he told me that his right leg had been amputated, and that he was lucky to get off so easily. That made me rebellious and very, very bitter. And it was against God that I felt worst—God who had allowed this unthinkable thing to be.
Harry a cripple! Harry of all people! I could not imagine it, nor accept it, nor even face the truth of it. And away at the bottom of my heart lurked the thought that it had been better for himself that he had died in the strength and beauty of his manhood. Why should his spirit be doomed to live on in a ruined home?
Harry is my only brother, and he has been my hero always. Manliness, strength, courage, unselfishness—I know what these things mean; they mean Harry. And of course I was proud when he got his double blue at Cambridge. Cricket and football were more than pastimes to him. He put his heart and soul into them, and when he made 106 not out against Oxford he was as happy as if he had found a new continent. And now the great athlete, the pride of his College, the big clean-limbed giant was a cripple. I could not weep for it, because I could not believe it. I took the thought and flung it from me. And then I picked it up again, and gazed at it with hard, unseeing eyes. It was at that time I stopped praying. What was prayer but a mockery, if Harry was maimed?
Harry was at Cairo, and I could not go to him. And though that made me feel helpless, and almost mad with inaction, yet in my heart I dreaded meeting him, seeing him, taking in the bitterness of it through the eyes. I was a coward, you see, and my love for him a poor thing at the best. But there are some who will understand how I felt, and will forgive me.
His letters were all right, not a word of complaint, for Harry never grumbled, and many a good story of the hospital and its patients and its staff. But there was something else, a kind of gentle seriousness as if life were different now. And I read my own misery into that, and pictured him a man devoured by a secret despair, while he smiled his brave undefeated smile in the face of all the world.
The weeks passed, and I braced myself for the coming ordeal. Then everything came with a rush at the last, and there I was at the docks giving my brave soldier his welcome home. It was not any easier than I expected. I tried my hardest, as you may guess, to be all joy and brightness, but when we were alone in the motor together my eyes were full of tears, and I broke down utterly. Poor Harry, poor Harry, why are physical calamities so awful and so irrevocable?
He let me cry, and then he said suddenly, "Come, Mary, look at the real 'me,' don't bother about that old leg, but look into my face, and tell me what you see. There is something good for you to see if you will look for it."
He said it so strangely that I was myself in a moment, and doing what he told me just as in the good old days before the war. And then I saw that Harry was a new Harry altogether, and that he was radiantly happy. His face was pale and thin, but his eyes were ablaze with something mysterious and wonderful. "Don't ask me anything now," he said; "wait till we are in my old den, and then I will tell you everything." And by this time I was so comforted that I was content to lie back and watch that dear, happy face of his.
I shall never forget the talk we had afterwards. "Mary," he said, in his straight, direct way, "I've come back a better man. I have been all my life a healthy, happy pagan. We were brought up, you and I, on the theory of a healthy mind in a healthy body, and, of course, it's a good theory so far as it goes. But it did for me what it does for many a fellow. It made me forget my soul. Sport did a lot for me, I know, but sport became my world. The life I lived there was wholesome enough, but at the best what a poor, contracted, limited thing is the body, and its joy. And what a big, splendid world I've found the door to now."
"How did it come about, Harry?" I said, and the frost and the bitterness and the anger against God were all gone out of my heart and voice.
"Well, I don't quite know. That's the queer thing about it. I don't deny I was a bit savage at first at what had happened. And I often wished I were dead, for I saw my old self wasn't much good for this new life I was up against. Then one Sunday the padre, who was a very decent sort, gave us a straight talk that opened my eyes a bit. He was speaking about Paul and the difference Christ made in his life. Paul was a splendid fellow, and as good as good could be, and just like many a man to-day who seems all right without Christ. But what a difference Christ made in him for all that! And how He made the old Saul of Tarsus seem a poor thing in comparison with Paul the apostle! There was something, too, about Paul's thorn in the flesh, but I forget that bit. Anyhow I did some furious thinking that Sunday in Cairo, though I saw nothing clearly, and didn't lay much store by my own future.
"That night the strange thing happened. I woke up in the early hours when no one was astir, and I saw a man come in by the door and walk down the ward. He gave a sort of understanding, tender look at every face as he passed, and when he saw that I was awake he came close beside me and held my hand for a moment. Then he said, 'Will you let me help you with this burden of yours?' I thought at first it was the new doctor we were expecting. Then I knew quite suddenly that it was The Comrade in White, and that He wanted me very much to say 'Yes.' And as I said it I felt the first real happiness that I had known since I was wounded. And then He smiled and went away.
"I told myself next day that it was a dream, and perhaps it was, but that strange, odd happiness has never left me since. I wouldn't be back again in the old way, not for all the world could give me, not even to have my leg restored."
"And is He really helping you with your burden?" I whispered.
"Why, Mary child, can't you see," he exclaimed, with his merry laugh; man before. He has made me whole."
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