A GENTLEMAN, while traveling in South America, one day came to a place where there was a newly made grave. Bending over it was a man planting some flowers, and as he set them in the new-turned soil, his tears fell thick and fast. After watching him for a time, the stranger said,
“I suppose you are mourning over the grave of a wife?”
“No,” replied the man, “I have not lost my wife.”
“Perhaps, then,” said the traveler, “it is the tomb of a much-loved child?”
“No,” replied the mourner, “I have not lost either my wife or child.”
“May I ask, then, whose death it is that causes you so much sorrow?”
“Well,” said he, “I shed these tears for one who died for me. I was called to serve as a soldier in the late war, but I had a wife and children who would have been left uncared for if I were killed, so my friend said, ‘I have no wife or children, I will go in your place.’ He went and was wounded in the battle. Hearing that he was lying very ill in the hospital, I came to see him, but was only in time to find him in his grave. He is buried here. He has gone into death for me, and I am now planting these flowers in remembrance of him.”
The man afterwards had a tombstone set up, and upon it was carved this simple sentence,
“HE DIED FOR ME.”
This story attracts our attention, as we think, first, of the noble fellow who could thus die for his friend, and then we turn to him who could weep at the memory of the departed one. We like to hear of such devotion, which is perhaps not often to be met with, but there is one other example of devotion, which we do well to remember, and that is of Jesus the Son of God, who could die for His enemies.
He knew how wicked men had been,
And knew that God must punish sin;
So out of pity Jesus said,
I’ll bear the punishment instead.
Now can we, in simple faith in Him, say, “He is my Saviour. He died for me. He bore that I might never have to bear the punishment due to my sins. O, what love! when we knew Him not, He thought of us, and in due time Christ died for the ungodly. May we accept Him as our substitute, and put our trust in Him.
ML 10/22/1922