IT is with no ordinary measure of sadness that we contemplate the close of one year and the beginning of another under the present circumstances of the nation and the world. The terrible War has now well entered upon the fourth year of its existence, and there is no immediate sign of its termination. The conflict appears to rage as fiercely as ever, with great losses on every side. Truly it is a time of common tribulation such as the world has hitherto never seen. May God, in His infinite mercy, overrule the tremendous ordeal for good to many, and may He hasten its end with all speed, if that be His holy and gracious will! Our thoughts at present chiefly go out to those at home who are more immediately touched by the War, and to those at a distance who are actively engaged in it—our soldiers and sailors.
I.—Let us address a few words of sympathy and goodwill to friends at home. Among these, the bereaved are the first to be remembered. We desire to express to them at this season our deepest and tenderest sympathy in their great losses which, in a sense, can never be repaired. How many at the present moment are called to look back upon choice and dutiful husbands, sons, and brothers, who have been left from them by the painful exigencies of War! We feel unable to write adequate words of counsel and comfort to such persons, wounded in spirit and grieved in mind. The best we can do is to commend them to the Physician that is in Gilead and to the balm that is there. The Lord Jesus Christ has been appointed by the Father as the all-sufficient healer and consoler, who is able to bind up the broken-hearted. Those who are taught of God know this in their own experience, and when they are called to pass through fiery trials, they are moved to seek His face more and more, and to draw by faith out of His fulness deeper draughts than ever of divine consolation. “I am the Lord (He says), who healeth thee.” It is our earnest desire that they may richly know Him as such in their present distress. It would also be a great mercy if others who are bereaved would be led by their sore trials to “seek the Lord while he is to be found, and to call upon him while he is near.” These trials have a voice to all. They speak to us concerning our sins; they tell us that there are deadly evils in us and about us that require to be removed; and, along with the teaching of the Gospel, they point us to Christ as the only Saviour who can save us from sin and hell, and meet our every need. “The Son of man is come to save that which was lost.” It pleased the Father that in Him all fulness should dwell.
We also desire to express our deep sympathy with the anxious-minded, with those who are concerned day and night about their dear friends who are away in Army or Navy. Some of these anxious ones have had bereavements already, and this makes their anxiety all the more intense in relation to surviving relatives still spared but exposed to danger. May God, in the riches of His grace, sustain the minds of all who are burdened, and enable them to come to a throne of grace with their every concern! He sits upon the floods, and reigns King for ever. All creatures and things are in His hands, and nothing can happen without His permission, while it is also true that He is able to interpose and deliver in the direst extremities, when all human effort is unavailing. The chief thing, however, we should be anxious about is our own spiritual salvation, and that of our friends at the War. Many are concerned about the temporal comfort of the soldiers and sailors—and we do not undervalue their concern and effort in the slightest degree—but they have no proper anxiety about their own or others’ eternal interests. This is a serious defect. What shall it profit at the end of the day, though the body should be saved for a season, if the soul is at last eternally lost? The thing of infinite moment is the soul’s everlasting salvation. If that is secured by union to Christ, all is well, come life or death; but alas! if it be otherwise. May the Lord bless these present anxieties to many who have been hitherto indifferent—leading them to pray in real earnest and to “flee from the wrath to come” unto the Lord Jesus Christ, the one city of refuge, brought near in the Gospel! May much prayer ascend that will be heard and answered, to the praise of God’s grace in Jesus Christ!
II.—Our second word is to our soldiers and sailors at home and abroad.
In the first place, we desire to assure them of the warm sympathy and abiding interest of ministers and other friends at home who constantly remember them at a throne of grace, both in their private and public exercises. The boys in the forces are seldom out of their thoughts and supplications, and they often feel that they could stand by their side and fight and suffer with them to the end.
We also wish to express our earnest prayer that the Lord would protect and spare our brave young men scattered as they are in Army and Navy, in positions of varying difficulty and danger. We hope that God will strengthen them in mind and body for their heavy tasks, and carry them honourably and successfully through to the end of the conflict. To those who have the fear of God in their hearts there is a double warfare; they have to fight the world; the flesh and the devil as well as human foes; and we trust that the Lord’s promise will be abundantly fulfilled in their experience, “As thy day, so shall thy strength be.” May He be gracious to all, indeed, who would desire to act in accordance with His Word, and may He enable them to set a good example of Christian and moral behaviour before their comrades.
Let us specially press upon the attention of those who are without a saving interest in Christ the necessity of seeking this all-important blessing without delay. “Behold, now is the accepted time; now is the day of salvation.” We are fully aware that the din and tumult of the field of battle, or the distractions of careless associates, are not the best circumstances in which to begin seeking salvation. But the urgency of the case is a loud call, which should be heard above every other sound that can reach ears or hearts. If the words, “We know not the day nor the hour when the Son of man cometh,” have a message of the most pressing kind for people amidst the quiet of peace, surely they have a very clear, solemn, and urgent message for those who are at the cannon’s mouth. Truly, it is madness for any in such dread circumstances to forget their highest good and eternal happiness. Let them by all means do their duty faithfully and nobly to their earthly king, but let them not forget the King, eternal, immortal, and invisible, in whose hand their breath is, with whom are the issues of life and death, and before whose august tribunal all must soon appear “to receive the things done in the body whether they be good or bad.” What a precious thing it would be if many of our young men, who have been hitherto unconcerned, would be awakened out of their spiritual sleep and death, and brought to the feet of Jesus, there to be made good soldiers of Jesus Christ! This would be the best compensation for all the losses and sufferings of the present awful time, and many might yet praise God even for the War as an instrumental cause towards the highest and everlasting welfare of themselves and others.
We conclude by expressing our best wishes to our soldiers and sailors for the coming year. May the Captain of the Lord’s hosts lead them to victory in the present struggle for His own name’s sake; but, above everything else, may He give them the blessing which maketh eternally rich, and the victory over sin, death, and hell, which is the glorious privilege of all whom He thus blesses in Jesus Christ!
It is good to look to your compass, and all that you have need of, ere you take shipping; for no wind can blow you back again.
—Rutherford.