For the Faith by Evelyn Everett Green

E >> Evelyn Everett Green >> For the Faith

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17

His gratitude to those who had brought him forth from the prison
and set him in this fair place was expressed again and again. But
once, in answer to something Freda spoke, he said with a wonderful
lighting of the eyes:

"And yet, if you can believe it, we were strangely happy even
there, for the Lord was in the midst of us, as surely as He is here
amid this peace and loveliness. When we are holding Him by the
hand, feeling His presence, seeing His face in the darkness,
believing that it is His will for us to be there, it is strange how
the darkness becomes light, the suffering ceases, the horror all
passes away. I do not mean that the enemy does not intervene--that
he does not come and with his whispers seek to shake our faith, to
cloud our spirits, to shroud us in darkness and obscurity. But
thanks be to God, His Son, having overcome temptation in human
flesh, we in His strength, by Him, and through Him, and in Him,
have power to overcome. Satan came; but he did not stay, for One
that was mightier was with us. Thanks be to God who giveth us the
victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."

That was all he ever spoke of the prison life--no word of its
hardships and sufferings, only of the power of the Lord to take
away the bitterness, and to comfort, cheer, and strengthen. And so
they ceased to think or to speak of it, too. It had not hurt him.
The iron had never entered into his soul. And almost by now he had
forgotten. All was peace and joy and love. And even the knowledge
that his companions had passed away was no trouble to him.

"We shall meet so soon again," he said, and the light deepened in his
eyes. "I am so curious to know how it is with the departed--whether
they lie at rest as in a heaven-sent sleep, while their heart waketh;
or whether the Lord has work for them beyond the grave, into which
they enter at once. I long to know what that blessed state is like,
where we are with Christ, yet not in the glory of the resurrection,
but awaiting that at His good pleasure. Well, soon all this will be
made known to me; and I cannot doubt we shall meet again in joy and
love those with whom we have walked in fellowship upon this earth,
and that we shall in turn await those who follow after into peace,
and so with them look forward to the glorious day when the living
shall be changed and the dead receive their bodies back, glorified
in resurrection life, and so enter all together into the presence of
God, presented as one holy mystical body to Him, the Bride of the Lamb."

There was just one shadow that fell for a moment athwart the
perfect peace and joy of this departure. But it was not one that
could touch his spirit for more than a moment.

As he felt life slipping fast away, and knew that very soon he must
say farewell to earth and its sorrows and joys, he called Arthur to
his side and asked:

"Will they admit me to the rite of the Holy Communion before I
die?"

It was a question which Arthur had foreseen, and he had himself
taken a special journey to Oxford to see the dean upon that very
point.

But Clarke still lay beneath the ban of excommunication. He was
still regarded as a heretic; and although, after all he had passed
through, much sympathy was expressed for him, and any further
cruelty was strongly deprecated, yet the law of the church forbade
that the holy thing should be touched by unhallowed hands, or pass
unhallowed lips.

So now he looked compassionately into Clarke's face and said:

"I fear me they will not do so. I have done what I can; but they
will not listen. None may dare to bring it to you until the ban of
the church be taken off."

Clarke looked into his face at first with a pained expression, but
gradually a great light kindled in his eyes. He half rose from the
couch on which he was lying, and he stretched forth his hands as
though he were receiving something into them. Then looking upwards,
he spoke--spoke with a greater strength than he had done for many
days--and a vivid smile illuminated his face. They were all
standing about him, for they knew the end was near, and they all
saw and heard.

"Crede et manducasti," he said; and then, with a yet more vivid
illumination of his features, he added in a whisper, "My Lord and
my God!"

Then he fell back, and with that smile of triumph upon his face,
passed away.

Over his remains, which were permitted to lie in consecrated
ground, they set up a white cross; and beneath his name were the
words:

"Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of
life."

Notes

[i] "Believe, and thou hast eaten." Words often used by the early
"heretics," who were debarred from partaking of the feast of Holy
Communion.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17