CHRISTIAN MARTYRS
THE SPIRIT OF
MARTYRDOM
We do well to study the
spirit of our brethren who have faced death for Christ, and who therefore are
certain (Rev. 20: 4) of sharing in the burst
of coming Glory. John Willfinger, of
the Christian and Missionary Alliance - tempted by the lure of his father and
mother, brothers and sisters, and the girl he loved and to whom he was engaged
- nevertheless refused to hide, and was shot down in 1944 by the Japanese in
Borneo just before, he wrote this letter.
In
this letter I inform you of my decision, which is the most difficult one of all
my life. Very many people came and asked if they might hide me. But when I prayed and sought the will of the
Lord God,
If I hade,
naturally the saints will be forced to lie and disobey others if they hide
me. In short, I would be forced to drag
them into sin, whereas my intention upon leaving my country and my family was
only to make mankind righteous, and not to bring them into sin even though I
pay for it with my life. Because of
Jesus Christ and His sheep, before I will do anything whatsoever that is not
right, I will surely surrender myself.
May my Saviour be with me as He has promised, Go ye therefore,
and teach all nations, and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the
world. Until now he has been with me, and I know
that He will be with me until the end.
Therefore this is my decision.
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Do
not be afraid of what you are about to suffer.
I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and
you will suffer persecution for ten days.
Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown
of life
He who has an ear,
let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes will not be hurt by the
second death:
(Rev. 2: 10, 11. N.I.V.).
A MARTYRS DEATH
When John Huss, the Bohemian
martyr, was brought out to be burnt, they put on his head a triple crown of
paper, with printed devils on it. On
seeing it, he said, My Lord, Jesus Christ, for my
sake, wore a crown of thorns; why should not I then, for His sake, wear this
light crown, be it ever so ignominious?
Truly I will do it, and that willingly. When it was set upon his head, the bishops said, Now,
we commend thy soul to the
devil. But
I, said Huss, lifting his eyes to heaven, I
do commit my spirit into Thy
hands, O Lord Jesus Christ; to Thee I comment my spirit, which Thou hast
redeemed. When the faggots were
piled to Husss neck, the Duke of
Bavaria was officious enough to desire him to adjure. No, said
Huss, I never preached any doctrine of an evil tendency; and what I taught with my lips I now
seal with my blood.
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You
stubborn people, with uncircumcised
hearts and ears! You are just like
your fathers: you always resist the Holy
Spirit.
While
they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit: (Acts 7: 51, N.I.V.).
Brothers,
I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried.
But he was
a prophet and knew that God had promised him with an oath that he would place
one of his descendants on his throne.
Seeing what was ahead, he spoke of the RESURRECTION of the Christ, that HE [i.e., His soul (verse 27)] was not abandoned to the grave [Gk. in Hades], nor did HIS body [Gk. flesh of Him] undergo decay.
For David
did not
ascend to heaven
: (Acts 2: 29-31. cf. verse
27.).
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A 1945 MARTYR
By JOAN GODDARD.
It was a very
special funeral, Kkosazana, an Indian said. All our European and Bantu missionaries were there. Mhlope had never been ill for a day in all
his forty-three years. He was like a
brother to me: we were ordained to the ministry in the same year: he has spent
all his time preaching Jesus Christ and Him crucified: I, for domestic reasons,
had to turn to secular work and now spend all my spare time telling the same
blessed story. We were all deeply
shocked by his death - he was poisoned.
But,
Dhlamini, I protested, surely poisoning
amongst the Bantu in
Reminiscently he went on There was my friend Umfundisi
Ubani. He was heartbroken about sin
which was spoiling the witness of his church.
M Finally one Sunday he
denounced the sin of adultery of which several members were guilty. Outside the lonely church after the service
one of a group of Zulu men said, Ill get him to-morrow. In two days he was dead.
Mhlope had
just completed a series of revival services in the reserves: he wrote that many
had repented and that God was blessing his work. His black face lost its shadowed seriousness
and became radiant as he said, Now, he is there in
the house not made with hands the subject of his last sermon.
Nkosazana,
he continued, you have said true things to me: once
it was this some Bantu churches are so dead
they might as well be buried; others are glowing with Pentecostal glory, their
pastors are like apostles.
well, we have in some of our churches here
he lifted his finger sternly hypocrites, devils
they are, and it is these, not the heathen, who poison faithful preachers
many preachers are afraid to preach the
gospel, so they compromise
Here his voice drifted into an intense
whisper: But that is no good.
The office walls seemed to
vanish and I saw a company of lowly graves on the side of a lowly hill, wild
banana trees faintly stirred in the breeze, and on one grave, newly made was a
piece of wood
and I saw One like
unto the Son of Man and He wrote on the rugged surface: Mhlope, my
faithful servant, who shrank not from declaring unto you the whole* counsel of God.
The Christian World, Nov. 8, 1945.
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* Paul
replied:
I admit that I worship the God of our fathers, as a follower
of the Way, which they call a sect. I
believe everything that agrees with the Law and that is written in the
Prophets, and I have the same hope in God as these men, that there will be a
resurrection of both the righteous and* the wicked. So I strive always to keep my conscience
clear before God and man: (Acts 24: 10,
14-16, N.I.V.).
[* The disjunction and indicates that the
inspired Apostle Paul believed in a select resurrection of REWARD, at the time of Christs return. Phil.
3: 11; Heb. 11: 35b.]
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This was the farewell hymn
sung at the wedding of Mr. and Mrs. Marcus Whitman before leaving
Yes, my
All thy scenes, I love them
well;
Friends, connections, happy
country,
Can I bid you all
farewell?
Can I leave you
Far in heathen lands to
dwell?
Home, thy joys are passing
lovely,
Joys no stranger heart can
tell;
Happy Home! tis sure I love
thee!
Can I, can I say Farewell?
Can I leave thee
Far in heathen lands to
dwell?
Yes, in deserts let me
labour;
On the mountains let me tell
Hoe He died, the blessed
Saviour,
To redeem a world from hell.
Let me hasten
Far in heathen lands to
dwell.
Later, both were massacred.
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By
faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his
possession, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.
All
these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised;
they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance: (Heb. 11: 11, 13.).
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COURAGE
For sheer exploits of
courage, Christs first disciples were unmatched. Ignatius,
one of the apostolic leaders, was cast to the lions in
He welcomed the lions with a
smile.
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They
which shall be accounted worthy of that to obtain that world [age] and the resurrection
[Gk. ek
out of] from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage:
Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the
children of God, being the children of the resurrection: (Luke 20: 35, 36, A.V.).
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KOREAN MARTYRS
By BRUCE F. HUNT
In the days when the lists
of war dead number in thousands, 300 dead may not sound impressive, but if you
stop to consider that this 300 includes men, women, and children from every
walk of life, who were hand-picked for martyrdom over a period of years, not in
any mass arrest, but one by one, each
for his or her testimony, one cannot but pause to wonder. Each had had plenty of opportunity to deny
his faith to save his life. Thousands of Christians,
including missionaries, claimed that there was no harm in bowing to shrines. The
organized denominations, as such, officially had declared shrine worship to be
consistent with Christian practice.
Thus the 300 martyrs, for the most part, singly took their stand, a
pitiful minority, in widely scattered communities throughout
Recently in
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I
have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance
and have faith in our Lord Jesus.
And now, compelled
by the Spirit, I am going to
Now I know that
none of you among whom I have gone about preaching the KINGDOM will ever see me again.
Therefore, I declareto you today that I am innocent of the blood of all
men. For I have not hesitated to
proclaim to you the WHOLE will of God.
Guard yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you
overseers. Be shepherds of the
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The Harlot seated on Seven
Hills is, at the end, drunken with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus (Rev.
17: 6). It has been estimated that the
Church of Rome has been guilty of the death of more than 50,000,000 believers.
On Oct. 16th, a young soldier of
the Marines, D. Jose Morado, died in Ferrol del Caudillo. On May 12, 1945, this popular and cheerful
young Christian refused to kneel in adoration to the Host, respectfully
alleging that he was an Evangelical Christian.
For this reason he was barbarously beaten by his colonel and trodden
on. The next day he was told to dig a
ditch, and was not allowed to rest for a moment until he began to bleed at the
mouth. He was taken to the hospital of
the military prison and later his wrecked constitution died.
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No less is the signal
fidelity of individual believers. Mr. Tsang An-taing, a prominent
theologian in
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CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST
Oh what happiness is it for
a soul to be subdued and subject! What
great riches is it to be poor! What a
mighty honour to be despised! What a
height it is to be beaten dawn! What a
comfort to be afflicted! What a credit
of knowledge it is to be reputed ignorant!
And, finally, what a happiness of happiness it is to be crucified with
Christ! Let others boast of their
riches, dignities, delights, and honours; but to us there is no higher honour
than to be denied, despised and crucified with Christ. But what a grief is this, that scarce is
there one soul which prizes spiritual pleasures, and is willing to be denied
for Christ, embracing His cross with live.
Many are they who are called to perfection, but few are they who arrive
at it; because they are few who embrace the cross with patience, peace, and
resignation. MICHAEL DE MOLINOS.
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God
takes the most eminent and choicest of His servants for the choicest and most
eminent afflictions. They who have
received most grace from God are able to bear most afflictions from God. Affliction doth not hit the saint by chance
but by direction. God doth not draw his
bow at a venture. Everyone of His arrows
goes on a special errand and touches no breast but his against whom it is sent. It is not only the grace, but the glory
of a believer when he can stand the butt-mark and take affliction quietly.
JOSEPH CARYL.
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WILLIAM TYNDALE
Four centuries have lapsed
since the martyrdom of William Tyndale. Over eighty per cent. of our English versions
of the Bible is the phraseology of Tyndale alone. Just before his death he wrote:- I call God to record that I never altered one syllable of
Gods Word against my conscience, nor would this day, if all that is in the
earth might be given me. He
wrote from abroad to the king of
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BLANDINA
(These lines were written the day before their author died, October 23,
1936, and were found under his pillow after his death. Suffering acute heart-spasms the day before,
he said he had never known greater joy.
Bandina, when tossed and gored by bulls in her martyrdom, asked when the
tortures were to begin.)
Blandina slave and saint
upon the sand
Of the arena all unconscious
lay,
Death-gored; then woke, I do not understand
I thought I was
to have been gored to-day!
O what a heavenly
dream! she
said and died.
And found her martyr crown
already won,
And joy, once dreamt of
here, in heaven begun
For ever in the secret place
to bide.
- J. A. RAMSAY.
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VIVA PERPETUA
The annals of martyrdom embody not a few sad and
touching incidents. Some, from peculiarity
of circumstances, cannot easily be forgotten, as affording illustrations of the
support accorded under sufferings most trying to flesh and blood. An instance of this kind is found in the case
of Perpetua and Felicitas, two African females, who are believed to have suffered
during the first year of the reign of Geta, the son of Severus. There does not appear to have been any
general persecution of the Christians at the period in question; but their
lives seem ever and anon to have been in jeopardy, from the caprice of an
arbitrary proconsul. During times of
general rejoicing, their reluctance to mingle in the popular festivities, and
their keeping aloof from the public sacrifices offered on such occasions, drew
upon them the stigma of disloyalty; their absence suggesting that there was a
portion of the community who disapproved of such empty unprofitable rites, and
who refrained from entertainments in harmony with the generally debased tone of
morals, and involving the wanton destruction or hazard of human or animal life.
Almost at the beginning of the second century, four
youthful catechumens, Revocatus and Felicitas, Saturninus and Secundulus,
were apprehended, and along with them Vivia
Perpetna, a married female of good family and liberal education. She was only about twenty-two years of age;
her father and mother were alive; she had two brothers, one, like herself, a
catechumen, and she suckled an infant at her breast. After her apprehension, her father, in the
tenderness of his affection, made use of various arguments and many pleas, that
she might be persuaded to retract. My father, she answered, this vessel, be it a pitcher or
anything else, can we call it by any other name? Certainly not,
he answered. Nor
can I call myself by any other name than a Christian. He left her, enraged at what he considered
his daughters obstinacy. The narrative
of Perpetuas experience at this time contains the following passage:‑ After being a few days without seeing my father, I was
enabled to give thanks to God, and his absence was tempered to my spirit. After a few days we were baptized, and the
waters of baptism seemed to give power of endurance to my body. Again a few days, and we were cast into
prison. I was terrified, for I had never
before seen such total darkness. 0
miserable day! from the dreadful heat of the prisoners crowded together, and
the insults of the soldiers. But I was
wrung with solicitude for my infant. Two
of our deacons, however, by the payment of money, obtained our removal for some
hours of the day to a more open part of the prison. Each of the captives then pursued his usual
occupation; but I sate and suckled my infant, who was pining away with hunger. In my anxiety, I addressed and consoled my
mother, and commended my child to my brother; but I began to pine away at
seeing them pine away on my account. For
many days I suffered this anxiety, and accustomed my child to remain in the
prison with me: recovering my strength, I was relieved from my care and anxiety
about my infant, and the prison became to me like a palace; so that I was
happier there than I could have been anywhere else.
Perpetua had at this time a peculiar vision, of
which the following is a description:‑ She saw
a lofty ladder of gold ascending to heaven; around it were swords, lances,
hooks, and a great dragon lay at the foot, to seize those who would
ascend. Saturus, a distinguished
Christian, went up first, beckoned her to follow, and controlled the dragon by
the name of Jesus Christ. Ascending, she
found herself in a spacious garden, in which sate a man with white hair, in the
garb of a shepherd, milking his sheep, with many myriads around him. He welcomed her, and gave her a morsel of
cheese. I received it with folded hands, and ate it; and all the saints around
exclaimed Amen! I awoke at the sound,
with the sweet taste in my mouth, and I related it to my brother; and we knew
that our martyrdom was at hand, and we began to have no hope in this world.
Her father paid a second visit. His countenance was full of anxiety, and he
said, Have compassion, 0 my daughter, on my grey
hairs! have compassion on thy father, if he is worthy of the name! If I have thus brought thee up to the flower
of thine age - if I have preferred thee to all thy brothers, expose me not to
this disgrace! Look on thy brother! look
on thy mother and thy aunt! look on thy child, who cannot live without thee! do
not destroy us all! Thus he
spake, fondly kissing my hands, and casting himself at my feet. I was grieved; for he alone of our family did
not rejoice at my martyrdom; and I consoled him, saying, In this trial, what God wills must take place. Know that we are not in our own power, but in
that of God. And he went away sorrowing.
Another day the captives were suddenly brought out
of the prison to be examined, an immense multitude having gathered as
spectators. When it came to Perpetuas
turn to stand at the bar, her father came forward, carrying her child. Drawing her down the stop, he said in a
beseeching tone, Have compassion on your infant; while Hilarianus the
procurator also spoke, Spare the grey hairs of your
father; spare your infant; offer sacrifice for the welfare of the emperor.
I answered, I will not sacrifice. Art thou a Christian? demanded Hilarianus, and I answered Yes.
While my father stood there to persuade me, Hilarianus ordered him to be thrust
down and beaten with rods. The
misfortune of my father grieved me. I
was as much concerned for his old age as if I had been beaten myself. Being accustomed to suckle my infant, and to
keep it with me in the prison, I sent Pomponius the deacon to ask it of my
father. My father did not send it; but
by the will of God the child no longer desired the breast, and I suffered no
uneasiness.
A few days afterwards the keeper of the prison,
impressed by their meek endurance, admitted many of the brethren to visit his
charge. The night before the captives
were to be exposed in the arena, one of their number had a brilliant vision,
dreaming that he ascended into the realms of light, into a beautiful garden and
a palace, the walls of which were light, where he was not only welcomed by the
angels, but by such friends as had preceded him in the same glorious cause.
The narrator then proceeds to give another instance
of the triumph of faith. Felicitas being in the eighth month of
her pregnancy, was apprehensive lest her martyrdom should be delayed on that
account. Her friends engaged with her in
prayer, and her travail came on. In her
agony, at that most painful period of her sufferings, she seemed about to
sink. How then,
said one of the servants of the prison, if you cannot
bear these pains, will you endure exposure to the wild beasts? On which she replied, I bear now my own sufferings; then there will be One within
me who will bear my sufferings for me, because I shall suffer for His sake. She was delivered of a girl, of which a
Christian sister took charge.
Perpetua and her companions continued constant to
the end. Being harshly treated by a
tribune, she remonstrated with a kind of mournful pleasantry, saying that, if
ill-used, their appearance would not do credit to the birthday of Caesar, as
victims for the sacrifice should be in good condition. All, however, of the sufferers did not speak
in the same strain. Thus, being allowed
to hold the love-feast in use among early Christians, some of the crowd
pressing near, one of them said, Is not to-morrows
spectacle enough to satisfy your hate?
To-day you look on us with friendly faces; to-morrow you will be our
deadly enemies. Mark our countenances,
that you may recognise them at the day of judgment. And to Hilarius,
sitting on the tribunal, they said, Thou judgest us,
but God shall judge thee.
Hearing such language, the exasperated populace demanded that they
should be scourged. On being conveyed
to the place of execution they declined to put on the profane dresses in which
it was intended that they should be clad, ‑ the dress respectively of
priests of Saturn and priestesses of Ceres.
The male portion of the sufferers were exposed to bears and leopards;
the women, tied up naked in nets, were to be bored by a furious cow. But the sight of two delicate women thus
exposed was too much even for the populace; they were recalled, and permitted
to put on some loose robes. Perpetua was tossed into the air, and
her garment rent. With a sense of
wounded modesty, she endeavoured again to draw the robe over her person; then
calmly fastened up her hair, as not deeming it proper that a martyr in Christs
cause should die with dishevelled locks, the sign of sorrow. Seeing that Felicitas was stretched wounded on the ground, Perpetua stretched
out her hand; and they tottered together towards one of the gates of the arena,
where some Christians met them. Hearing
her friends voices, Perpetua, who had seemed to have swooned away, partially
revived; and until her wounds were pointed out, could hardly be persuaded that
she had suffered injury. The people now
demanded that an end should be made of the Christians; and the wounded
sufferers, being placed in the centre of the arena, were dispatched by the
executioners swords.
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MISSIONARY DECISION
The daughter
of the late Dr. Arthur T. Pierson, who laid down her life in missionary work in
India,
wrote her brother, a prospective missionary, the following weighty council.
I write words for you to
ponder and pray over. Do not go to any
foreign field until you know beyond a doubt that God sent you to that
particular field at that particular time.
If you marry any mission field in haste, you will repent at
leisure. There is a romance or halo
about being a missionary which disappears when you get on the field, I assure
you. And, believe me, from the first
minute you step upon shipboard upon your way to the foreign field, the devil
and all his agents will attack, and entice, and ensnare you, or try to do all
these, in order to defeat the purpose for which you cut loose and
launched. Nothing but the fullness of the Holy Spirit will carry anyone through;
and if you do not know that you have received this, do not fail to obey the
command to tarry ... until
ye be endued with the power from on high. Believe me, the foreign field is already full
enough of prophets, that have run, and He did not send them.
If you know beyond a doubt
- and you may - that God is empowering and sending you there and now, go and
fear not; and when through days, months, and years of suffering that are sure to
be in this cross-bearing life, the question arises again and again, Why is
this? Am I in Gods path? The rock to
which you will hold in this sea of distress is God sent me here, I know beyond
a doubt, therefore, I may go on fearing nothing, for He is responsible and He
alone. But if you do admit, I do not
know whether He sent me or not, you will be thrown into an awful distress of
mind by the attacks of the great adversary, not knowing what will be the outcome,
and you will find yourself crying out, Oh! that it were time to go home. What a fool I was to run ahead of the
Lord! Do not think, my brother, that
God sends us to the field to sweetly tell of Jesus, and that is all. He sends us there to do what Jesus came into
the world to do - to bear the Cross. But we will be able to trudge on, though
bowed under the weight of that Cross of suffering, and even of shame, if our hearts are full of Him, and our eyes
are ever looking upon the One who is invisible, the One who sent us forth, and,
therefore will carry us through. I
pray that this message may shake in you all that can be shaken that that which
cannot be shaken may remain as the Rock of Ages.
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A HEBREW MARTYR
[Mr. Isaac Feinstein was a missionary of the
In the small hours of Sunday, June 22, 1941, war
began. We could hear the thunder of
artillery from the
The same evening your father held his last meeting
in our hall. There were only a few
present; the awful roar and thunder of artillery were a grave and sinister
accompaniment to the service. In a composed,
unwavering voice your father spoke his words of encouragement to his
congregation. It was as though he knew
it was the last time. He put his whole
heart into it when he said, Who knows what awaits us
in the next few days and where we shall all be next Sunday, but ...
God
is our refuge and strength,
A very present
help in trouble.
Therefore will we
not fear, though the earth be removed,
And though the
mountains be carried into the midst of the sea (Psa. 46 : 1,
2).
We spent the nights that followed and most of the
days in our air-raid shelter in the cellar.
Instead of harmless A.R.P. exercises, we were facing grim reality. We hardly had time to go upstairs to our
kitchen to fetch something to eat before having to return to the cellar. The crash of the explosives was
terrible. Every time we thought it was
our house that had been hit. We could
hear the tinkle of broken window panes as explosion followed explosion.
Your fathers calm and self-control were an example
to us all. No sooner had the raiders
passed over than he wanted to be on the street with a pick and shovel to rescue
or help others, wherever the need might be.
He would not be stopped by our entreaties, but simply said, You cant know; perhaps some child is buried in the debris
and is calling for its mother. I must go
and help, and God will bring me safely back.
At first dawn a friend came and implored your father
to hide himself. He said there was a
plan to arrest or kill all Jews. This,
too, I only heard later; otherwise I would have begged him to hide with
Christian friends. But he had made up
his mind that he could never do this, for it would have brought us and others
into danger. So, slowly morning drew on,
the morning of the saddest day in your short lives. The shooting and the roar of artillery grew a
little weaker, but we had another air raid.
Father came downstairs in
the early morning and told us to remain all day in the cellar. My task was to quieten and comfort you and
find you something to do. You had to be
engrossed with trivial things, while above our heads on the streets of the
cruel city terrible things were taking place.
All the Jews were being driven together, and every house was being
searched for them. One could see long
columns among them, being led through the streets to the police
headquarters. They had to go with hands
held above their heads; if any through sheer weariness let them drop or just
could not go any farther, the soldiers who were escorting them beat them with
their rifles or prodded them with their bayonets. I have heard that terrible things
happened. Old women who could go no
farther were killed on the spot and left lying in the gutter. A Rumanian priest could stand these horrors
no longer; he begged them to stop, but was shot by his own people. German officers and soldiers stood on the
pavement, jeered and photographed the miserable columns with great
satisfaction.
I was not able to watch it
for long. In any case it was almost over
by then your father had been marched off with one of these tragic columns and I
followed him to let Sister Olga know what was happening. All forenoon we had sat in our cellar without
ally suspicion of what was happening up above.
I did go upstairs to fathers study once to see how he was getting on; I
asked him why he was so pale and whether he would have something to eat. He smiled sadly and said, You will know why later.
At the end of September,
three months after your father had been taken away, it became known in the city
that a number of Jews had been released from a concentration camp to help in
demolition work. The same evening two
men asked to see me, saying they had some thing to tell me. I recognized them as men who used to attend
our meetings and knew I could trust them.
Their story almost paralysed me with horror. This is what they had to tell.
We were with your husband
that Sunday. To all imprisoned with him
in the cellar at police headquarters he was a help. In the evening we were taken out into the
courtyards of the headquarters. There
were so many of us that we lay packed one on top of the other like
sardines. We suppose our persecutors
hoped we would be hit by bombs, but though they exploded all around us,
unfortunately we remained untouched. In
the early morning we were taken in long columns to a concentration camp. Feinstein
was in the same truck as we. We were
packed so tight we could neither move nor breathe - there were 140 of us in a
cattle truck that would have taken 40.
Doors and windows were shut, all cracks and holes were sealed, and steam
was driven in from below. It was a
gruesome journey of death. Many went
mad, and the cries of those in torment were terrible. From time to time the trucks were left
standing for hours in the burning summer heat.
Awful things happened which we can never tell. Those of us who survived are haunted by our
memories.
Your husband probably did
not have to suffer very long. It was not
long before he began to repeat psalms in a loud voice, and his face was like
the face of an angel. Then he fell
asleep and woke no more. During the
night at a small Moldavian station the trucks were opened and the corpses fell
out. They thought that everyone would
have been suffocated on this journey of death.
But there were six of us who were only unconscious who were injured as
we fell out. Seeing us bleeding they
brought us back to life and consciousness with injections; they gave us
something to eat and then forced us to bury
our dead friends in a common grave.
While we were doing this we found our dear Mr. Feinstein. We dug him a separate grave. Before burying him we went through his
pockets in the hope of finding his documents or something else to send you, but
nothing, not even his watch, was left.
He had been stripped of everything beforehand.
They
put us in a camp there with many others; we had to work hard and led a
miserable life. Often we were sorry that
a renewal of life had been granted us.
Now they have brought us back here into the city, but nothing good
awaits us.
A few days later these two
men did me the service of appearing before the court to testify what they knew
of my husbands death, so that I could get a death certificate. Without this we should never have got a passport
and should not have been able to leave the country. In this way your dear fathers death proved
your salvation, and you were able to go to
‑The Hebrew Christian.
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LOVE AND
MARTYRDOM
By D. M. PANTON, B.A.
The smiting of the Shepherd
was to be the signal not only of the momentary scattering of the sheep, but of
the birth of persecution down all the Christian ages. So our Lord, who was sent to the lost sheep
of the House of Israel, and was moved with compassion
because they were distressed and scattered as sheep not having a shepherd
(Matt. 9: 36), quotes the great prophecy of Zechariah (13: 7)
Awake, 0 sword, against my shepherd - on the
threshold of Gethsemane; and couples with the quotation His own absolute
prophecy of the coming fall of all the Apostles. All ye
shall be offended in me this night (Matt.
26: 31). Christian persecution
was born that night.
PERSECUTION
Simultaneously, our Lord, as
recorded in Luke, discloses the deeply buried reason of all persecution, and at
once singles out the one character whose career was to be the Churchs lesson
in persecution for all time. He says:‑
Simon, Simon, behold, Satan asked to have you
[apostles] - and it has been granted to him that he
might SIFT YOU AS WHEAT (Luke 22: 31). Persecution is deliberately
sanctioned by God, in order that Satan, acting as a winnowing-fan, may so shake
the wheat in the sieve as to separate ripe grain from chaffy grain; and our
Lord puts Peter on record as for ever the embodiment of a sifted soul. A chief apostle; a believer in prophesied
calamity; passionately set on distinguishing himself in the coming crisis;
struck by the storm; a public apostate; a glorious martyr.
SELF-CONIFIDENCE
First, therefore, Peter embodies
for all time the colossal blunder of self-confidence, in an extraordinary
revelation for us all, for we are all potential Peters. He replies:‑Even
if I must die with thee, yet will I not deny thee (Matt. 26: 33).
The Lord says :‑I tell thee, Peter, the
cock shall not crow this day, until thou shalt THRICE DENY THAT THOU KNOWEST ME
(Luke 22: 34):
before this day has gone, you will publicly, deliberately, have become a triple
apostate. Peter is without question a
sample of myriads of believers down the Christian centuries: no higher Apostle
existed in the morning; a public, self-confessed apostate before the cock crew.
MARTYRDOM
But
LOVE
Now we get our golden
lesson. Our Lord, embodying in Peter a
concrete case for the Church of all time, by his three piercing, probing
questions not only discloses the antidote to the threefold denial, but reveals
that which alone can carry us through martyrdom. He plugs home this one question LOVEST THOU ME? - three times to find what rank we give to
His love; for all your collapse, Peter, arose from a lack of sufficient love
for your Saviour; and it is love, and love alone, which will carry us through. Lovest thou me? The Lord
does not ask, Simon, how much hast thou wept,
or.how bitterly? or, How much hast thou fasted, or afflicted thy soul? but, what exactly is the depth of
your love for your Lord? The lesson for us
is beyond rubies. Not mastery of
theology, not a passion for reward, not a hatred of sin, not evangelistic or
missionary fervour, not love for our fellow believers - not in these, lovely as
they are, is the root of martyrdom: the master-anchor of the martyred soul is a deep, personal love for Christ.*
[* It is extremely valuable
that our Lord Himself has defined who it is that loves Him:‑ He that hath my commandments,
and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me (John 14:
21). This discloses the
gravity of the teaching that Christs commandments, in the Gospels and the
Apocalypse, are Jewish and not for us at all.]
SUPREME LOVE
The first of our Lords
three questions is acutely important. Lovest thou me MORE THAN THESE? Do you so love Me that you can follow Me alone?
Can
you sacrifice all other love for mine? He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of
me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me
(Matt. 10: 37). Strong men, mature believers, can tremble and
grow white when confronted with a choice between some shibboleth of their group
and Scripture - that is, Christ. So Paul
had exactly our Lords experience: of Christ we read They all forsook him and fled (Mark
14: 50); and of Paul, just before his martyrdom All forsook me (2 Tim. 4:
16). There is not an ecclesiastical group in
the world to-day, whether Roman or Greek or Protestant, to break - or be broken
- from which for conscience sake is not one of the sorest trials a child of God
can experience. Simon, lovest thou me more
than these, the nearest and
dearest you have on earth?
THE ANSWER
So now we have the deeply
sanctified character emerging out of persecution. What a
profoundly different Peter we behold!
Before his fall, it was a proud confidence‑ - If all shall be offended in thee, I shall never he offended:
now it is a heart-cry Lord, thou knowest all things
- I cannot hide my heart from Thee even if I would, and I rely on Thy
omniscience rather than on my own feelings‑ - Thou
knowest that I love thee. He is silent
on everything now, except his love. Christ can forgive us sins for which we can
never forgive ourselves. The Lord is
so perfectly contented with the answer, He so completely admits the appeal to
His omniscience, that, without the giving assent by a word, He draws the veil
from the only martyrdom ever revealed years, nay, decades, before-hand;* and so
deeply has He forgiven Peter, so dearly does He love him, so thoroughly does He
now trust him, that He gives into his hands the greatest treasure God has on
earth, the flock of God which he purchased with his
own blood.
[*Peter was crucified in
A.D. 64.]
FOLLOW ME
So now we reach the final
staggering word:‑ FOLLOW ME.
What a religion is ours! Christ
lifts up a cross before Peters
eyes, and says, Follow me, and Peter follows him. Who
then is this that gives such commands? A phrase which the Lord omitted to quote
answers:‑ Awake, 0 sword, against my shepherd,
and against THE MAN THAT IS MY FELLOW,
saith the Lord of hosts (Zech. 13: 7).* Peter was right when he said:‑
Lord, thou knowest all things: for Christ had
known that beore a cock crew the
apostle would deny Him thrice; and He knew, thirty years before it happened,
Peters martyrdom by an extremely rare death.
Follow Me for thirty years more of golden service: follow Me in the
production of letters which shall enrich the Church for nearly two thousand
years: follow Me up the Hill of Golgotha: follow
Me into the only class which, as such, is distinguished in the [Millennial] Kingdom (Rev. 20 4)
- the martyrs. The love of Christ triumphs over every
conceivable difficulty. Samuel Rutherford, writing from prison
in
[* Jewish
commentators themselves have admitted that the word amithi (my fellow) implies equality with God; only, since they
own not Him who was God and Man, they must interpret it of a false claim on the part of man, overlooking
that it is God Himself who thus
speaks of the Shepherd of His text (David Baron).]
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LOVE
Camest
Thou far, my Beloved
To
seek for Thine own?
From
Heavens high wonder and glory
I
travelld alone.
From
height that thine eye neer beholdeth,
Past
planet and star,
Down
distances measureless, shining:
Yea,
I came far.
Didst
Thou leave much, 0 Beloved,
In
coming for me ?
My
Home in the love of My Father
I
gave up for thee.
For
aye through the song and the music
My
heart heard thy call :
I
gave up My freedom, My glory,
Yea,
I left all.
Didst
Thou bear much, my Beloved,
That
I might be free?
The
thorn-crown, the mocking, the scourging,
The
death on the tree;
The
wrath of God - ah! this sorrow
That
thought cannot touch -
I died from the stroke of
His anger:
Yea, I bore much.
Didst
Thou love long, 0 Beloved,
With
heart that sought me?
Long
ages eer worlds were created
My
heart yearnd for thee.
Eer
ever the rapturous angels
Filld
heaven with song,
For
thee My heart panted and thirsted;
Yea,
I loved long.
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Greater love has no man than
this, that a man lay down his life for
his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you: (John 15: 13, 14, R.S.V.).