A Better Service Than War
A sad reminder of a cruel business was brought to light recently in Manila Bay, when the wreck of the Spanish flagship Reina Christina was raised. This was one of the vessels sunk by Admiral Dewey’s fleet, and in its rusty hulk there were found the skeletons of eighty of the Spanish officers and crew who went down with their vessel. The Word of God teaches a sweeter liberty than that for which men fight, the liberty there is in the true Gospel of Jesus Christ, which overthrows hatred in the carnal heart and makes men brothers in a kinder service. The Word of God teaches a higher calling than that for which cannon roar and men seek each others’ lives. It is the calling of God in Christ Jesus—a call to the service of man instead of to the slaughter of men, and a call whose ready answer brings rewards that can not tarnish with the touch of time. When sin and selfishness have run their race, we have the promise of a peace that carnage can not crucify, a haven unmarred by frowning fortresses. In that better service we enlist; to that better land we hasten with better prospects and surer promises and happier hearts than they who seek for glory in the camp of war, or wring their riches from the poor. The Christian is in the world but not of it, ministering to its necessities, serving God in bringing happiness to His children. In this work selfishness and warfare have no part. Neither do they in the eternal reward which that service brings; and that service carries no such cruel mementoes as that of the shattered ship of war with its unconfined dead.