"Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy Kingdom," they seemed
to say. The wooden Christ gazed down on them from His cross, with a
suffering which two thousand years ago he had shared. The terrible
pity of His silence seemed to be telling them that they had become one
with Him in their final sacrifice. They hadn't lived His life--far
from it; unknowingly they had died His death. That's a part of the
glory of the trenches, that a man who has not been good, can crucify
himself and hang beside Christ in the end. One wonders in what
pleasant places those weary souls find rest.
There was a second Calvary--a heap of ruins. Nothing of the altar or
trees, by which it had been surrounded, was left. The first time I
passed it, I saw a foot protruding. The man might be wounded; I
climbed up to examine and pulled aside the debris. Beneath it I found,
like that of one three weeks dead, the naked body of the Christ. The
exploding shell had wrenched it from its cross. Aslant the face, with
gratuitous blasphemy, the crown of thorns was tilted.
These two Calvaries picture for me the part that Christ is playing in
the present war. He survives in the noble self-effacement of the men.
He is re-crucified in the defilements that are wrought upon their
bodies.
God as we see Him! And do we see Him? I think so, but not always
consciously. He moves among us in the forms of our brother men. We
see him most evidently when danger is most threatening and courage is
at its highest.
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