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THE COMRADE IN WHITE


By The Rev. W. H. Leathem, M. A.


Introduction By Hugh Black


  "I shall not fear the battle
  If Thou art by my side."



1916




INTRODUCTION

The Great War has put a strain on the resources of human nature, as
well as on material resources. Men who have come through the hell of
the trenches have discovered some of the secrets of life and death.
Many of them have known a reinforcement of spiritual power. It is
quite natural that this fact should often be described in emotional
form as direct interposition of angels and other supernatural
agencies. Among these the most beautiful and tender stories are
those of "The Comrade in White." In essence they are all testimony
to the perennial fount of strength and comfort of religion--the
human need which in all generations has looked up and found God a
present help in times of trouble.

The origin of the many stories brought back to England from the
battle fronts by her soldiers is that to the average Briton this a
religious crusade, and men have gone with an exaltation of soul,
willing to make the ultimate sacrifice, willing to die that the
world might live. Men and women are face to face with eternal
realities, and are driven by the needs of their hearts to the
eternal refuge. Unless we see this we miss the most potent fact in
the whole situation.

The tender stories in this little volume are a reflex of the great
religious stirring of the nation. They describe in a gracious and
pathetic way the various abysmal needs of this tragic time, and they
indicate how many human souls are finding comfort and healing and
strength. They are finding peace as of old, through the assurance
that "earth has no sorrows, that heaven cannot heal."

HUGH BLACK.

NEW YORK.




"THE WHITE COMRADE"


I


  When soldiers of the Cross waged Holy War,
  With courage high, and hearts that did not quail
  Before the foe, in olden times they saw
  The blessed vision of the Holy Grail.
  Tho' Christ was gone, His pledge was with them yet,
  For, borne on wings of angels, from the skies,
  They saw the chalice that once held the wine
  As emblem of the Saviour's sacrifice
  For men, and knew that still the Master met,
  With His own friends, in fellowship divine.


II


  Christ has His soldiers now.
  Though years have rolled
  Away, the warriors of the Cross are strong
  To fight His battles, as the saints of old,
  Against oppression, tyranny, and wrong.
  And still amid the conflict, they can trace
  The Saviour's influence. Not the Holy Grail
  Which once as His remembrance was adored,
  But Christ Himself is with them. For a veil
  Is lifted from their eyes, and, face to face
  They meet the presence of the risen Lord.


III


  O blessed vision! After all the years,
  Thou'rt with us yet. To-day, as heretofore,
  Men see Thee still and they cast off their fears,
  And take fresh courage to press on once more.
  The soldiers, bearing from the desperate fight
  A wounded brother, see Thee, in the way,
  And know Thee for the Saviour, Healer, Friend,
  For once again, Thy loved ones hear Thee say
  (O Christ! White Comrade, in their stand for right!)
  "Lo, I am with you alway, to the end."


_Fidei Defensor_.




CONTENTS


I.        IN THE TRENCHES

II.       THE MESSENGER

III.      MAIMED OR PERFECTED?

IV.       THE PRAYER CIRCLE





I. IN THE TRENCHES

  "And immediately He talked with them, and
  saith unto them, 'Be of good cheer; it is I; be
  not afraid.'"

  --THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MAKK, chap, vi: 50.

  "And His raiment was white as snow."

  --THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW, chap. xvii: 2.

"The Battle of Mons, which saved the British Army from annihilation,
was, for the most of those who fought with the angels, a sepulchre.
They saved the British Army, but they saved it at fearful cost. No
'great host' withdrew from that field of destruction; the great host
strewed the ground with their bodies. Only a remnant of those who
stood in the actual furnace of Mons escaped with their lives... Let
those who mourn, take encouragement from these stories of visions on
the battlefield, quietly and with a child's confidence, cultivate
within themselves a waiting, receptive and desiring spirit. Let them
empty themselves of prejudice and self.... Let them detach
themselves more and more from the obsessions of worldly life.
Serenity is the path by which the thoughts of God travel to us; and
Faith is the invitation which brings them to the table of our souls."

--ON THE SIDE OF THE ANGELS.



IN THE TRENCHES

Strange tales reached us in the trenches. Rumours raced up and down
that three-hundred-mile line from Switzerland to the sea. We knew
neither the source of them nor the truth of them. They came quickly,
and they went quickly. Yet somehow I remember the very hour when
George Casey turned to me with a queer look in his blue eyes, and
asked if I had seen the Friend of the Wounded.

And then he told me all he knew. After many a hot engagement a man
in white had been seen bending over the wounded. Snipers sniped at
him. Shells fell all around. Nothing had power to touch him. He was
either heroic beyond all heroes, or he was something greater still.
This mysterious one, whom the French called _The Comrade in White_,
seemed to be everywhere at once. At Nancy, in the Argonne, at
Soissons and Ypres, everywhere men were talking of him with hushed
voices.

But some laughed and said the trenches were telling on men's nerves.
I, who was often reckless enough in my talk, exclaimed that for me
seeing was believing, and that I didn't expect any help but an
enemy's knife if I was found lying out there wounded.

It was the next day that things got lively on this bit of the front.
Our big guns roared from sunrise to sunset, and began again in the
morning. At noon we got word to take the trenches in front of us.
They were two hundred yards away, and we weren't well started till we
knew that the big guns had failed in their work of preparation. It
needed a stout heart to go on, but not a man wavered. We had advanced
one hundred and fifty yards when we found it was no good. Our Captain
called to us to take cover, and just then I was shot through both
legs. By God's mercy I fell into a hole of some sort. I suppose I
fainted, for when I opened my eyes I was all alone. The pain was
horrible, but I didn't dare to move lest the enemy should see me,
for they were only fifty yards away, and I did not expect mercy. I
was glad when the twilight came. There were men in my own company
who would run any risk in the darkness if they thought a comrade was
still alive.

The night fell, and soon I heard a step, not stealthy, as I expected,
but quiet and firm, as if neither darkness nor death could check
those untroubled feet. So little did I guess what was coming that,
even when I saw the gleam of white in the darkness, I thought it was
a peasant in a white smock, or perhaps a woman deranged. Suddenly,
with a little shiver of joy or of fear, I don't know which, I
guessed that it was _The Comrade in White_. And at that very moment
the enemy's rifles began to shoot. The bullets could scarcely miss
such a target, for he flung out his arms as though in entreaty, and
then drew them hack till he stood like one of those wayside crosses
that we saw so often as we marched through France. And he spoke. The
words sounded familiar, but all I remember was the beginning.
"If thou hadst known," and the ending, "but now they are hid from
thine eyes." And then he stooped and gathered me into his arms--me,
the biggest man in the regiment--and carried me as if I had been a
child.

I must have fainted again, for I woke to consciousness in a little
cave by a stream, and _The Comrade in White_ was washing my wounds
and binding them up. It seems foolish to say it, for I was in
terrible pain, but I was happier at that moment than ever I remember
to have been in all my life before. I can't explain it, but it
seemed as if all my days I had been waiting for this without knowing
it. As long as that hand touched me and those eyes pitied me, I did
not seem to care any more about sickness or health, about life or
death. And while he swiftly removed every trace of blood and mire I
felt as if my whole nature were being washed, as if all the grime and
soil of sin were going, and as if I were once more a little child.

I suppose I slept, for when I awoke this feeling was gone. I was a
man, and I wanted to know what I could do for my friend to help him
or to serve him. He was looking towards the stream, and his hands
were clasped in prayer; and then I saw that he too had been wounded.
I could see, as it were, a shot-wound in his hand, and as he prayed
a drop of blood gathered and fell to the ground. I cried out. I
could not help it, for that wound of his seemed to me a more awful
thing than any that bitter war had shown me. "You are wounded too,"
I said faintly. Perhaps he heard me, perhaps it was the look on my
face, but he answered gently, "This is an old wound, but it has
troubled me of late." And then I noticed sorrowfully that the same
cruel mark was on his feet. You will wonder that I did not know
sooner. I wonder myself. But it was only when I saw His feet that I
knew Him.

"The Living Christ"--I had heard the Chaplain speak of Him a few
weeks before, but now I knew that He had come to me--to me who had
put Him out of my life in the hot fever of my youth. I was longing to
speak and to thank Him, but no words came. And then He rose swiftly
and said, "Lie here to-day by the water. I will come for you tomorrow.
I have work for you to do, and you will do it for me."

In a moment He was gone. And while I wait for Him I write this down
that I may not lose the memory of it. I feel weak and lonely and my
pain increases, but I have His promise. I know that He will come for
me to-morrow.




II. THE MESSENGER

  "And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood
  in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace
  be unto you."

  --THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE, chap. xxiv: 36.

"The War has powerfully changed the 'psychological atmosphere,' and
the thoughts of a great multitude are turned towards the spiritual
aspect of existence. In this vast but connected universe we are not
the only self-conscious beings. Life is working here as elsewhere,
for some sublime purpose. The day is at hand when we shall turn from
the child-like amusements and excitements of physical science to the
unimaginable adventures of super-physical discovery; and in that day
we shall not only flash our messages to the stars, but hold
communion with our dead."

--HAROLD BEGBIE.



THE MESSENGER

The Parish Church stood high perched in the Glen, and through its
clear windows we could see the white, winding road that was our one
link with the great world beyond the mountains. Perhaps our eyes
strayed from the preacher's face more than was seemly, and in spring
time we had this excuse, that the fresh green of the larches against
the dark rocks made a picture fairer to the eye than our plain old
Church and its high pulpit.

But that Sunday in the spring of the Great War the minister had us
all, even the young and thoughtless, in the hollow of his hand. It
was the 18th chapter of Second Samuel that he had read earlier in
the Service, and now he was opening its meaning to us with deep-felt
realisation of those great dramatic episodes.

We saw the young man Absalom die. We saw Cushi start to bear his
tidings to the king. We watched Ahimaaz swift on his track. We
marked the king's anxious waiting, and the fixed gaze of the watchman
on the city walls. We strained in the long strain of the runners. We
fainted with the fears of a father's heart. We saw Ahimaaz outrun his
rival yet falter in his message. And we heard the blow upon David's
heart of Cushi's stroke. "And the king said unto Cushi, Is the young
man Absalom safe? And Cushi answered, The enemies of my lord the king,
and all that rise against thee to do thee hurt, be as that young man
is."

There were tears in the women's eyes as the preacher called us to see
the stricken and weeping king climbing with weary step to the chamber
over the gate. And in a solemn hush we heard the cry of his anguish
"--O my son Absalom! my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died
for thee. O Absalom, my son, my son!"

We had anxious fathers and mothers and wives and sisters in the
Church that day, and it was as though our own sorrows were all
gathered up into the old, unhappy, far-off things of which the
preacher spoke. I had a dear one to be concerned for, but I was
thinking now of some one else. For Widow McDonald was there, and the
days had grown into weeks since last she had tidings of John--and he
was her only boy.

Suddenly she rose and slipped out. I followed her, for there was an
odd, silent friendship between us, and I thought that I might help.
To my surprise she did not turn homewards, but down the Glen, and
there I saw that some one was waiting for her by the pine wood.
"I saw your sign, sir," she said, "and I guessed you brought news of
John. Oh, sir, tell me quick, is he safe?"

"He is safe," the stranger answered. I could not see His face, but
He seemed weary and far-travelled. It was His voice that made me
wonder. For as He said "safe," it was as a new word to me, so full
of healing and of peace that it laid to rest every fear of my unquiet
heart.

"And will he be home soon?" It was the mother who was speaking now.

"I have taken the dear lad home," answered the stranger. "His room
has been long prepared for him in my Father's house. He has fought a
good fight. He was wounded, but his wounds are healed. He was weary,
but he has found rest." And so speaking He looked at us, and as the
mother clasped my hand I knew that the truth was breaking on her too.

"He is dead," she sobbed.

"No," said the stranger, "he is alive, for he has laid down his life
that he might take it again."

There was silence then, and the stranger turned to leave us. Even in
her grief the mourner was mindful of what was due to Him who had
taken upon Himself the burden of sorrowful tidings.

"Come back with us, and break bread, and rest a while," she said,
"for, sir, you seem spent, and it is out of a kind heart that you
have spoken."

"I may not tarry," He made answer, "for there are many who need me,
and I must go to them, but for thy comfort thou shalt first know who
hath brought thee tidings of thy son's passage through death to life."

I dare not try to tell what happened then under the shadow of the
pines, but somehow we _knew_ our eyes looked into the face of the
soldiers' _The Comrade in White_; and we knew Him. And then His hand
was lifted in blessing, and we heard this word, that is now as the
music of our daily lives: "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give
unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your
heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."

       *       *       *       *       *

We walked in a strange, calm silence to the widow's cottage, and
then as we parted she turned to me a face filled with heavenly
peace--"My dear boy lives," she said.




III. MAIMED OR PERFECTED?

  "Now no chastening for the present seemeth
  to be joyous but grievous: nevertheless, afterward,
  it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness
  unto them which are exercised thereby."

  --HEBREWS xii:11.

"Six months passed within the danger zone, produces a subtle but
marked change. Bright lads become men, who bear all the marks of
having passed through a solemn purification by fire. And the subtle
influence, as thus depicted, is communicated to us.... To say that
the horrors of war have subdued and overawed them is but part of the
explanation. It seems nearer to the truth to add, that these
harrowing experiences, whatever they may have been, have only helped
to make our young men susceptible to spiritual influences of the
highest quality. In fine, they have been following in the footsteps
of Him who is The Great Sacrifice, and even amid the bursting shells
have caught a glimpse of wounds that transform and consecrate their
own."

--_The Great Sacrifices_, JOHN ADAMS.



MAIMED OR PERFECTED?

My heart grew bitter in me when the news came of Harry's operation.
I had been half relieved when I heard that he was wounded, and that
the wound was not