"TILL HE COME."
Amer's path now led him across a plain, it was bare and treeless, but
every now and then he came by green pastures and still waters and was
refreshed on his monotonous journey. He was able to hold communion
too with his King, and though this part of his journey was free from
any special incident, he learnt lessons of trust and patience which
he might not have been able to learn in the stress and noise of hard
warfare. It was not long before he came to a town, the inhabitants of
which struck him as looking more miserable than those he had ever met
before.
"What is the name of this place?" he asked of one.
"It is the City of Despair," he answered, with a fierce and angry
stare. "You have but to look around you to learn its name."
And as Amer's path led him into it he was filled with horror at all he
saw.
Some were sitting by the road side with their heads bowed in their
hands, the picture of misery; others were fast asleep, and Amer
noticed that at the head and feet of these, little black imps were
sitting keeping guard, so that at the least sign of waking they might
administer narcotics and soothe them off to sleep again; some were
raging and roaring about the streets, while others looked on laughing
loudly, but their laughter rang hollow and suggested more misery than
the sobs that issued from their fellows.
Amer found he was not the only soldier of the King who had entered the
City of Despair. Some were there before him who had, like him, been
struck with its horror and misery, and were fighting with all their
might the evil spirits which were enslaving so many.
"What is the meaning of all this?" asked Amer.
"It means," said one of his fellow soldiers, "that hundreds in this
place have either not heard of our King or hearing of Him will have
nothing to do with Him; and the Devil and his angels are doing their
best to shut their ears and to lull them off into the sleep of death,
so that the Good News may never reach them. We are here, and you, my
friend, have been sent here, to proclaim the Good News and to fight the
enemy that is destroying these people, soul and body; and the fight
is long and fierce. We need to watch and we need to pray, and to hold
close communion with our King. For we find the enemy will suddenly turn
upon us and try and rend us, when he sees us bent upon destroying his
work here and that we are resolved to do what we can to liberate his
slaves. It is the greatest honour anyone can have to be led to work
in this City, for it is in the forefront of the battle. But remember,
friend, you must pray, you must pray."
Then a great yearning came into the heart of Amer to tell these people
of the King of the Radiant City, and he began to go up and down the
streets proclaiming the Good News.
Many a one looked up at him with eyes full of misery, to shake their
heads with the cry,
"Too late, too late!"
"Nay," said Amer, "it is the King Himself Who has sent me to you. He
would never have sent me had He not been willing to receive you."
Others told him to leave them alone.
"We do not wish to find out what we have lost: leave us alone, man, we
have chosen our path and must stick to it," while some who had never
heard of the King and His mercy, laughed unbelievingly.
"Had your story been true we should have been told about it long ago,"
they said. "Nobody ever told us. Would people who have known such good
news for years never have taken the trouble to come and help us in our
misery if they knew it to be true?"
But every now and then Amer would meet one whose eyes would follow him
with a hungry expression visible in them, as he went about proclaiming
the Good News, and then he knew that his efforts were not in vain, and
he would tell him of the Great King Who had died on the Cross to save
him and to give deliverance from the enemy.
"We will fight the enemy together," Amer would say, and he would fall
on his knees and pray.
His fellow soldiers had been right when they had told him that the
warfare would be fierce and long; it needed all his strength not to
give way, and his enemies were watching him determined to make him fall.
"Pity thyself," they would whisper in his ear, "pity thyself, you are
losing strength, the battle is too hard, others can do the work, why
put yourself into such danger?" Then Pride would murmur,
"You of all people must persevere, you are by far the most successful
worker here. No one works so hard as you, and people will listen to
you who turn a deaf ear to the other soldiers." Amer found this enemy
even more difficult to overcome than the others, and he knew him to be
the more dangerous, for if he induced him to continue his work for any
other motive than that of obedience to his King, it would be ruined.
Then Despondency would try and seize him.
"Give it all up," he cried, "it is useless, these people are too far
gone in wickedness, your efforts are quite in vain."
All these enemies attacked Amer while he was busy about his work, and
often he found when he was doing his utmost to break the chains of some
poor slave, he would receive a blow from an unseen hand, and it was
only by crying to his King fur help that he was able to overcome.
Then his fellow-workers would quite unconsciously be used of the enemy
to tempt him.
For these friends sometimes surprised him. Although called by their
King to do this work some of them seemed to look upon it rather
lightly. They did not apparently feel bound to do it with all their
might, neither did they seem to understand Amer's zeal and earnestness.
"We cannot all work like you," they would say to him, "it would be
foolish on our part if we did. We should soon break up and not be
able to work at all. We really think you tire yourself out with your
efforts, and they are often in vain."
"But the people are dying around us," said Amer, "and we are only here
to work."
"But there is no cause for such extraordinary self-denial as you seem
to think," they said. "You make us feel ashamed of ourselves. Besides
you are injuring your health. You are working far too hard." And Amer,
listening, recognized the voices of more enemies than one; but he still
worked on, and had the joy of leading many a one out of the City of
Despair into the sunshine of the road to the Radiant City.
And so he worked on, fighting, praying, and proclaiming the Good News
of the Kingdom: and as he worked a wonderful radiance began to light up
his face. It was the light of the Radiant City that lay upon it. The
people among whom he laboured became aware of it.
"I think," they said, "he must be growing like the King he is always
telling us about, Who is so loving and merciful."
And his fellow-workers noticed it and talked about it to one another.
"What a beautiful character he has," they said, "he puts us all to
shame, but never speaks as if he were the least more faithful or
earnest than we are. He is one of the humblest men we have ever come
across."
"If I had met that man some twenty years ago," said the one whom Amer
had seen with such a very miserable face, on entering the City, "he
might have been the saving of me. It is what the man does that makes me
half inclined to believe in what he says."
And Amer worked on quite unconscious of the remarks of people about
him. What, however, he was conscious of, was that every now and then
he caught a gleam of a river in the distance. At first it had somewhat
startled him, but as day by day he seemed to be drawing nearer he would
look at it earnestly. Was his time approaching to cross it?
He was very conscious now of a Presence by his side, and the
companionship of this Presence kept him in peace and joy. But as the
River drew near the enemy also approached to make one more effort to
capture this brave soldier of the King. Doubt would remind him of some
of the words he had listened to on the heath about the Guide Book, but
finding that Amer no sooner became aware of his presence than he called
upon the King for help and drew out his sword to do combat, he tried
another plan. He would haunt his memory with sins he had committed in
the City of Punon before he had begun his journey, sins which had been
forgiven years ago, questioning him as to how he dared to hope for
mercy, considering he had done things of which he was now so ashamed.
But Amer was able by this time to distinguish between the voices from
the Radiant City and the voices of the enemy, and he clasped his
breastplate the closer; besides which he noticed that the shadow of
a Cross was always at hand, and when the enemy taunted him and tried
to make him doubt his King's love and forgiveness, he flung himself
beneath it, and when fighting under its shadow he always came off
conqueror. At this time too he kept looking towards the Radiant City
with the words:—
"'I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me.'"
As he drew nearer the River he thought less about it and more of the
City beyond it. At times he almost fancied he could hear the songs of
triumph that he knew were being sung there in honour of his King; and
many a time when utterly weary he lay down to sleep, he would dream of
it, of its streets of gold, and gates of pearl, and above all of the
King, Who was the Light thereof.
When Iddo, whose path had led her with Chisleu and the other singing
pilgrims into the City of Despair, went up and down its streets singing
of the King, Amer would look up and smile, adding his voice to hers.
But when alone, the words most often on the lips of this good soldier,
were those telling of his need and of the King's power to supply the
need.
"My Saviour I have nought to plead
In Earth beneath or Heaven above;
But just my own exceeding need,
And Thine exceeding love."
Those who were with Amer noticed how full of love and patience he now
was: how the enemy, Irritability, which had so often given him a blow
on his lips, was silent: how he never judged unkindly or spoke ill of
people, but like his Master and King was filled with a consuming pity
for them.
But if his friends had had eyes to see, they would have been aware of
a crowd of evil spirits on the watch for him, who would surely have
worked him ill had he not been in such constant communion with his
King. As it was they could never get near him, for the Presence of
his King was around him like a wall of fire, and a shadow of a Cross
enveloped him.
Amer remembered at times his question to the Ambassador when he had
started on his journey, as to whether it was the lot of every soldier
to be harried at the end, as was Heman the Brave; and every now and
then, when for a moment he lost sight of his King, Fear crept up,
hoping to gain possession of him; but so used was he now to confide his
thoughts to his King, that Fear could get no more than a sudden look
at the man he hoped to conquer. Indeed, the enemies that had crowded
so hopefully around him when they were aware of how near Amer was
to crossing the River, had to be content with looking at him from a
distance, and gradually, as they noticed that the nearer he drew to the
River, the brighter and more peaceful grew the expression of his face,
they lost hope.
Then it was, that while in the act of cheering a fellow pilgrim, Amer
heard his name called, and, with the light of the Radiant City on his
brow and his King's name on his lips, he plunged without fear into the
cold waters to fall at the feet of his King.
Then Chisleu and Iddo, who had seen his passing, burst into a
triumphant song:
"The saints of God, their conflict past,
And life's long battle won at last,
No more they need the shield or sword,
They cast them down before their Lord:
Oh happy saints, for ever blessed,
At Jesus' feet how safe your rest."
And the pilgrims on the hill above, caught up the words and sang again:—
"Oh happy saints, for ever blessed,
At Jesus' feet how safe your rest."
But some there were who fell on their knees and wept, for they loved
him so.
And Iddo, seeing them, turned away with tears in her eyes, for he had
been as a brother to her. Then, after a moment, she stood erect and
strong, while the light from the Radiant City fell on her face.
"It is only till He come," she said.
"Yes, till He come," answered Chisleu, and then they both went back
into the City of Despair to work and to watch,
"Till He Come."
THE END.