Today, in various parts of...
Illustration
Today, in various parts of the world, there are still those worshipers who seek to appease God with offerings of produce, animals, or money. Yet, Christ has made it clear that our Father seeks not our symbolic sacrifices, but the true gifts of love and obedience. And, as in the example of Christ upon the cross, occasionally that love requires the ultimate gift -- ourselves.
Most of us are familiar with the story of the four heroic chaplains: Alexander
D. Goode, a Jewish rabbi; John P. Washington, a Catholic priest; and George L. Fox and Clark V. Poling, Protestant ministers, who gave their life-jackets to soldiers when the troop ship Dorchester was torpedoed on February 3, 1943. These noble men of God gave their lives that others might live and thus earned for themselves a place in the long history of religious martyrs.
Less known, however, is the story of 109 Salvation Army officers who died in the sinking of the Empress of Ireland on May 29, 1914. The total death toll of passengers and crew numbered 1,029 souls, but a few people survived who told of the Salvationists taking off their own life-jackets and giving them to others who had none.
"Then I said, 'Lo, I have come to do thy will, O God,' as it is written of me in the roll of the book" (Hebrews 10:7).
-- Byrd
Most of us are familiar with the story of the four heroic chaplains: Alexander
D. Goode, a Jewish rabbi; John P. Washington, a Catholic priest; and George L. Fox and Clark V. Poling, Protestant ministers, who gave their life-jackets to soldiers when the troop ship Dorchester was torpedoed on February 3, 1943. These noble men of God gave their lives that others might live and thus earned for themselves a place in the long history of religious martyrs.
Less known, however, is the story of 109 Salvation Army officers who died in the sinking of the Empress of Ireland on May 29, 1914. The total death toll of passengers and crew numbered 1,029 souls, but a few people survived who told of the Salvationists taking off their own life-jackets and giving them to others who had none.
"Then I said, 'Lo, I have come to do thy will, O God,' as it is written of me in the roll of the book" (Hebrews 10:7).
-- Byrd
