BATTLE MIRACLES.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 September 1915, Page 12

BATTLE MIRACLES.

STRANGE STORIES FROM LANI) ANI) SEA. Dr. E. F. Horton, preaching at the Broughton Congregational Church, Manchester, (says the Bradford Observer) made reference to reports of supernatural occurrences on the battlefield. Dr. Horton believes that, at all events, some of these reports are completely authenticated. There are, he said, wonderful stories coming to us in this time of war—some of them verified and some of them floating about and difficult to verify and fix —but they are stories which show quite distinctly how men to-day are kept in the secret places of the most High, under the shadow of the Almighty, in the midst of unexampled peril. These is a story—repeated by so many "witnesses that if anything can be established by contemporary evidence it is established—of the retreat from Mons. A section of j the line was in imminent peril and it seemed as if it must inevitably be born down and cut off. Our men saw a company of angels interposed between them and the Herman cavalry and the horses of the Germans stampeded. Evidently the animals beheld what onr men beheld. The German soldiers endeavoured to bring the horses back to the line, but they fled, It was the salvation of our men. I had news from the DardatielVs Jixt, week but one. A sailor on one of our transport ships told me in the simplest language how airships of the enemy pame over the troopship dropping bombs, The captain, who is a man of God. gave the order to the men to prav, and thev did pray. The 18 bombs, which" seemed : to be falling from overhead, fell harmlessly into the sea. A PROTECTOR IN WHITE. Of another story which he told Dr. Horton said he did not know how far they must take it literally. Now and again, he continued, a wounded man on the field is conscious of a comrade in white coming with help and even delivering him. One of our men who had heard of"this story again and again and had put it down to hysterical excitement had an experience. His division had advanced and was not adequately protected by the artillery. It was cut to pieces, and he himself fell He tried to hide in a hollow of the ground, and as he lay helpless, not daring to lift Iv's head m. ' tinhail of fire, he saw one in white coming to him. For the moment he thought it must be a hospital attendant or a stretcher-bearer, but no, it could not be; the bullets were flying all round. The white-robed came nearer and bent over him. The man lost consciousness for a moment, and when he came round he seemed to be out of danger. The whiterobed still stoo<l by Mm, and the man, looking at his hand, said: "You are wounded in your hand." There was a wound in the palm. He answered: "Yes, that is an old wound that has opened again lately." The soldier says that in spite of the peril and his wounds he felt a joy he had never experienced in his life before. Is it not an extraordinary fact, Dr. Horton preceeded, that, although the carnage is so fearful, there are evidences accumulating every day of those who are kept under the shadow of the Almighty —men who are quite conscious that prayer is heard and answered for them? These men, if they are ultimately spared, will come hack to our country and our churches to begin a perfectly new era in the history of Christendom and to change the whole aspect of our church life. They will come back to tell us of a living God who is able to help, and of a Saviour who shows "Himself in the hour of peril and when all earthly succour seems to fail.