He has a wife and children. He is their bread-winner. If you
shoot him, he will be sorely missed. _Let me take his place._"
"All right," said the officer; "take his place, if you wish; but
you will be shot."
"I quite understand that," replied the young man; "but no one
will miss me"; and, going to the condemned man, he pushed him
aside, and took his place.
Soon the command to fire was given. The volley rang out, and the
young hero dropped dead with a bullet through his heart, while
the other man went free.
His freedom came to him by blood. Had he, however, neglected the
great salvation, and, despising the blood shed for him, and
refusing the sacrifice of the friend and the righteous claims of
the law, persisted in the same evil ways, he, too, would have
been shot. The blood, though shed for him, would not have availed
to set him free. But he accepted the sacrifice, submitted to the
law, and went home to his wife and children; but it was by the
blood; every breath he henceforth drew, every throb of his heart,
every blessing he enjoyed, or possibly could enjoy, came to him
by the blood. He owed everything from that day forth to the
blood, and every fleeting moment, every passing day, and every
rolling year but increased his debt to the blood which had been
shed for him.
And so we owe all to the blood of Christ, for we were under
sentence of death--"The soul that sinneth it shall die"; and we
have all sinned, and God, to be holy, must frown upon sin, and
utterly condemn it, and must execute His sentence against it.
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