When he came to himself, the stars were shining, the field was silent save for the feeble moans of the wounded, the voices and footsteps of parties searching for the injured.  He was in a quivering agony of sharp, burning pain, but he could neither move nor speak.  At last, he heard the searchers coming.  Nearer, nearer drew the voices, then for a moment they paused at his side.  He heard a man with a lantern say, “Poor fellow!  We can do nothing for him.”  Then they passed on, leaving him for dead, among the dead.

All that June night he lay there, looking up at the stars that studded the infinity of space.  About him were dark, silent forms, rigid in the sleep of death.  Those were solemn hours, hours when he looked death in the face, and then backward over the years he had lived.  Useless years they seemed to him now, years filled with petty ambitions that had to do solely with self.  All the spiritual ideals of life, the things that give lasting joy and happiness because they are of the spirit and not of the flesh, he had scoffingly cast aside and rejected.  He had narrowed life down to self and the things of the world.  He had no such faith as made his mother’s hard-working life happy and serene because it transformed its sordid care into glorious service of her Heavenly King.  He had no such faith as carried John Ring triumphant and undismayed through the gates of fiery death in performance of a loving service.  Suddenly a longing swept over him for this priceless faith, for a personal, sure belief in the love of a Savior.  One by one the teachings of his mother came back to him, those beautiful immortal truths she had read him from that Book which is never too old to touch the hearts of men with healing.  Looking up at the worlds swinging through space to unknown laws, with the immensities of life, death and infinity all about him, his disbelief, his atheism dropped away.  Into his heart came the premonitions of the peace of God, which passeth understanding.  Life broadened, it took on new meaning and duty, for a life into which the spirit of God has come can never again narrow down to the boundaries of self.  He determined henceforth to live more for others, less for himself; to make the world better, somebody happier whenever he could; to make his life, each day of it, worthy of that great sacrifice of John Ring.

He being an officer, they came back for his body, and found a living man instead of the dead.  He was taken to the field hospital.  One arm was broken in two places, his shoulder badly shattered, and because there was no hope of his living, they did not at once amputate his arm, which would have been done had he been less seriously injured.

Long days he lay in the hospital with life going out all about him, the moan of the suffering in his ears, thinking, thinking, of the mystery of life and death, as the shadows flitted and swayed through the dimly lighted wards at night, the sunshine poured down during the day.  His love of humanity burned purer.  His desire to help it grew stronger.  Long were the talks he had with the chaplain, a Baptist preacher, and when he recovered and left the hospital, his mind was fully made up.  Like his father, his actions never lagged behind his speech, and he made at once an open profession of the faith on which he now leaned with such happy confidence.