A soldier, during the war, heard of the sickness of his wife and asked for a furlough.  It was denied him, and he ran away.  He was caught, brought back, and sentenced to be shot as a deserter.  The officer took from his pocket a document that announced his death on the following morning.  As the document was read, the man flinched not and showed no sorrow or anxiety.  But the officer then took from his pocket another document that contained the prisoner’s pardon.  Then he broke down with deep emotion at the thought of the leniency that had been extended.  Though you may not appear moved while I tell you of the law that thundered its condemnation, while I tell you of the pardon and the peace of the Gospel I wonder if they will not overcome you.

Jesus is a safe refuge.  Fort Hudson, Fort Pulaski, Fort Moultrie, Fort Sumter, Gibraltar, Sebastopol were taken.  But Jesus is a castle into which the righteous runneth and is safe.  No battering-ram can demolish its wall.  No sappers or miners can explode its ramparts, no storm-bolt of perdition leap upon its towers.  The weapons that guard this fort are omnipotent.  Hell shall unlimber its great guns as death only to have them dismantled.  In Christ our sins are pardoned, discomforted, blotted out, forgiven.  An ocean can not so easily drown a fly as the ocean of God’s forgiveness swallow up, utterly and forever, our transgressions.  He is able to save unto the uttermost.

You who have been so often overcome in a hand-to-hand fight with the world, the flesh, and devil, try this fortress.  Once here, you are safe forever.  Satan may charge up the steep, and shout amid the uproar of the fight, Forward, to his battalions of darkness; but you will stand in the might of the great God, your Redeemer, safe in the refuge.  The troubles of life, that once overwhelmed you, may come on with their long wagon-trains laden with care and worryment; and you may hear in their tramp the bereavements that once broke your heart; but Christ is your friend, Christ your sympathizer, Christ your reward.  Safe in the refuge!

Death at last may lay the siege to your spirit, and the shadows of the sepulcher may shake their horrors in the breeze, and the hoarse howl of the night wind may be mingled with the cry of despair, yet you will shout in triumph from the ramparts, and the pale horse shall be hurled back on his haunches.  Safe in the refuge!  To this castle I fly.  This last fire shall but illumine its towers; and the rolling thunders of the judgment will be the salvo of its victory.

Just after Queen Victoria had been crowned—­she being only nineteen or twenty years of age—­Wellington handed her a death-warrant for her signature.  It was to take the life of a soldier in the army.  She said to Wellington:  “Can there nothing good be said of this man?” He said:  “No; he is a bad soldier, and deserves to die.”  She took up the death-warrant, and it trembled in her hand as she again asked:  “Does no one know anything good of this man?” Wellington said:  “I have heard that at his trial a man said that he had been a good son to his old mother.”  “Then let his life be spared,” said the queen, and she ordered his sentence commuted.