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 sh