Chapter III

What was it that led both Daniel Defoe and Sir Walter Scott to give the text such prominence? What was it in the text that appealed so irresistibly to Robinson Crusoe and to Mary Avenel? The answer is fourfold.

1. It was the _Charm of Companionship_. Robinson Crusoe fancied that he was alone upon his island. Mary Avenel fancied that she was left friendless and forsaken. They were both mistaken; and it was the text that showed them their mistake. '_Call upon Me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee._' If such a Deliverer is at hand--so near as to be within sound of their voices--how can Robinson Crusoe be solitary or Mary Avenel forsaken?

Speak to Him, thou, for He hears; spirit with spirit can meet--
Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet!

If there be a shadow of truth in Robinson Crusoe's text, there is no such thing as loneliness for any of us!

2. It was the _Ring of Certainty_. There is a strange and holy dogmatism about the great evangelical promises. '_Call and I will deliver._' Other physicians say: 'I will come and do my best.' The Great Physician says: 'I will come and heal him.' _The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which is lost._ He did not embark upon a magnificent effort; He came to do it.

3. It was the _Claim of Monopoly_. 'Call upon _Me_ in the day of trouble, and _I_ will deliver thee.' It suggests the utter absence of alternatives, of selection, of picking and choosing. In the straits of the soul, the issues are wonderfully simple. There is none other Name given under heaven among men whereby we must be saved. It is _this_ Companion--or solitude; _this_ Deliverer--or captivity; _this_ Saviour--or none.

4. It was the _Absence of Technicality_. '_Call!_'--that is all. '_Call upon Me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me!_' _Call!_--as a little child calls for his mother. _Call!_--as a drowning man calls for help. _Call!_--as a frenzied woman calls wildly for succor. There are great emergencies in which we do not fastidiously choose our words. It is not the mind but the heart that, at such moments, gives to the tongue its noblest eloquence. The prayer that moves Omnipotence to pity, and summons all the hosts of heaven to help, is not the prayer of nicely rounded periods--Faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null--but the prayer of passionate entreaty. It is a _call_--a call such as a doctor receives at dead of night; a call such as the fireman receives when all the alarms are clanging; a call such as the ships receive in mid-ocean, when, hurtling through the darkness and the void, there comes the wireless message, 'S.O.S.' '_Call upon Me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me._' Had the text demanded a tinge of technicality it would have been useless to Robinson Crusoe; it would have mocked the simple soul of poor Mary Avenel. But a call! Robinson Crusoe can call! Mary Avenel can call! Anybody can call! Wherefore, '_call_,' says the text, '_just call, and He will deliver_!'