Forty Wrestlers
StoryHistorical Account★★★★I think of that winter night when a Roman legion was encamped in a little lakeside town in France. Forty spiritual heroes, unwilling to renounce their faith, were sentenced to die out on the frozen lake. Banded together in the biting, benumbing cold, they began to sing. The stern, proud commander, on watch from his comfortable tent, heard the words:
“Forty wrestlers, wrestling for Thee,
O Christ,
Claim for Thee the victory
And ask from Thee the crown.”
Strangely moved by this unusual testimony, that hardened soldier, so used to cursing and frantic pleas for mercy, listened intently. These were men of his own company, men who had angered the emperor by their faith. These were his forty heroes. Must they die?
He moved out into the cold, gathered driftwood from the shore, and built a huge fire with flames leaping high into the night. Perhaps this would lead them to renounce their faith and thus save their lives. But no. Again the sound of the refrain met his ears, weaker now:
“Forty wrestlers, wrestling for Thee,
O Christ,
Claim for Thee the victory
And ask from Thee the crown.”
Then suddenly the song had changed.
“Thirty-nine wrestlers, wrestling for Thee, O Christ—”
And all at once, as the song still floated in across the ice, one of the prisoners climbed up the bank and dropped by the fire, a huddled mass. The song of the forty was no more. One of the heroes had turned coward.
On the shore, clearly outlined against the fire, stood the commander. Strange things were surging in his breast. Then suddenly his soldiers saw him take one brief look at the pitiful specimen before him and throw off his own cloak. Before they could stop him, he raced down the bank and across the ice to the freezing prisoners, casting back the words, “As I live, I’ll have your place!”
In a few moments the song, with a fresh note of triumph, was wafted again to the soldiers who had gathered, fearful and awe-struck, on the silent shore:
“Forty wrestlers, wrestling for Thee,
O Christ,
Claim for Thee the victory
And ask from Thee the crown.”
–Planet in Rebellion, George Vandeman, (Southern Publishing Association, Nashville, 1960), Pg. 418-419
George Vandeman, Planet in Rebellion, 418-419.
The point
Forty Christian soldiers, sentenced to die on a frozen lake, sing a hymn of praise even as they freeze; a hardened commander, moved by their faith, joins them in the lake, restoring forty voices to the song.