... “I was a surgeon in the United States Army during the civil war. After the battle of Gettysburg, there were hundreds of wounded soldiers in my hospital.
Many were wounded so severely that a leg or an arm, or sometimes both, needed to be amputated. One of these was a boy who had only been in the service for three months.

Since he was too young to be a soldier, he had enlisted as a drummer. When my assistants came to give him chloroform before the amputation he turned his head and refused it.
When they told him that it was the doctor’s orders, he said, ‘send the doctor to me’. I came to his bedside and said ‘young man, why do you refuse chloroform?

When I found you on the battlefield, you were so far gone that I almost didn’t bother to pick you up. But when you opened those large blue eyes,
When I came to his bed, one of the nurses said that at about nine O’clock, two members of the Y.M.C.A came through the hospital to read and sing a hymn.
it occurred to me that you had a mother somewhere who might be thinking of you at that very moment. I didn’t want you to die on the field,
so I had you brought here. But you’ve lost so much blood that you’re just too weak to live through an operation without chloroform. You’d better let me give you some.’

He laid his hand on mine, looked me in the face and said, ‘Doctor, one Sunday afternoon, when I was nine and a half years old *I gave my heart to Christ.*
I learned to trust Him then, and I’ve been trusting Him ever since. I know I can trust Him now. He is my strength.
He will support me while you amputate my arm and leg’. I asked him if he would at least let me give him a little brandy. Again he looked at me and said, ...

Doctor, when I was about five years old, my mother knelt by my side with her arms around me and said: “Charlie, I am praying to Jesus that you will never take even one drink of alcohol.
Your father died a drunkard, and I’ve asked God to use you to warn people against the
dangers of drinking, and to encourage them to love and serve the Lord”. I am now 17 years old and I have never had anything stronger than tea or coffee.
There is a very good chance that I am about to die and to go into the presence of my God. Would you send me there with brandy on my breath?’
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