From My Notebook
By H. Grissom Cassell
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In 1936 I visited in the home of Margaret Flack Maul, in Port Arthur, Texas. She was the only schoolmate of my first school years in Kansas whose address was known to me. A short time later while I was a student at the University of Southern California, she sent me the article, "The Call From the Galilean Hilltop." It went into my university notebook. That book was one of a mere half dozen, out of my 750 volume library, which the Japanese did not burn when they sacked the Philippines. It was rescued and sent to us by friends after our liberation and evacuation in April--May of 1945.
In this message is the substance of God's word to a lost world. His words and thoughts are not ours. As the heavens are higher than the earth so His ways are exalted above ours. As He watches over the earth and waters it with His snow and rain, causing it to sprout and bring forth that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so He watches over even the smallest seed of His word. He uses early childhood friendships of a half century or more ago, to uncover words which had long lain apparently lost, even through all the terror and destruction of a World War. And he makes them sprout and bring forth eternal life in good and honest hearts (Isaiah 55:6-11; Luke 8:4-15).
The known human instrumentalities which have been active in gathering up the majestic message of the following paper have been few and humble, reaching back into the latter decade of the nineteenth century, and reaching into the future from 1966, perhaps until our Lord returns. If even one soul hears his call from the Galilean hilltop, and responds because of the resurrection of this message which lay buried in a university notebook for almost thirty years, then to God be all the honor and praise. The author of the message is unknown.
Today I heard it again. Across the centuries it came once more. I do not know just why I found my heart responding, but it seemed as He stood there on that Galilean mountain His eyes were turned full on me. Time has not served to still that voice or to dull its solemn majesty. With volume unabated it came. It rose above the din of the city around me. It echoed through the hills and the valleys. The vault of heaven rang with its challenge. The majesty of God was in it and it shook my very soul, till I was lost in forgetfulness of self and all my petty interests. For there stood before me in all the commanding power of His glorious being the Son of God, ruler of heaven and earth, and thundered once more His command, "Go, teach all nations!" And in that moment there came to me a new sense of His majesty and of heaven's purpose for the redemption of the world.
There was something impelling in that call today. It carried with it a strange compulsion. I could not put it off. It bore in upon my soul until I found myself yielding to the insistence of a sublime authority. For just before His command was spoken. He had proclaimed the right by which He spoke, and in one tremendous word had gathered unto Himself the supreme authority of earth and heaven when He said, "All power is given unto me in heaven and on earth." It came to me with sobering realization that when I refused obedience to that voice, I was flaunting my defiance into the very
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There was urgency in His call today. He gave it the emphasis of a parting charge. There He stood. His blessed feet touching the top of the hill. Soon He would be gone, the days of His flesh would be over. His lips parted. What word would He speak? What charge would he leave? How golden the words that had fallen from his lips on other hillsides while he went in and out among us. But this was to be His last. Surely there would be some deeper baring of His heart, some solemn charge to those who were left behind. Surely He had reserved some tremendous word for His last moment, a message supreme that He might forever live in the memory of His followers. Then, with majestic tone the call broke from his lips: "Go, teach all nations!" It was a call to rise and gird myself. He would have me act at once. It was not only obedience that He sought, but my help. Men were perishing, men for whom He had died, and He was calling for me; and the great summons that stirred my soul from slumber was not just a command, but a heartbreaking plea--the cry of the Savior for a lost world. In that call He defined what, from that moment, must become my dominant aim until the coming of His kingdom.
I shall never be the same since He called me from Galilee. I know Him better now than I ever did before. Today I looked deeper into His heart. Strange that in speaking that great word of authority He should have bared to me more clearly the depth of His love. It was not so much by what He said as by something I saw. For there in His hands and in His feet I saw fresh wounds, the marks of Calvary! He was not summoning me to some renunciation which He was himself unwilling to make. But He called me to a service, the pledge of His devotion to which He bore in His own body. What mockery if, in answering that call I offer Him what is cheap and bears nowhere the deep red mark of sacrifice! I shall not fear as I begin my new commitment. Great as is the task, I have assurance greater still. For as I have heard His voice today and responded, yet faltered in my weakness, back from the hills where still echoed His great command there came His last gentle words of peace, "Lo, I am with you alway!"
In the strength of that promise I am answering the call from Galilee.