ou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word
only, and my servant shall be healed. For I am a man under authority,
having soldiers under me, and I say unto this man, Go, and he goeth;
and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and
he doeth it. When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that
followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found such great faith,
no, not in Israel."--MATT. viii. 5-10.

We find in Holy Scripture, that of the seven heathens who were first
drawn to our Lord Jesus Christ and His gospel, three were soldiers.

The first was the Centurion, of whom our Lord speaks in such high terms
of commendation.

The next, the Centurion who stood by His cross, and said, "Truly this was
the son of God." Old legends say that his name was Longinus, and tell
graceful tales of his after-life, which one would fain believe, if there
were any evidence of their truth.

The third, of course, was Cornelius, of whom we read in the Acts of the
Apostles.

Now these three Centurions--commanding each a hundred men--had probably
risen from the ranks; they were not highly educated men; they had seen
endless cruelty and immorality; they may have had, at times, to do ugly
work themselves, in obedience to orders. They were doing, at the time
when they are mentioned in Scripture, almost the worst work which a
soldier can do. For they were not defending their own country against
foreign enemies. They were keeping down a conquered nation, by a stern
military despotism, in which the soldiery acted not merely as police, but
as gaolers and executioners. And yet three men who had such work as this
to do, are singled out in Scripture to become famous through all time, as
the first-fruits of the heathen; and of one of them our Lord said, "I
have not found such great faith, no, not in Israel."

Why is this? Was there anything in these soldiers' profession, in these
soldiers' training, which made them more ready than other men to
acknowledge the Lord Jesus Christ? And if so; what was it?

Let us take the case of this first Centurion, and see if it will tell us.
We will not invent any reasons of our own for his great faith. We will
let him give his own reasons. We will let him tell his own story. We
may trust it; for our blessed Lord approved of it. Our Lord plainly
thought that what the soldier had spoken, he had spoken well. And yet it
is somewhat difficult to underst