[Born into slavery on a South Carolina plantation in 1850, Grimke served as a pastor for 50 years, primarily at Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church in Washington DC. This devotion is taken from a sermon he preached November 3, 1918, when churches were allowed once again to meet after several weeks of closure because of the Spanish Flu epidemic. The entire sermon – more than twice as long – is available here.]

We know now … the meaning of the terms pestilence, plague, epidemic, since we have been passing through this terrible scourge of Spanish influenza, with its enormous death rate and its consequent wretchedness and misery. Every part of the land has felt its deadly touch…. Over the whole land it has thrown a gloom, and has stricken down such large numbers that it has been difficult to care for them properly, overcrowding all of our hospitals…. Our own beautiful city has suffered terribly from it, making it necessary, as a precautionary measure, to close the schools, theaters, churches, and to forbid all public gathering within doors as well as outdoors. At last, however, the scourge has been stayed, and we are permitted again to resume the public worship of God, and to open again the schools of our city.

Now that the worst is over, I have been thinking … of these calamitous weeks through which we have been passing—thinking of the large numbers that have been sick— the large numbers that have died, the many, many homes that have been made desolate—the many, many bleeding, sorrowing hearts that have been left behind, and I have been asking myself the question, what is the meaning of it all? What ought it to mean to us? Is it to come and go and we be no wiser, or better for it? Surely God had a purpose in it, and it is our duty to find out, as far as we may, what that purpose is, and try to profit by it.

Among the things which stand out in my own mind … are these:

(1) I have been impressed with the ease with which large portions of the population may be wiped out in spite of the skill of man, of all the resources of science.… How easy it would be for God to wipe out the whole human race … if he wanted to; for these terrible epidemics, plagues, the mighty forces of nature, all are at his command, all are his agents. At any moment, if he willed it, in this way, vast populations or portions of populations could be destroyed.

(2) I have had also this question come into my mind, why of those who took the disease some recovered and others did not? The reason may be found, in one sense, in purely natural causes— some were physically better prepared to resist the disease, were stronger in vital power, and so pulled through. Others, not having sufficient vitality, went down under the strain; but I believe there is also another reason, and is to be found in the will of God.… Some day we have all got to go, but how, or when, or where, we do not know; that is with God alone. In Job 12:10, we read:

In whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind.

We speak of accidental deaths, … but there are no accidents with God. All things are within the scope of his providence….

(3) Another question similar to the above kept also constantly going through my mind, why are some taken with the disease and others not? … The ultimate explanation must be found in the sovereign will of God. It must be because He wills it.

(4) Another thing that has impressed me, in connection with this epidemic, is the fact that conditions may arise in a community which justify the extraordinary exercise of powers that would not be tolerated under ordinary circumstances. This extraordinary exercise of power was resorted to by the Commissioners in closing up the theaters, schools, churches, in forbidding all gatherings of any considerable number of people indoors and outdoors, and in restricting the numbers who should be present even at funerals. The ground of the exercise of this extraordinary power was found in the imperative duty of the officials to safeguard, as far as possible, the health of the community by preventing the spread of the disease from which we were suffering….

And so, anxious as I have been to resume work, I have waited patiently until the order was lifted.…

(5) Another thing that has impressed me in connection with this epidemic is how completely it has shattered the theory, so dear to the heart of the white man in this country, that a white skin entitles its possessor to better treatment than one who possesses a dark skin.…

In this terrible epidemic, which has afflicted not only this city but the whole country, there is a great lesson for the white man to learn. It is the folly of his stupid color prejudice. It calls attention to the fact that he is acting on a principle that God utterly repudiates, as he has shown during this epidemic scourge, and, as he will show him when He comes to deal with him in the judgment of the great day of solemn account….

(6) Another thing has impressed me during this epidemic. It has brought out in a way that is very gratifying, the high estimation in which the Christian church is held in the community—the large place which it really occupies in the thought of the people. The fact that for several weeks we have been shut out from the privileges of the sanctuary has brought home to us as never before what the church has really meant to us. We hadn’t thought, perhaps, very much of the privilege while it lasted, but the moment it was taken away we saw at once how much it meant to us….

(7) There is another thing connected with this epidemic that is also worthy of note. While it lasted, it kept the thought of death and of eternity constantly before the people. As the papers came out, day after day, among the first things that everyone looked for, or asked about, was as to the number of deaths. And so the thought of death was never allowed to stay very long out of the consciousness of the living. And with the thought of death, the great thought also of eternity, for it is through death that the gates of eternity swing open…. The grim messenger is God’s summons to us to render up our account. That there is an account to be rendered up we are inclined to lose sight of, to forget; but it is to be rendered all the same. The books are to be opened, and we are to be judged out of the books. During the weeks of this epidemic—in the long list of deaths, in the large number of new-made graves, in the unusual number of funeral processions along our streets, God has been reminding us of this account which we must soon render up; He has been projecting before us in a way to startle us, the thought of eternity.

You who are not Christians, who have not yet repented of your sins, who have not yet surrendered yourselves to the guidance of Jesus Christ, if you allow these repeated warnings that you have had, day by day, week by week, to go unheeded—if you still go on in your sins, should God suddenly cut you off in your sins, you will have no one to blame but yourselves…. God has opened the way for your salvation, through the gift of His only begotten Son, who died that you might have the opportunity of making your peace with God…. Before you go out of this house make up your minds to do the right thing—the wise thing—the only sensible thing. You have come out of this epidemic alive, while thousands have perished. Are you going to spend the rest of your days in the service of sin and Satan, or in the service of God? You know what you ought to do; you know what you will do, if you consult your best interest—if you do the right thing.

(8) There is only one other thought that has come to me in connection with this epidemic; it is of the blessedness … of the sense of security which a true, living, working faith in the Lord Jesus Christ gives one in the midst of life’s perils. I felt … the blessedness of a firm grip upon Jesus Christ—the blessedness of a realizing sense of being anchored in God and in His precious promises. While the plague was raging, while thousands were dying, what a comfort it was to feel that we were in the hands of a loving Father who was looking out for us, who had given us the great assurance that all things should work together for our good. And, therefore, that come what would—whether we were smitten with the epidemic or not, or whether being smitten, we survived or perished, we knew it would be well with us, that there was no reason to be alarmed. Even if death came, we knew it was all right. The apostle says, “it is gain for me to die.” Death had no terrors for him….

In the presence of such a faith, in the realization of God’s love, as revealed in Jesus Christ, in the consciousness of fellowship with him, what are epidemics, what are scourges, what are all of life’s trials, sufferings, disappointments? They only tend to work out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. But, of course, if faith is to help us; if it is to put its great strong arms under us; if we are to feel its sustaining power under such distressing circumstances, it must be a real, living faith in God …—a faith that works, that works by love, and that purifies the heart. Any other faith is of absolutely no value to us in the midst of the great crises of life…. [Now] is a good time for those of us who are Christians to examine ourselves to see exactly how it is with us, … whether our faith is really resting upon Christ, the solid Rock, or not….

If, as the result of such examination, we find that we did not get out of our religion very much help, in bracing us up under the strain through which we have been passing, then we know that there is something wrong: either we have no faith at all, or it is very weak…. Or, if we find that we were helped, that our fears were allayed as we thought of our relations to God and to his Son Jesus Christ, then we have an additional reason why we should cling all the closer to him, and why we should be all the more earnest in our efforts to serve him. We ought to come out of this epidemic more determined than ever to run with patience the race that is set before us; more determined than ever to make heaven our home….

Let us all draw near to God in simple faith. Let us re-consecrate ourselves, all of us, to him….