Deck of Cards

 

A young soldier was in his bunkhouse all alone one Sunday morning over in Afghanistan. 
It was quiet that day, the guns and the mortars, and land mines for some reason hadn't made a noise.

The young soldier knew it was Sunday, the holiest day of the week. As he was sitting there, he got out an old deck of cards and laid them out across his bunk.

Just then an army sergeant came in and said, "Why aren't you with the rest of the platoon?"
The soldier replied, "I thought I would stay behind and spend some time with the Lord."

The sergeant said, "Looks like you're going to play cards."
The soldier said, "No sir, you see, since we are not allowed to have Bibles or other spiritual books in this country, I've decided to talk to the Lord by studying this deck of cards." 

The sergeant asked in disbelief, "How will you do that?"

The soldier said, 'Sir, I've been on the march for about six days, I had neither Bible nor prayer book, but I hope to satisfy you, Sir, with the purity of my intentions.'

With that, the boy started his story:

You see Sir, when I look at the 'ACE', it reminds me that there is but one God;

And the 'DEUCE' reminds me that the Bible is divided into two parts; The Old and the New Testaments;

And when I see the 'TREY', I think of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost;

 

And when I see the 'FOUR', I think of the four Evangelists who preached the Gospel. There was Matthew, Mark, Luke and John;

And when I see the 'FIVE', it reminds me of the five wise virgins who trimmed their lamps. There were ten of them, five were wise and were saved. Five were foolish and were shut out;

And when I see the 'SIX', it reminds me that in six days, God made this great heaven and earth;

 

 

When I see the 'SEVEN', it reminds me that on the seventh day, God rested from His great work;

And when I see the 'EIGHT', I think of the eight righteous persons God saved when He destroyed this earth. There was Noah, his wife, their three sons and their wives;

 

And when I see the 'NINE', I think of the lepers our Saviour cleansed. And nine out of the ten didn't even thank Him.

 

When I see the 'TEN', I think of the Ten Commandments God handed down to Moses on a table of stone;

 

When I see the 'KING', it reminds me that there is but one King of Heaven, God Almighty;

 

And when I see the 'QUEEN', I think of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who is Queen of Heaven;

 

And the 'JACK' or 'KNAVE' is the Devil;

When I count the number of spots on a deck of cards, I find 365, the number of days in a year; There's 52 cards, the number of weeks in a year; There's 4 suits, the number of weeks in a month; There's 12 picture cards, the number of months in a year; There's 13 tricks, the number of weeks in a quarter; So you see, Sir, my pack of cards serves me as a Bible, Almanac and Prayer Book.

"And friends, the story is true. I know, I was that soldier."

This version was written in 1948 by C&W singer, T. Texas Tyler.
However, it's origins can be traced back to 1865 in America, and back
as far as the late 18th Century in Belgium (1778) and France (1809).