Dr. Beale's Address.
Dr. Beale, whose own Presbyterian Church was one of the first morgues opened and who has lived among dead bodies ever since is the cheeriest man in Johnstown. He made a prayer and an address. It was all straight-from-the-shoulder kind of talk, garbed in homely phrase.
In the address he said: "I have been asked to say something about this disaster and its magnitude, but I haven't the heart. Besides I haven't the words. If I was the biggest truth teller in the world I could not tell the tale."
Then the preacher went hammer and tongs at the practical teachings of the flood. "That night in Alma Hall when we thought we would all die I heard men call on God in prayer and pledge themselves to lead better lives if life was given them. Since then I heard those same men cursing and swearing in these streets. Brethren, there was no real prayer in any of those petitions put up by those of godless lives that night. They were merely crying out to a higher power for protection. They were like the death-bed fears of the infidel, for I have seen seventeen infidels die and everyone showed the white feather. Nay, those prayers were unsanctified by the spirit, but let us who are here now living, dedicate ourselves to the service of Almighty God. There were those who were to be dedicated that night. I know one who, when it came, sent his family up the staircase, and taking up his Bible from his parlor table, opened at the 46th Psalm, first verse, and, following them, read, and the waters followed him closely. And through the flood he read the word of God and there was peace in that house while terror was all around it."
Mothering the Orphans.
Dr. Beale announced that Miss Walk wanted twenty-five children for the Northern Home and then began shaking hands with his congregation and pressing on them the lessons of his sermon. "Ah, old friend," he said, to a sandy moustached man in the grand army uniform, "You came safe out of the flood, now give that big heart of yours to Jesus."
The Baptist congregation also held an open-air service. The unfortunate Episcopal congregation is quite disorganized by the loss of their church and rector. They held no service, yet in a hundred temporary houses of the homeless the beautiful old litany of the faith was read by the devout churchmen.
The Soldiers' Sunday.
Sunday brought to the soldiers of the 14th no rest from the guard and police work which makes the Johnstown tour of duty everything but holiday soldiering. Even those who were in camp fared no better than those who were mounted guards over banks, stores and supply trains, or driving unwilling Italians to work down at Cambria City. There was no shade nor a blade of grass in sight. The wreck of the city was all their scenery, and the sun beat down upon their tents till they were like ovens. They policed the camp thoroughly, sweeping the bare ground until it was as clean as a Dutch kitchen. The boys had heard that Chaplain Maguire was to preach and they didn't leave a straw or a chip in his way.
A Young Guardsman's Suicide.