When I read of the nobles in France who went to the scaffold with a jest in the days of the Terror, I always think of the General. He is that sort of man. To-day, little by little, as the sermon went on, he turned round. At last he was facing the pulpit. His gleaming eyes were fixed on the preacher. His son was dead. And when the words rang through the church, may God grant that such culture may perish ... the General sprang to his feet. "Amen" rang his voice through the church.
There was a sudden movement; as one man they all rose to their feet. Hands were lifted up to heaven. "Amen," "Amen," they cried—and then there rose a cheer—muffled, but still a cheer. In the pulpit the words died on the preacher's lips. He seemed as one suddenly stricken. He gazed bewildered over the sea of faces. They sank back into the pews as though suddenly ashamed.
The last man to sit was my friend, who stood to the last with uplifted hand. I think it was he who cried "Hear, hear"—the only sign he gave of his long absence from church. The sermon was never finished. The preacher in a low voice said, "Let us pray." And he humbled himself as one who enters the valley of humiliation. And then he gave out this psalm:—
Now Israel
May say, and that truly,
If that the Lord
Had not our cause maintained;
* * * * *
Then certainly
They had devoured us all.
* * * * *
But blessed be God,
Who doth us safely keep,
And hath not giv'n
Us for a living prey
Unto their teeth,
And bloody cruelty.
* * * * *
This psalm as we sang it that day was a pæan of triumph. The clouds suddenly broke. We heard our fathers singing it in their dark days. The melody wedded to the words soared in exultant triumph, wailed like the cry of the shingle swept by the surf; the sighing of the wind over the heather was in it, and the hissing of the storm through the spray. It was fierce as devouring death; it was gentle as a mother crooning over her child. It put iron into the blood of our fathers as they sang it.
It was nerved by such a hymn that the sailors of Queen Elizabeth swept the main, that the Puritans wrestled with principalities and powers, that a handful of moors-men levelled despotism and tyranny to the ground. It swept through our blood like flame as we in our day of stress now sang it. We, too, would pull down strongholds and turn to flight the armies of the alien. In all ages the cause of freedom triumphed, and that cause was ours. We had entered on conflict with clean hands and, God helping us, we would wage it with clean hands. The clouds suddenly broke and the light of victory irradiated our faces. There came overwhelmingly the realisation that there was a power behind us mightier far than sword or shell—even the Lord God Omnipotent. And that was how we made the greatest of all discoveries—we found God.
Yesterday morning I went early to the station, and there in the booking office I found my friend talking to the ticket-collector. The ticket-collector is a philosopher, and he comes to church, because he loves the old psalm tunes. But when one of our parishioners who goes now and then to Keswick comes to the booking office, the ticket-collector calls him in and reasons with him gently.
"Mahn, there's naething in it," he says; "I can tell you for a fact there's naething in it—all a whack of fables." "Some day you'll find out to your cost that there's something in it," flashes the man from Keswick. "If ye wad only reid philosophee," says the ticket-collector, "ye would ken better." But to-day my friend and the ticket-collector had their heads close together, and I only heard the conclusion of their argument. "Mahn," said the ticket-collector, "I am beginning to think there may be something in it."
And in the evening near the top of the brae I saw the General standing erect with his little cane in his hand. He was talking to the shoemaker, the greatest Radical in the parish—one of a party with which the General has no dealings. But they talked like brothers. For the shoemaker has a son fighting at the front, and his heart is sore troubled within him. And the General's son is dead. And as I came up the brae I saw the General putting his hand on the shoemaker's shoulder and turn away, walking slowly up the brae. The old shoemaker saluted and came down the brae. There was a tender look in the old man's eye as he greeted me.