Westways: A Village Chronicle

by S. Weir Mitchell

"Not here, my dear, but I will send you a daguerreotype."

* * * * *

When on this Sunday long remembered in Westways, the tall figure of Mark Rivers rose to open the service, he saw the little church crowded, the aisles filled, and in the front pews Penhallow, his niece, and behind them the young men who were to join his regiment. Grace had asked his own people to be present, and here and there were the mothers and sisters of the recruits, and a few men on crutches or wasted by the fevers of the Virginia marshes. Mark Rivers read the morning service as few men know how to read it. He rarely needed the prayer-book—he knew it all. He gave to it the freshness of a new message of love and helpfulness. More than ever on this Sunday Leila felt a sense of spiritual soaring, of personally sharing the praises of the angel choir when, looking upwards, he said: "Therefore with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven we laud and magnify Thy glorious name." She recalled that John had said, "When Mark Rivers says 'angels and archangels' it is like the clash of silver cymbals."

He gave out at the close his favourite hymn, "Lead, Kindly Light." It was well and sweetly sung by the girl-choir. As the music closed he rose—a figure of command, his spare frame looking larger for his robes. For a silent moment his eloquent eyes wandered over the crowd, gathering the attentive gaze of young and old, then he said: "I want to talk on this unusual occasion for a little while, to you who are answering the call of a man who is like a father calling his sons to a task of danger. My text is: 'Render, therefore, unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's.' The wonder of the great texts is that they have many applications as time runs on. You know the familiar story. Payment of the tax meant obedience to the Government, to law, to order. I would that I had the power to make you see with me the scene. It is to me so very distinct. The Pharisees desire to tempt him, a Jew, into a statement treasonable to the Roman rule they had accepted. Was it right for the Jew to pay the tax which sustained this Government? He had, as you may remember, already paid it for Peter and himself. He asks for the penny bearing Caesar's head and answers them in the words of the text, 'Render unto Caesar, therefore, the things which are Caesar's.' He returns the penny. I wonder where that little coin is to-day? It has gone, but the lesson it read remains forever; nor even today is the Pharisee gone with his invidious temptations. You are to-day obeying a greater than Caesar. You are meeting the material obligations of a day of discouragement—and for some a day of doubt.

"The nobler applications which lie within the meaning of the latter part of the text He answers more fully than was asked: 'Render unto God the things which are God's.' What are these things which are at need to be rendered to Him? What larger tax? Ease—comfort—home—the strong bodies which make work safe and pleasant. He asks of you the exercise of unusual qualities—the courage which looks death in the face and will not take the bribe of safety, of life, at the cost of dishonour. Ah! not in battle is my fear for you. In the long idleness of camps will come your hours of temptation. Think then of those at home who believe in you. It is a great thing to have an outside conscience—wife, mother, sister. Those are hours when it is hard to render unto God what he gave.

"We are now, as I said, at a time of discouragement. There are cowards who would yield—who would compromise—men who want peace at any cost. You answer them nobly. Here, in this sacred cause, if He asks it, we render life or the easy competencies of youth in its day of vigour."

The man paused. The strange power of the eyes spoke to them in this moment of silence. "Oh! I said the cause was sacred—an unbroken land. He gave you that, just for wide-world uses. Keep it! Guard it!—with all that Union of the States meant and still means to-day. You are not to blame for this necessity—war. The man who bends unpaid over the master's cotton-field is the innocent cause of all this bloodshed. If there were no slavery, there would have been no war. But let there be no hatred in the brave hearts you carry. God did not slay Saul, the earnest—I might say—the honest persecutor. He made him blind for a time. The awful charity of God is nowhere else so wonderful. These gallant people you are going to meet will some day see that God was opening their eyes to better days and nobler ways. They too are honest in the belief that God is on their side. Therefore, let there be no bitterness.

"Some of you are what we call religious. Do not be ashamed of it. The hardest fighters the world has known were men who went to battle with arms invisible to man. A word more and I have done. I have the hope—indeed the certainty—that I shall be sent to the field on errands of mercy and helpfulness. We may meet again. And now, take with you the earnest will to render unto God what things He gave for His highest uses. Now let us offer the prayer for the volunteers our great Bishop desires the Church to use. Let us pray."

In unusual silence the congregation moved away, a silence shared by Leila and her uncle. At last she said, "Uncle Jim, I wish Aunt Ann could have heard that sermon—it could not have hurt her."

"Perhaps not."