Poor Mr. Southard took his scolding with the greatest humility, but was so disconcerted by it that he could hardly finish the recital.
Mr. Granger had received a telegram from Washington, and had gone on immediately to bring the remains of his cousin home for burial. He wished them to go into town, and have the house open for the funeral. General Sinclair's wife was ill in Montreal, and could not be present. Mr. Granger had telegraphed her before starting.
They went to town the next day, and hastened to put the house in order; and on the second day Mr. Granger arrived.
It was impossible to have a private funeral. Mr. Sinclair had a host of friends, his reputation was a brilliant one, and he had died in battle. Military companies offered their escort, and the public desired to honor the dead by some demonstration. Finally, Mr. Southard opened his church, and consented to preach the sermon.
One would have thought that some public benefactor had died. The church was crowded, and crowds lined the streets through which the procession passed. Many a great and good man has died, yet received no such ovation.
A military funeral is the sublime of mourning. We may not know whose memory is thus honored, whose silence thus lamented; but those wailing strains of music touch our heartstrings as the wind sweeps the windharp, and tears start at the obsequies of him whose name we never heard, whose face we never looked upon. Perhaps it is that requiem music mourns not that one man is dead, but that all men must die.
Mr. Southard had felt a temporary embarrassment as to the manner in which he should treat his subject. He could not hold the dead up as a model, for Mr. Sinclair had been an unbeliever and a man of the world. There was but one way, and that one was congenial to the speaker and welcome to the hearers. The man must be, as much as was possible, ignored in the cause.
From the moment when the minister rose in the pulpit, the spirit in which he would speak was plain to be seen. His mouth was stern, there was a steel-like flash in his eyes, and his voice was clear and ringing when he announced his text:
"And he said to Zebee and Salmana: What manner of men were they whom you slew in Thabor? They answered: They were like thee, and one of them as the son of a king. He answered them: They were my brethren, the sons of my mother. As the Lord liveth, if you had saved them, I would not kill you. And he said to Jether his eldest son: Arise, and slay them."