Mr. Strong, the
chaplain, has a prayer meeting in the adjoining tent. His prayers and
exhortations fill me with an almost irresistible inclination to close my eyes
and shut out the vanities, cares, and vexations of the world. Parson Strong is
dull, but he is very industrious, and on secular days devotes his physical and
mental powers to the work of tanning three sheepskins and a calf's hide. On
every fair day he has the skins strung on a pole before his tent to get the
sun. He combs the wool to get it clean, and takes especial delight in rubbing
the hides to make them soft and pliable. I told the parson the other day that I
could not have the utmost confidence in a shepherd who took so much pleasure in
tanning hides.
While Parson Strong
and a devoted few are singing the songs of Zion, the boys are having cotillion
parties in other parts of the camp. On the parade ground of one company Willis
is officiating as — musician, and the gentlemen go through "honors to
partners" and "circle all" with apparently as much pleasure as
if their partners had pink cheeks, white slippers, and dresses looped up with
rosettes.
There comes from the
Chaplain's tent a sweet and solemn refrain:
Perhaps
He will admit my plea,
Perhaps
will hear my prayer;
But
if I perish I will pray,
And
perish only there.
I
can but perish if I go.
I
am resolved to try,
For
if I stay away I know
I
must forever die.
While these old
hymns are sounding in our ears, we are almost tempted to go, even if we do
perish. Surely nothing has such power to make us forget earth and its round of
troubles as these sweet old church songs, familiar from earliest childhood, and
wrought into the most tender memories, until we come to regard them as a sort
of sacred stream, on which some day our souls will float away happily to the
better country.
SOURCE: John
Beatty, The Citizen-soldier: Or, Memoirs of a Volunteer, pp. 79-81
