第28章 A POST.(1)
My Dear S.:As inquiries like your own have come to me from various friendly readers of the Sketches,I will answer them en masse and in printed form,as a sort of post to what has gone before.One of these questions was,"Are there no services by hospital death-beds,or on Sundays?"In most Hospitals I hope there are;in ours,the men died,and were carried away,with as little ceremony as on a battlefield.The first event of this kind which I witnessed was so very brief,and bare of anything like reverence,sorrow,or pious consolation,that I heartily agreed with the bluntly expressed opinion of a Maine man lying next his comrade,who died with no visible help near him,but a compassionate woman and a tender-hearted Irishman,who dropped upon his knees,and told his beads,with Catholic fervor,for the good of his Protestant brother's parting soul:
"If,after gettin'all the hard knocks,we are left to die this way,with nothing but a Paddy's prayers to help us,I guess Christians are rather scarce round Washington."I thought so too;but though Miss Blank,one of my mates,anxious that souls should be ministered to,as well as bodies,spoke more than once to the Chaplain,nothing ever came of it.Unlike another Shepherd,whose earnest piety weekly purified the Senate Chamber,this man did not feed as well as fold his flock,nor make himself a human symbol of the Divine Samaritan,who never passes by on the other side.
I have since learned that our non-committal Chaplain had been a Professor in some Southern College;and,though he maintained that he had no secesh proclivities,I can testify that he seceded from his ministerial duties,I may say,skedaddled;for,being one of his own words,it is as appropriate as inelegant.He read Emerson,quoted Carlyle,and tried to be a Chaplain;but judging from his success,I am afraid he still hankered after the hominy pots of Rebeldom.
Occasionally,on a Sunday afternoon,such of the nurses,officers,attendants,and patients as could avail themselves of it,were gathered in the Ball Room,for an hour's service,of which the singing was the better part.
To me it seemed that if ever strong,wise,and loving words were needed ,it was then;if ever mortal man had living texts before his eyes to illustrate and illuminate his thought,it was there;and if ever hearts were prompted to devoutest self-abnegation,it was in the work which brought us to anything but a Chapel of Ease.But some spiritual paralysis seemed to have befallen our pastor;for,though many faces turned toward him,full of the dumb hunger that often comes to men when suffering or danger brings then nearer to the heart of things,they were offered the chaff of divinity,and its wheat was left for less needy gleaners,who knew where to look.Even the fine old Bible stories,which may be made as lifelike as any history of our day,by a vivid fancy and pictorial diction,were robbed of all their charms by dry explanations and literal applications,instead of being useful and pleasant lessons to those men,whom weakness had rendered as docile as children in a father's hands.
I watched the listless countenances all about me,while a mild Daniel was moralizing in a den of utterly uninteresting lions;while Shadrach,Meshech,and Abednego were leisurely passing through the fiery furnace,where,I sadly feared,some of us sincerely wished they had remained as permanencies;while the Temple of Solomon was laboriously erected,with minute deions of the process,and any quantity of bells and pomegranates on the raiment of the priests.Listless they were at the beginning,and listless at the end;but the instant some stirring old hymn was given out,sleepy eyes brightened,lounging figures sat erect,and many a poor lad rose up in his bed,or stretch an eager hand for the book,while all broke out with a heartiness that proved that somewhere at the core of even the most abandoned,there still glowed some remnant of the native piety that flows in music from the heart of every little child.Even the big rebel joined,and boomed away in a thunderous bass,singing"Salvation!let the echoes fly,"as energetically as if he felt the need of a speedy execution of the command.
That was the pleasantest moment of the hour,for then it seemed a homelike and happy spot;the groups of men looking over one another's shoulders as they sang;the few silent figures in the beds;here and there a woman noiselessly performing some necessary duty,and singing as she worked;while in the arm chair standing in the midst,I placed,for my own satisfaction,the imaginary likeness of a certain faithful pastor,who took all outcasts by the hand,smote the devil in whatever guise he came,and comforted the indigent in spirit with the best wisdom of a great and tender heart,which still speaks to us from its Italian grave.With that addition,my picture was complete;and I often longed to take a veritable sketch of a Hospital Sunday,for,despite its drawbacks,consisting of continued labor,the want of proper books,the barren preaching that bore no fruit,this day was never like the other six.