(Written at Enslin Battlefield.)
He was standing at eventide facing the rough and rugged heights of Enslin.
The crimson-tinted clouds that emblazoned the sky cast a ruddy radiance
round his head and face, making him appear like one of those ancient
martyrs one is apt to see on stained-glass windows in old-world churches in
Rome or Venice. His feet were firmly planted close to the graves of the
British soldiers and sailors who had fallen when we beat the Boers and
drove them back upon Modder River.
In one hand he held a little, well-worn Bible; his other hand was raised
high above his close-cropped head, whilst his voice rang out on the sultry,
storm-laden air like the clang of steel on steel:
"Prepare ter meet yer God!"
No one who looked at the neat, strong figure arrayed in the plain khaki
uniform of a private soldier, at the clean-shaven, square-jawed face, at
the fearless grey-blue eyes, could doubt either his honesty or earnestness.
Courage was imprinted by Nature's never-erring hand on every lineament of
his Saxon features. So might one of Cromwell's stern-browed warriors have
stood on the eve of Marston Moor.
"Prepare ter meet yer God!"
To the right of him the long lines of the tents spread upwards towards the
kopje; to the left the veldt, with its wealth of grey-green grass, sown by
the bounteous hand of the Great Harvester; all around him, excepting where
the graves raised their red-brown furrows, rows of soldiers lounged,
listing to the old, old story of man's weakness and eternal shame, and
Christ's love and everlasting pity. On the soldier preacher's breast a long
row of decorations gleamed, telling of honourable service to Queen and
country. Before a man could wear those ribbons he must have faced death as
brave men face it on many a battlefield. He must have known the agonies of
thirst, the dull dead pain of sleepless nights and midnight marches, the
tireless watching at the sentry's post, and the onward rush of armed men up
heights almost unscalable. On Egypt's sun-scorched plains he must have
faced the mad onslaughts of the Dervish hosts, and rallied with the men who
held the lines at Abu Klea Wells, where gallant Burnaby was slain. The
hills of Afghanistan must have re-echoed to his tread, else why the green
and crimson ribbon that mingled with the rest? His eyes had flashed along
the advancing lines of charging impi, led by Zulu chiefs. Yet never had
they flashed with braver light than now, when, facing that half-mocking,
half-reckless crowd, he cried:
"Prepare ter meet yer God!"
Rough as the thrust of a broken bayonet was his speech, unskilled in
rhetoric his tongue, his periods unrounded as flying fragments of shrapnel
shell; yet all who listened knew that every word came from the speaker's
soul, from the magazine of truth. Some London slum had been his cradle, the
gutters of the great city the only University his feet had known, the
costers' dialect was native to his tongue; yet no smug Churchman crowned
with the laurels of the schools could so have stirred the blood of those
wild lads, fresh from the boundless bush and lawless mining camps beneath
Australian suns.
"Prepare ter meet yer God!"
And even as he spoke we, who listened, plainly heard the rolling thunder of
our guns as they spoke in sterner tones to the nation's foes from Modder
River. It was no new figure that the soldier preacher placed before us. It
was the same indignant Christ that swept the rabble from the Temple; the
same great Christ who calmly faced the seething mob in Pilate's judgment
hall; the same sweet Christ who took the babes upon His knee; the same
Divine Christ who, with hyssop and gall, and mingled blood and tears,
passed death's dread portals on the dark brow of Calvary. The same grand
figure, but quaintly dressed in words that savoured of the London slums and
of the soldier's camp, and yet so hedged around with earnest love and
childlike faith that all its grossest trappings fell away and left us
nothing but the ideal Christ.
Once more we heard the distant batteries speak to those whose hands had
rudely grasped the Empire's flag, and every rock, and hill, and crag, and
stony height took up the echo, like a lion's roar, until the whispering
wind was tremulous with sound. Then all was hushed except the preacher's
voice.
"Prepare ter meet yer God! I've come ter tell yer all abart a General whose
armies hold ther City of Eternal Life. If you are wounded, throw yer rifles
down, 'nd 'e will send the ambulance of 'is love, with Red Cross angels,
and 'is adjutant, whose name is Mercy, to dress yer wounds. Throw down yer
rifles 'nd surrender. No rebels can enter the City of Eternal Life. You
can't storm ther walls, Or take ther gates at ther point of ther baynit,
for ther ramparts are guarded 'nd ther sentries never sleep. When ther
bugles sound ther larst reville you will ever 'ear, 'nd ther colonel, whose
name is Death, gives the order ter march, you'll have nothink to fear
abart, if yer bandoliers are full o' faith 'nd yer rifles are sighted with
good works. Yer uniforms may be ragged, and you may not even have a
corporal's stripe to show; but if yer can pass ther sentries fearlessly,
you'll find a general's commission waitin' for yer just inside ther gate.
But yer earn't fool with my General. Remember this: ther password is,
'Repentance,' 'nd nothink else will do. The sentry on duty will see you
comin' and will challenge you. 'Who goes there?' 'Friend!' 'Advance,
friend, 'nd give ther counter-sign!' If you say, 'Good works,' you'll find
'is baynit up against yer chest. If yer say you forgot to get it, you'll be
in ther clink in 'ell in ther twinklin' of an eye; but if yer say, loud 'nd
clear, 'Repentance,' 'e will lower 'is baynit 'nd say, 'Pass, friend. All's
well!'"