better of it, came to his messmate who had spanked him, and apologized for the blow he had given him, as well as for making him do double duty.
(2731)
RESPONDING TO THE CALL
I went a few weeks ago out to Bellefonte,
Pennsylvania, to attend the dedication of the
gymnasium there built in memory of Hugh
McAllister Beaver; and as I came away, his
father gave me the history of his regiment
in the Civil War, the 148th Pennsylvania
Volunteers. One of the first chapters of
all is entitled "The Sister's Story." It is the
story of how some of the lads of the regiment
came to be enrolled. It was in the year
of 1862. President Lincoln had issued a call
for 300,000 men and then a call for 300,000
more, and the War Department had drawn
up provisions for a draft in case the men
were not voluntarily offered; and this one
county in Pennsylvania did not wish to
stand under the ignominy of a draft, but
desired that the men who were to go from
that county should offer themselves freely
in response to that call. This sister tells of
how the appeal came to the little village in
which she and her brother lived, in Center
County, Pennsylvania. There was a small
country academy there, and the summer
vacation was just over, and the boys and
girls had come back from the farms for the
first day of the academy year again. She
said that she came walking up the village
street with a friend of hers, another little
child, and as they came up the pathway
through the yard of the school, arm in arm,
with a little bunch of flowers held in both
their hands and their heads bowed down
very close together, as little girls would talk
with one another confidentially, they were
suddenly imprest with the silence of the
school-yard. Instead of the noise of play
and the chatter of an opening day at school,
all the boys and the little girls were sitting
quietly on the school stoop, and when they
came they asked the older boys what the
trouble was. Was there any specially dark
tidings from the war? And they said: "No,
it was not that; but Professor Patterson had
decided to enlist and he wanted to know
how many of the boys of the school would
go with him, and a meeting was to be held
in the village church that evening, in which
they were all to be given an opportunity to
say what they would do. She said that at
once she left her little companion and sought
out her brother, and she said to him, "Harry,
are you going to enlist?" and he said, "Yes,
he thought he would." "Well, but," the
mother argued after they reached home,
"you are only sixteen years old; you can
not enlist without father's allowing you to
go, and you know how we have all built on
you, on your brightness, and are making
sacrifices at home in order that you might
go to college. You must not go away now
to the war." He insisted that when the opportunity
came he was afraid he would have
to respond. And the sister tells how that
night, in the little village church, when Mr.
McAllister, of Bellefonte, made his appeal
for volunteers and had finished, the principal
of the academy rose with a long paper
in his hand; and her girlish heart almost
stopt beating when she realized what it was
that he was going to do, and then when he
had made his careful, simple statement as to
the purpose that led him and the motives
that constrained him, he said he was going
to call the school roll, and every boy who
wanted to could respond "Ready" to his
name; and in a silence like the silence of
death he began at the top of the line:
"Andrews," "Ready"; "Baker," "Ready"; and
when he came down to K the little girl said
her breath just absolutely stopt, and when
the name Keller was called, she heard a
clear, boyish voice answer without a tremor,
"Ready" to his name.—R. E. Speer, "Student
Volunteer Movement," 1906.
(2732)
Response—See Character.
Response of God—See Fatherhood.
RESPONSIBILITY
God has crammed both thy palms with living seed;
Let not a miser's clutch keep both hands tight,
But scatter on the desert's barren need,
That fragrant blossoms may reward God's sight.
God has dipt deep thy cup into his spring,
Which drippeth over, it is so well filled;
Lend it to some parched life, and let it bring
Laughter and song to voices drought has stilled.
God gave to thee His only well-loved Christ,
Whose steps have smoothed the road that leads thee home;
Tell those whose road is rough, whose way is missed,
That He has called all weary men to come.
