A dozen rough but brave soldiers were playing cards one night in the camp. “What on earth is that?” suddenly cried the ringleader, stopping in the midst of the game to listen. In a moment the whole squad was listening to a low, solemn voice, which came from a tent occupied by several recruits, who had arrived in the camp that day. The ringleader approached the tent on tip-toe. “Boys, he’s praying!” he roared out. “Three cheers for the parson!” shouted another of the group as the prayer ended. “You watch things for three weeks! I’ll show you how to take the religion out of him!” said the first speaker, laughing. He was a big man, and the ringleader in mischief. The recruit was a slight, pale-faced young fellow of about eighteen years of age.
During the next three weeks he was the butt of the camp. Then several of the men, conquered by his patience and uniform kindness, begged the others to stop annoying him. “Oh,” said the ringleader, “the little ranter is no better than the rest of us. He’s only making believe to be pious. When we get under fire you’ll see him run. Those pious folks don’t like the smell of gunpowder. I have no faith in their religion.”
In a few weeks the camp was broken up, and shortly afterward the troops engaged in a terrible battle. The company to which the young recruit belonged had a desperate struggle. The brigade was driven back, and when the line was reformed behind the breastworks they had built in the morning, he was missing. When last seen he was almost surrounded by enemies, but fighting desperately. At his side stood the big fellow who had made the poor lad a constant object of ridicule. Both were given up as lost. Suddenly the big man was seen tramping through the underbrush, bearing the dead body of the recruit. Reverently he laid the corpse down, saying, as he wiped the blood from his own face, “Boys, I couldn’t leave him—he fought so! I thought he deserved a decent burial.”
During a lull in the battle the men dug a shallow grave, and tenderly laid the remains therein. Then, as one was cutting the name and regiment upon a board, the big man said with a husky voice, “I guess you had better put the words Christian Soldier’ somewhere. He deserves the title, and it’ll be some amends for our abuse.” There was not a dry eye among those rough men as they stuck the rudely carved board at the head of the grave. “Well,” said one, “he was a Christian soldier if ever there was one; and,” turning to the ringleader, “he didn’t run, did he, when he smelt gunpowder?” “Run?” answered the big man, his voice tender with emotion, Why, he didn’t budge an inch! But what’s that to standing for weeks our fire like a man, and never sending a word back? He just stood by his flag, and let us pepper him—he did!” When the regiment marched away, that rude headboard remained to tell what a power lies in a Christian life, even among the ungodly. ―The Bugle Call.