The Sky Pilot of No Man's Land by Ralph Connor

Author:Ralph Connor [Connor, Ralph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Western
Published: 2012-02-05T20:19:40+00:00

Chapter XII

A Man Of God

* * *

Barry was standing beside his father's grave, in a little plot in the Boulogne cemetery set apart for British officers. They had, one by one, gone away and left him until, alone, he stood looking down on the simple wooden cross on which were recorded the name, age, and unit of the soldier with the date of his death, and underneath the simple legend, eloquent of heroic sacrifice, "Died of wounds received in action."

Throughout the simple, beautiful burial service he had not been acutely conscious of grief. Even now he wondered that he could shed no tears. Rather did an exultant emotion fill his soul as he looked around upon the little British plot, with its rows of crosses, and he was chiefly conscious of a solemn, tender pride that he was permitted to share that glorious offering which his Empire was making for the saving of the world. But, in this moment, as he stood there alone close to his father's grave, and surrounded by those examples of high courage and devotion, he became aware of a mighty change wrought in him during these last three days. He had experienced a veritable emancipation of soul. He was as if he had been born anew.

The old sense of failure in his work, the feeling of unfitness for it, and the old dread of it, had been lifted out of his soul, and not only was he a new man, but he felt himself to be charged with a new mission, because he had a new message for his men. No longer did he conceive himself as a moral policeman or religious censor, whose main duty it was to stand in judgment over the faults and sins of the men of his battalion. No more would the burden of his message be a stern denunciation of these faults and sins. Standing there to-day, he could only wonder at his former blindness and stupidity and pride.

"Who am I," he said in bitter self-humiliation, "that I should judge my comrades? How little I knew myself."

"A man of God," his superintendent had said in his last letter to him. Yes, truly a man of God! A MAN not God! A MAN not to sit in God's place in judgment upon his fellow sinners, but to show them God, their Father.

Barry thought of the frequent rebukes he had administered to the officers and men for what he considered to be their sins. He groaned aloud.

"God will forgive me, I know," he said. "But will they?"

He tried to recall what the burden of his message to his battalion had been during these past months, but to him there came no clear and distinct memory of aught but warnings and denunciations, with reference to what he judged to be faulty in their conduct. To-day it seemed to him both sad and terrible.

How had he so failed and so misconceived the Master's plain teaching? He moved among sinners all His days, not with denunciations in His heart or voice, but only with pity and love.

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