An Echo of Antietam | Page 9

wise young
merchant of his blood, who having seen a way to barter his life at
incredible advantage, at no less a rate indeed than a man's for a nation's,
had not let slip so great an opportunity.
So he went on, still likening the life of a man to the wares of a
shopkeeper, worth to him only what they can be sold for and a loss if
overkept, till those who listened began to grow ill at ease in presence of
that flag-draped coffin, and were vaguely troubled because they still
lived.
Then he spoke of those who had been bereaved. This soldier, he said,
like his comrades, had staked for his country not only his own life but
the earthly happiness of others also, having been fully empowered by
them to do so. Some had staked with their own lives the happiness of
parents, some that of wives and children, others maybe the hopes of
maidens pledged to them. In offering up their lives to their country they
had laid with them upon the altar these other lives which were bound
up with theirs, and the same fire of sacrifice had consumed them both.
A few days before, in the storm of battle, those who had gone forth had
fulfilled their share of the joint sacrifice. In a thousand homes, with
tears and the anguish of breaking hearts, those who had sent them forth
were that day fulfilling theirs. Let them now in their extremity seek
support in the same spirit of patriotic devotion which had upheld their
heroes in the hour of death. As they had been lifted above fear by the
thought that it was for their country they were dying, not less should
those who mourned them find inspiration in remembering it was for the
nation's sake that their tears were shed, and for the country that their
hearts were broken. It had been appointed that half in blood of men and
half in women's tears the ransom of the people should be paid, so that
their sorrow was not in vain, but for the healing of the nation.
It behooved these, therefore, to prove worthy of their high calling of
martyrdom, and while they must needs weep, not to weep as other

women wept, with hearts bowed down, but rather with uplifted faces,
adopting and ratifying, though it might be with breaking hearts, this
exchange they had made of earthly happiness for the life of their native
land. So should they honor those they mourned, and be joined with
them not only in sacrifice but in the spirit of sacrifice.
So it was in response to the appeal of this stricken girl before him that
the minister talked of the country, and to such purpose was it that the
piteous thing she had dreaded, the feeling, now when it was forever too
late, that it would have been better if she had kept her lover back, found
no place in her heart. There was, indeed, had she known it, no danger at
all that she would be left to endure that, so long as she dreaded it, for
the only prayer that never is unanswered is the prayer to be lifted above
self. So to pray and so to wish is but to cease to resist the divine
gravitations ever pulling at the soul. As the minister discoursed of the
mystic gain of self-sacrifice, the mystery of which he spoke was
fulfilled in her heart. She appeared to stand in some place overarching
life t and death, and there was made partaker of an exultation whereof
if religion and philosophy might but catch and hold the secret, their
ancient quest were over.
Grazing through streaming eyes upon the coffin of her lover, she was
able freely to consent to the sacrifice of her own life which he had
made in giving up his own.

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