The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1899-05-17
Our Soldiers Bibles.

General Toral has commented in a
Spanish journal on the fact that his
men during the battle of Santiago,
when they had opportunity to exam
Inc the American dead, usually found a
Bible or Testament on the bodies.
He is unable to reconcile this discovery
with his belief that the Americans are
nation of hypocrites, dishonest, vain
glorious and bloodthirsty.
Perhaps if General Toral could have
entered thousands of American city
and farm homes last April he would
have noticed a gray-haired woman or a
young girl on whose bosom CLEANED
the badge of social purity writing with
trembling hands on the fly-leaf Of the
sacred book:
"To John, From his Affectionate
Mother Tor Sister,"
And if General Toral had looked
closely ne would have seen that on the
tly-leaf, just below the writing, or per-
maps Immediately upon the name,
there were stains as if tears had fallen
from eyes that were to know no rest
until the soldier boy came home. If
this be hypocrisy, if it be no sign of a
deeper and truer undereurrent Of life
yelling in the great national heart,
then General Toral is entitled TO make
all that his mite an ~.f q
The American does not carry his re-
ligion on the sleeves Of his coat. 1t
has been said that the American, Of all
nationalities, most held his religion in
reserve for a crisis, for an hour when
the soul is tried upon the rack Of temp
tation. If this be true, what specta-
Gle Of man when, on uncoyering the
bosoms Of 80 per cent. Of the American
dead, fallen between SibOney and San
tiago, those who came to bury found
blood-stained or bullet pierced the word
of the Scriptures. 1t matters little how
the truth comes to man, SO that the
truth be found with him when his bat
tie song is at an end.
General Bates, General Roosevelt,
even our own Colonel Turner, COM
mented at the end Of the late war on
the eompanionship there appeared to
be between the men in the ranks and
these little volumes given to them by
dear hands. There was comment also
that the volume was rarely eonspieu-
ously displayed, that only on the trans
ports or in the late hours Of the night,
or when on the long and deadly waits
in the jungles, did the books come out.
Then they were handled shyly, per-
haps because they seemed as sacred As
the name Of the woman who CAV
them. If one We're to listen to some
arguments, perhaps those of General
Toral, Il might have been thought that
men going into battle would have been
given a pocket volume of "Voltaire"
or of later-day poems, or a bit Of the
satire OF IngersoIl. But singularly
enough such edifying works were not
selected, and the wounded man who
was brought to the hospital tent did
not ask for them. He was content if
the letter from home could be read to
him, or as the shadows came upon his
eyes that the old song Of Israel should
be repeated to him while his soul slip
ped away to the sweet fields Of Eden.
Is there not something more than
the mere influence Of orthodox, or of a
set theology, in this death struggle of
Johnson, private Of the Fourth Infant
~, at Sibony, who, turning and toss
ing, called 20 his nurse to read to him.
In the tent there was not even a scrap
OF paper. That ma.tered nothing TO
him. be indicated with his head that
she should go to his blouse. She did
50, and found in the inner pocket an
Old Testament, given him by an Iowa
mother. She turned page after page,
wondering what he would care for, IN
til her eyes chanced upon the lines:
'As the hart panteth after the water
brooks, so pantsth my soul for thee, o
God"
1t was sufficient. There came to this
American soldiers face one gleam of
radiance, one last interblending of the
sunlight of life and the hereafter. and
he was without days. Chicago Times
Herald.