It was the evening after a great battle. All day long the din of strife had echoed far, and thickly strewn lay the shattered forms of those who lately erect and exultant in the flush and strength of manhood. Among the many who bowed to the conqueror Death that night was a youth in the freshness of mature life. The strong limbs lay listless, and the dark hair was matted with gore on the pale, broad forehead. His eyes were closed. As one at first thought him dead; but the white lips moved, and slowly, in weak tones, he repeated:

“Now I lay me down to sleep;
I pray the Lord my soul to keep;
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take;
And this I ask for Jesus’ sake.”

As he finished, he opened his eyes, and meeting the pitying gaze of a brother soldier, he exclaimed, “My mother taught me that when I was a little boy, and I have said it every night since I can remember. Before the morning dawns, I believe God will take my soul for ‘Jesus’ sake;’ but before I die I want to send a message to my mother.”

He was carried to a temporary hospital, and a letter was written to his mother, which he dictated, full of Christian faith and filial love. He was calm and peaceful. Just as the sun arose his spirit went home, his last articulate words being:

“I pray the Lord my soul to take;
And this I ask for Jesus’ sake.”

So died William B_______, of the Massachusetts volunteers. The prayer of childhood was the prayer of manhood. He learned it at his mother’s knee, in his far distant Northern home, and he whispered it in dying, when his young life ebbed away on a Southern battle-field. It was his nightly petition in life, and the angel who bore his spirit home to heaven, bore the sweet prayer his soul loved so well.

God bless the saintly words, alike loved and repeated by high and low, rich and poor, wise and ignorant, old and young, only second to our Lord’s prayer in beauty and simplicity. Happy the soul that can repeat it with the holy fervor of our dying soldier.

[1]