to confess and prepare for the great day to come.

Prescott was a sober man, one who controlled his emotions, but he could
not help being shaken by the scene, the like of which the world has not
witnessed since the Crusades--the vast forest, the solemn sky overhead,
the smoky fires below, and the fifty thousand in the shadow of immediate
death who hung on the words of one man.

The preacher talked of olden days, of the men who, girding themselves
for the fight, fell in the glory of the Lord. Theirs was a beautiful
death, he said, and forgiveness was for all who should do as they and
cast away their sins. Groans began to arise from the more emotional of
the soldiers; some wept, many now came forward and, confessing their
sins, asked that prayers be said for their souls. Others followed and
then they went forward by thousands. Over them still thundered the voice
of the preacher, denouncing the sin of this world and announcing the
glory of the world to come. Clouds swept up the heavens and the fires
burned lower, but no one noticed. Before them flashed the livid face and
burning eyes of the preacher, and he moved them with his words as the
helmsman moves the ship.

Denser and denser grew the throng that knelt at his feet and begged for
his prayers, and there was the sound of weeping. Then he ceased suddenly
and, closing his eyes and bending his head, began to pray. Involuntarily
the fifty thousand, too, closed their eyes and bent their heads.

He called them brands snatched from the burning; he devoted their souls
to God. There on their knees they had confessed their sins and he
promised them the life everlasting. New emotions began to stir the souls
of those who mourned. Death? What was that? Nothing. A mere dividing
place between mortality and immortality, a mark, soon passed, and
nothing more. They began to feel a divine fire. They welcomed wounds and
death, the immortal passage, and they longed for the battlefield and the
privilege of dying for their country. They thought of those among their
comrades who had been so fortunate as to go on before, and expected
joyfully soon to see them again.

Prescott looked up once, and the scene was more powerful and weird than
any he had ever seen before. The great throng of people stood there with
heads bowed listening to the single voice pouring out its invocation and
holding them all within its sweep and spell.

The preacher asked the blessing of God on every one and finishe