But that Sunday in the spring of the Great War the minister had us
all, even the young and thoughtless, in the hollow of his hand. It
was the 18th chapter of Second Samuel that he had read earlier in
the Service, and now he was opening its meaning to us with deep-felt
realisation of those great dramatic episodes.

We saw the young man Absalom die. We saw Cushi start to bear his
tidings to the king. We watched Ahimaaz swift on his track. We
marked the king's anxious waiting, and the fixed gaze of the watchman
on the city walls. We strained in the long strain of the runners. We
fainted with the fears of a father's heart. We saw Ahimaaz outrun his
rival yet falter in his message. And we heard the blow upon David's
heart of Cushi's stroke. "And the king said unto Cushi, Is the young
man Absalom safe? And Cushi answered, The enemies of my lord the king,
and all that rise against thee to do thee hurt, be as that young man
is."

There were tears in the women's eyes as the preacher called us to see
the stricken and weeping king climbing with weary step to the chamber
over the gate. And in a solemn hush we heard the cry of his anguish
"--O my son Absalom! my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died
for thee. O Absalom, my son, my son!"

We had anxious fathers and mothers and wives and sisters in the
Church that day, and it was as though our own sorrows were all
gathered up into the old, unhappy, far-off things of which the
preacher spoke. I had a dear one to be concerned for, but I was
thinking now of some one else. For Widow McDonald was there, and the
days had grown into weeks since last she had tidings of John--and he
was her only boy.