On Sunday the whole plantation went to Church. The negroes sat in thegallery and listened with rapt attention to the service. They joined itsritual and its songs with their white folks in equal sincerity and moreprofound emotion.
At the crossroads the stream of carriages, carts and buggies andhorseback riders parted. To the right, the way led to the EpiscopalChurch, the old English establishment of the State, long sinceseparated from secular authority, yet still bearing the seal of countyaristocracy. Colonel Lee was a devout member of this church. Mrs. Leewas the inspiration of its charities and the soul of its activities.
A few of the negroes of the estate attended it with the master andmistress of Arlington. By far the larger number turned to the left atthe cross roads and found their way to the Antioch Baptist Church. Thesimplicity of its service, the fervor of its singing, and above allthe emotional call of its revivals which swept the country each summerappealed to the warm-hearted Africans. They took to the Baptist andMethodist churches as ducks to water. The master made no objection tothe exercise of their right to worship God as their consciences called.
He encouraged their own preachers to hold weekly prayer meetings andexhort his people in the assembling places of the servants.
Nor did he object to the dance which Sam, who was an Episcopalian,invariably organized on the nights following prayer and exhortation.
This last Sunday was one of tender farewells to friends and neighbors.
They crowded about the Colonel after the services. They wished himhealth and happiness and success in his new work.
The last greeting he got from an old bent neighbor of ninety years. Itbrought a cloud to his brow. All day and into the night the thoughtpersisted and its shadow chilled the hours of his departure. JamesNelson was his name, of the ancient family of the Nelsons of Yorktown.
He held Lee\'s hand a long time and blinked at him with a pair of keen,piercing eyes--keen from a spiritual light that burned within. He spokein painful deliberation as if he were translating a message.
"I am glad you are going to West Point, Colonel Lee. You will have timefor thinking. You will have time to study the art of war as great mindsmust study it alone if they lead armies to victory. Generals are notdeveloped in the saddle on our plains fighting savages. Our country isgoing to need a leader of supreme genius. I saw him in a vision, thenight I read in the _Richmond Enquirer_ that you had been called to WestPoint. I shall not see you again. I am walking now into the sunset.
Soon the shadows will enfold me and I shall sleep the long sleep. I amcontent. I have lived. I have loved. I have succeeded and failed. I haveswept the gamut of human passion and human emotion. I have no right tomore. Yet I envy you the glory of manhood in the crisis that is coming.
May the God of our fathers keep you and teach you and bless you is myprayer."Lee was too deeply moved............