Can't Stand It | AdventAI

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 23, 1865

Can't Stand It.

REV. MR. MERRILL, of Portland Maine, after the Battle of Antietam, found a number of wounded rebels in a barn and barn-yard, deserted by their surgeons, with no well man near to help them—the dying and the dead lying together for three days, amid the filth of the barn-yard, without food or drink. He immediately carried drink to them, procured ambulances, and proceeded to remove them to the field hospital first relieving their hunger with the supplies brought in the ambulances, and then beginning to wash them from the filth in which they had been left lying by their own officers and comrades. As he proceeded with this disgusting work of charity, he took off the shoes and stockings of a rebel, and began to wash his feet. The man began to sob and cry.

"What is the matter; do I hurt you?" said Mr. Merrill.

"No, you don't."

Mr. Merrill proceeded with his work, and again the man began to cry and sob.

"I really cannot go on to wash you, unless you tell me what is the matter."

"Matter enough. You call us rebels, and I suppose we are, for I fought agin that ere old flag; but when we're wounded, you come to us here, not like angels, but like the Lord Jesus Christ himself, washing our feet, and I can't stand—I can't stand it."