Friday, November 8, 2013

Sunday, November 8.—I am kept quite busy; I do not have time to talk or read to the men. Mrs. W.’s health being bad, she was advised a change of air, and has gone to Mobile.

Captain Smith, one of my Corinth patients, called to see me. He has never wholly recovered from his wound. He was appointed major of his regiment, and had to resign on account of his health, lie is now chaplain of the regiment. He is hopeful about our cause, as indeed all our soldiers are.

I have received a letter from a Kentucky friend, and with it a trophy found on the late battle-field. It is a kind of book, called “The Holy Comforter,” in which are appropriate selections from Scripture. It is for the use of a sick-room.

My friend says he can not see what such people as the enemy have to do with any thing of that kind, and wishes they would only profit by such teachings. He forgot that wicked people would not put on a cloak of any thing that is wicked wherewith to cover evil, as then it would be no mask.

When we look at the history of the world, and the persecutions, called religious ones, how little the calm and holy spirit of religion has had to do with it all!

Christianity breathes nothing but peace and good-will toward men; but if men, in their blindness and evil hearts, pervert it, it loses none of its sanctity or truthfulness, but only adds tenfold to the condemnation of those who abuse it. The devil quoted Scripture, why may not his followers?

I am not one of those who say there are no Christians in the North, because of the terrible blasphemy which is now raging there. If we are to believe their own papers, the birthday of Tom Paine is kept as a grand festival; and men wearing the garb of the sanctuary cry, Down with the Holy Bible because it upholds slavery. To use the language of a southern poet, where

“A preacher to the pulpit comes,

And calls upon the crowd,

For southern creeds and southern hopes,

To weave a bloody shroud.

Beside the prayer-book on his desk,

The bullet-mold is seen,

And near the Bible’s golden clasp

The dagger’s stately sheen.

The blessed cross of Calvary

Becomes a sign of bale,

Like that which blazed when chieftains raised

The clansmen of the Gael!”

I think, even with the true picture which the above represents, that there are many good and true Christians in the North—men who have not let the wicked one take possession of them altogether. And it is with the hope that we have many such that I look forward to that happy day when they will rise in their might, and with one voice demand that the demagogues and fanatics who are now having full sway desist from this unholy strife, and treat us as they should. They seem to have forgotten that we are God’s creatures as well as they, with at least as much power of reasoning.

My Kentucky friend says he has just heard from his home, and that his wife is dying, and he is not permitted to go and see her. It is not much wonder that he is so bitter.