Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 16.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

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[196] shortly to appear, have treated this subject at large; but I am very sure that neither will resent the appearance on the field of an humbler ally in the laudable effort to present the Southern soldier in his noblest aspect—as a Christian warrior.

I shall allow myself large latitude to-day. I shall endeavor to refute what is perhaps the popular impression, that a soldier is a reckless dare-devil, fearing nothing in the heavens above or in the earth beneath. I shall endeavor to show that Cromwell was right when he said: ‘Truly I think he that prays and preaches best will fight best. I know nothing that will give like courage and confidence as the knowledge of God in Christ will.’

It were easy to make out an a priori case. It were easy to show that the religion of Christ enters into the individual, enhances and exalts the faculties and powers of mind and soul, supplies him with new and stronger motives for doing everything that is right, and therefore, all other things being equal, a man should be a better soldier, as he should be a better farmer, merchant, physician, lawyer or artisan, because he is a Christian.

But I shall approach this subject from another standpoint. I shall lay down the proposition, that the annals of religion have given us the best exemplars of generalship, of heroic action, and of personal bravery which, in all ages of the world, the history of war contains.

I am aware that on the first statement of this proposition it will be questioned, if not denied. The objector will point to the heroes, whose deeds have been preserved in classic literature, and whose faith was in false gods; he will point to an Alexander, a Hannibal and a Caesar; he will point to the intrepid valor of the Spartan and the irresistible courage of the Roman, and say, ‘These men owed nothing to a religious faith; produce, from any quarter, names worthy to be compared with them.’

In matters such as these we are very much controlled by traditional estimates. The splendid literature of the Greeks and Romans has immortalized the deeds of their heroes, the battles won by their armies, and the victories achieved by the strategy of their generals; and that literature has moulded the thought of the world. The estimates thus formed have become fixed; and Alexander and Caesar and Hannibal have become the world's standard in generalship, and the Spartan and the Roman have become the world's standard in courage and intrepidity. It may be rank heresy to question the unbroken tradition of the centuries; but, for my part, I have never regarded these estimates as final.