J. William Jones, Christ in the camp, or religion in Lee's army

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In addition to these, there were other associations of a like character successfully at work in this wide and inviting field.

The Georgia Bible and Colportage Society, Rev. F. M. Haygood, agent, was actively engaged in the work of printing and circulating tracts in the armies of the South-west.

The South Carolina Tract Society was an earnest ally in the holy cause, and sent out its share of tracts to swell the vast number scattered like leaves of the Tree of Life all over the land.

The presses in every great commercial centre were busy in throwing off religious reading of every description, and yet so great was the demand that the supply was unequal to it during the whole of the war. At Richmond, Raleigh, Columbia, Charleston, Augusta, Mobile, Macon, Atlanta, and other cities, good men labored day and night to give our gallant soldiers the bread of life; and still the cry from the army was, “Send us more good books.” At one period of the war the Baptist Board alone circulated 200,000 pages of tracts weekly, besides Testaments and hymn-books; and, with the joint labors of other societies, we may estimate that when the work was at its height not less than 1,000,000 pages a week were put into the hands of our soldiers.

Rev. Dr. C. H. Ryland, who was a colporter in the army during the first year (sustained by his own church, Bruington, King and Queen county), and afterwards depositary, agent and treasurer of the army colportage work of the Virginia Baptist Sunday-school and Publication Board, has kindly furnished me the following additional facts and figures.

The Bible Board, in its report for 1861, said: ‘We earnestly suggest to the association the importance of making prompt and adequate provision for supplying our soldiery with the Bible. While in aid of what we all esteem a noble and sacred cause, the protection of our homes, our firesides, our altars, our mothers, sisters, wives and little ones from desecration and outrage by wicked and cruel invaders, we put into the hands of our brave defenders appropriate weapons; let us not fail to supply them with the means of waging an even higher and holier, because a spiritual and Divine, warfare. Let us give every man not already armed with it “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” ’

At the meeting of the same body in 1863, this board was ‘instructed ’