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“ [99] his salvation I But, oh! who can describe the blighting influence of one ungodly minister in a company or regiment! May God preserve our armies from all such!”

These extracts, which might be indefinitely multiplied, will show the religious animus of the Southern people when they entered upon the war.

We have now reached a point from which we may cast our eyes over the assembled hosts of the South, and mark the buddings of that glorious work of grace which is the great moral phenomenon of the present age.

There have been revivals in the midst of wars in other countries, and in other times; but history records none so deep, so pervasive, so well marked by all the characteristics of a divine work as that which shed its blessed light on the armies of the South in their struggle for independence.

So vast were the proportions of the revival in the second, third and fourth years of the war, that we are apt to overlook the first fruits in the opening of the conflict. In the spring of 1861 the troops were gathered at the important points of defence. The chief interest centred on Virginia, as it was felt that, after the affair of Fort Sumter, the storm would burst upon her soil.

In the armies stationed at Manassas, Winchester, Norfolk, Aquia Creek, and other places, the most cheering signs appeared.

Rev. C. F. Fry, of the Baptist Colportage Board, wrote from the Army in the Valley of Virginia:

I have visited most of the encampments in the Valley, and could have sold more than $100 worth of books a month if my assortment had been larger-especially if I could have had a good supply of Testaments. A captain said to me, ‘I am a sinner, and wish you to select some books to suit my case.’ I did so; and at night he called his men into line and asked me to pray for them. Another captain seemed much interested on the subject of religion. I tried to explain to him the way to be

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