Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 11.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

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[156] wicked great man, Caesar or Napoleon, is sent among them to seduce them to their ruin. If they be worthy of greatness, and have in them any true substance to be kindled by the heroic fire, the good hero, your Moses or Washington, shall be sent unto them for deliverance. If it be not yet manifest to men whether the times be the one or the other, Amoritish, utterly reprobate, and fit only for anarchy or slavery, or else with seed of nobleness in them, and capable of true glory (though to Him who commissions the hero there be no mystery nor contingency which is not manifest), then will he send one, or peradventure several, who shall be touchstones to that people, to ‘try them so as by fire,’ whether there be worth in them or no. And then shall this God-sent man show forth an examplar to his people, which shall be unto them a test whether they, having eyes, see, or see not the true glory and right, and whether they have hearts to understand and love it. And then shall he bring nigh deliverances unto them, full of promise and hope, yet mutable, which arc God's overtures saying unto them: ‘Come now and let us reason together. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land; but if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword, for the mouth of the Lord-hath spoken it.’ Will ye, or will ye not? Thus was Jackson God's interrogatory to this people, saying to them: ‘Will ye be like him, and be saved? Lo, there! What would a nation of Jacksons be? That may ye be! How righteousness exalteth a people! Shall this judgment and righteousness “be the stability of thy times, O Confederate, and strength of thy salvation” ?’ And these mighty deliverances at Manassas, Winchester, Port Republic, Chickahominy, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, were they not manifest overtures to us to have the God of Jackson and Lee for our God, and be saved? ‘Here is the path; walk ye in it.’

And what said our people? Many honestly answered, ‘Yea, Lord, we will,’ of whom the larger part walked whither Jackson did, and now lie with him in glory. But another part answered, ‘Nay,’ and they live on such terms as we see, even such as they elected. To them, also, it was plain that Jackson's truth and justice and devotion to duty were the things that made him great and unconquerable. Even the wicked avouched this. Therefore a nation of such like men must needs be unconquerable and free. But they would not be free on such terms. Nay; they preferred rather to walk after their own vanities. Verily they have their reward! Let the contrast appear in two points. Jackson writes thus to his wife:

‘You had better not sell your coupons from the’ (Confederate)