Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 12.djvu/165

Rh whoever it is, he preaches the Gospel. He does not discuss the "relation of science to religion," or the slavery question, or the causes which led to the war, or the war itself. He does not indulge in abusive epithets of the invaders of our soil, or seek to fire his hearers with hatred or vindictiveness toward the enemy. He is looking in the eyes of heroes of many a battle, and knows that the "long roll" may beat in the midst of his sermon and summon the men to battle and to death, and therefore he "speaks as a dying man to dying men," telling with simple earnestness "the old, old story" of salvation, and holding throughout his sermon the individual attention of the vast crowd. There are tears in eyes "unused to the melting mood," and, when at the close of his sermon the invitation is given and the congregation unites in singing some familiar old hymn, there will be 50, 100 or 200 who will promptly ask an interest in the prayers of God's people, or profess their faith in Christ. There were at least 500 professions of conversion in this great revival in the Episcopal church in Fredericksburg. I went on Sunday evening, September 6, 1863, to preach in Wilcox's Alabama brigade, at sunset, by request of Dr. J. J. D. Renfroe, chaplain of the Tenth Alabama regiment, and as I stood up before them there seemed to me to be a solid acre of eager, upturned faces. I preached from the text, "The blood of Christ Jesus His son cleanseth us from all sin," and at the close of the sermon there were 610 to ask for the prayers of God's people, 210 of whom professed faith in Christ before they left the ground. During this great revival and at other periods of special activity many chaplains made it a rule to preach at least once every day, and many for weeks together averaged two sermons a day to congregations of from 1,000 to 3,000 listeners.

As illustrating how men would come out to preaching under difficulties, one of the chaplains reported that one Sunday in the early winter of 1863 there came a fall of