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10 THE GRA Y AND THE BL UE IN PRAYER AND SONG By General Clement A. Evans. | I earnestly invite the assistance of the surviving chaplains and soldiers of both armies to furnish The Golden Age with incidents and other informa tion through which the people of our country may learn that the religious life of the men who offered up themselves in battle was not neglected. The subject, by its very nature, is exhaustible. Within a year the story can be told. Soldiers who were witnesses are passing away. I beg that this call fcr assistance may be heeded in the spirit in which it is given. Clement A. Evans. Lee and the Privates at Prayer in Line of Battle. While the army of Northern Virginia confronted Gen. Meade at Mint Rpn, November, 1863, and a battle was momentarily expected, General Lee, with a number of staff officers, was riding down his line of battle, when just in the rear of Gen. A. P. Hill’s position they came upon a part of soldiers engaged in one of those prayer meetings which they so often held on the eve of battle. An attack from the enemy seemed emminent, and the mind and heart of the great chieftain was full of the expected com bat. Yet, as he saw those young veterans bowed in prayer, he instantly dismounted, uncovered his head and joined in the simple worship. The rest of the party followed his example, and those Christian privates found themselves leading the devotions of their loved and honored chieftain. How the Young Soldiers Went to the Scene of War. In the very admirable -work, called “Christ in the Camp,” by Rev. J. Wm. Jones, D.D., who is now chaplain general of the United Confederate Veterans, he tells how the young men were sent into the perils of war, as follows: “Scarcely a company moved without some public religious service, and it was considered a most im portant part of each man’s equipment that he should carry in his knap-sack a copy of God’s word. All our evangelical denominations were well represented in the rank arid file of our army, and many of our preachers felt it their duty to go to the front ac companied by the very flower of their young men. Os the first "four companies from Georgia to arrive in Virginia, three of the captains were earnest Christians, and fifty of one of the companies were members of the same church. A regiment stationed near Portsmouth, in June, 1861, was reported to contain 400 of the same denomination, and the regiment had in its ranks five ministers of the gospel. The Rockbridge Artillery in that year contained seven Masters of Arts of the University of "Vir ginia, forty-two other college graduates, nineteen theological students, and a proportion of Christian men v’hich was large and highly gratifying. ” The Golden Age for March 1, 1906. Lee’s Old Prayer Book. Lee had left his old prayer book, which he had borne through the Mexican war, and on his mention ing the fact to a Richmond bookseller, from whom he was buying a new one, was at once offered a dozen new ones in exchange for the treasure. Lee turned over one of these to Dr. J. Wm. Jones, chaplain, to be used as gifts to private soldiers. Each soldier who was made a recipient of one of these books, found a line written therein by the great general, which enhanced its value beyond price, not withstanding its secred character. That line was simply this: Presented to by R. E. Lee. Lee’s Old Pocket Bible. The trust of lee in the truth of the Bible was evinced in many ways through his entire life. His confidence in it seems to have been absolute, simple and unwavering. So that he used it daily and reverently as his counselor. Even amidst the active duties of his high position in the great campaigns of the Confederate Army, it is stated that he habit ually read his Bible. One pocket Bible bearing the signs of having been well used many years, which was in His room when he died, bears his own signa ture as “R. E. Lee, Lieut.-Colonel United States Army. ” In a letter to the President of the Virginia Bible Society, while he was himself President of the Rockbridge Bible Society, in April, 1869, he writes these lines which are suggestively pertinent in our time, as well as they were in the year when they were written: “If the managers could suggest any plan in addition to the abundant distribution of the Scripture to cause the mass of the people to meditate on their simple truth, and in the language of Wilberforce, Ho read the Bible—read the Bible so as to become acquainted with the experience and realities of religion—the greatest good would be accomplished.’ ” General Lee understood that the Bible was its own interpreter to whoever searched the Scriptures with devout intent to know and obey the truth. A Noble Christian Captain. Maj. Robert Stiles, who was adjutant of a battal ion of artillery in the army of Northern Virginia, related the following story in a public speeech soon after the war: “One of our batteries was composed chiefly of gallant but wild and rechkless men. The captaincy becoming vacant, a Georgia preacher was send to command them. The men, at first amused and half insulted, soon learned to idolize, as well as to fear their preacher captain who proved to be all in all such a man as one seldom sees, a combination of Praise-God Barebone, and Sir Phillip Sidney with a dash of Hedley Vicars about him. He had all the stern grit of the Puritan with much of the chivalry of the Cavalier and the zeal of the Apostle Paul. There was at that time but one other Christian in his battery, a gunner, named Allan Moore, also a Georgian, a noble man and an enthusiastic soldier, hue only other living members of Moore’s family was with him, a boy—his little brother—not more than thirteen years old, and the devotion of the elder to the younger was as tender as a mother’s. The little fellow was a strange prematurely old child, and a hero in a fight. ’Twas at Second Cold Harbor, 1864, where we had been shelling all’ day and about sunset I was visiting the batteries to arrange the guns for night firing. As I approached the Cap tain’s position I saw Moore at the trail adjusting his piece for the night’s work, and heard the Cap tain’s stern voice, “Sit down Moore, your gun is well enough, and the sharpshooting is not over yet.” Moore replied, “One moment Captain; my trail’s a hairsbreadth too much to the right,” and as he bent over the handspike to adjust his gun that sharp un mistakable crash of a bullet against the skull was heard and all was over. It was the last shot of night. I rode rapidly to the spot and saw Moore fallen over the trail, the blood gushing over his face from the wound. The little brother was already with him. No wild cry, no tumult of grief. He knelt on the earth, and lifting More on his knees wiped the blood from his forehead with the cuff of his tattered sleeve and kissed the pale face again and again. Presently he roze, gazed upon his dead brother, and breathing the saddest words I ever heard, said just these words: 1 1 am alone in the world,’ The preacher captain instantly placing his hand on the boy’s shoulder said tenderly asd earnest ly ‘No, my child, you are not alone, for the Bible says when thy father and mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up. Allan was both father and mother to you, and now, as he is gone, I will take you up.’ The good captain fulfilled his word. Such are many of the singular incidents of actual and cruel war. Moods—Past and Present. By EUGENE RAY. For two or three days I have taken my pen in my hand to write to you. It seems that I don’t know anything to say. I have begun about one hundred times as follows: “I feel bad; I have a mood.” So it was that, after making all these attempts, with a dozen or more subjects of interest, I was compelled to write only of moods. I haVe waited for a change—for usually I am like the moon. I changed at last four times every twenty-eight days. I am the same old fellow, however, although I change. The moon and myself can do that—each can change and does change, and yet remains the same. Seriously as this particular mood affects me, I do not lose discretion. I am, it is true, disposed to quarrel and fight, yet I am careful not to cross and insult a man. I am disagreeable and disposed to do some one bodily injury, yet in the presence of men, I am quiet and peaceable.' I wait till I am at home, in presence of my poor little helpless wife and innocent children—all small, my oldest boy two years now, to be dangers. There in the still ness and quiet of night, in my home, where no po liceman ever comes, and at an hour when the neigh bors do not call, I am cruel nad abusive. I aseert my authority, compelling every one to stand around; and as the wife and children crince in the corner of the room, or slip away to bed, I grow even more cruel. After driving them off, I sit awhile alone, and later giving the cat a kick and slamming several doors, I retire, feeling that I am a much abused man. That’s the way to do it when in one of these moods. You are taking no risks by offending the members of your family; you may with impunity and perfect safety vent your spleen at home. Os course, one with so much sense—with such saga cious judgment—will not try it on the folks down town, at the office and on the street. If you should, you might cause a breach of the peace and get the beating you so much deserve. We men are very bright and wise. We know -who to offend and im pose on—we know, despite the fact we are in a mood, having a spell, a fit. God bless the man who doesn’t permit his feel ings—his worst self to control him, but who, des pite them and it, restrains his tongue as well as his hand. A fellow who has these attacks which put him all out of “sorts,” should go into his closet, and if he will not go, he should be forced in it, and there remain till he changes. A fellow accustomed to having moods should be a teacher in the public schools a few years—that is, if he has sense enough to teach. If he has any sense, he will there soon discover that his pupils will not respect him if he doesn’t control himself, despite his moods or his impulses and emotions. I know. I was a school teacher several years. I don’t like to admit it, but I was. I will say, in justice to myself, that I am getting over it. If I lire the allotted time, I will, I believe, recover entirely. At the present time, fifteen years since I quit teach ing, lam only “eccentric.” When I quit teaching (Continued on page 13.)