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It is a great privilege and honor for me personally
to be asked to deliver a short address on the occasion of the Dedication
of this land, which we now can thankfully call our own Confederate
Memorial Park. This morning, in addition to my prayers of thanksgiving
to God for this land, I thank God for all of you here this morning
who labored so hard to make this Memorial Park a reality. Right
now I want to really ponder this crucial question. How were the
soldiers of the Confederate armies, as well as those soldiers and
civilian citizens who were tortured in POW camps like Pt. Lookout;
how were they able to fight on year after year; how were they able
to endure such horrible suffering, year after year, even unto death?
In reading many letters of soldiers, and studying
the history of the War for Southern Independence. I suggest they
were able to endure until death, or survive for several reasons.
First, they gave their lives in service, not only to the Confederate
Government and the States of their beloved Southland; but more
importantly, they gave their lives to Almighty. God, revealed in
the perfect manhood of Jesus Christ their Lord and Savior! Did
you know that the greatest revival of Christianity on the North
American continent took place in the Southern Armies and in places
like Pt. Lookout? More than two hundred thousand soldiers and sailors
renewed their faith or became Christians for the first time during
the War. When I read the letters of chaplains and soldiers about
their accepting the Lord Jesus Christ as Lord and Master of their
lives, my heart is warmed by the earnestness and piety of the soldiers.
Time will not permit me to tell you what happened spiritually to
many of these man, but let me give you an example of just one of
these conversion events. In General Gordon's Georgia Brigade, Chaplain
Woodfin wrote this report: One night after a prayer meeting, one
of the most wicked men in the brigade went back to his tent and
called his company to fall-in around him. He was a captain of infantry
and he said to his troops:
Men, I have led you into many a battle and you
have followed me like men. But alas! I have led you into all
manner of wickedness and vice and some of you have followed me
in this, too, I have now resolved to change my course. I have
gone to Christ in sincere repentance and faith. I have enlisted
under the banner of the cross and men, by God's help, to prove
to be a faithful soldier of Jesus ... I call upon you to follow
me as I shall try to follow the Captain of our salvation.
Now what happened next was amazing! The men crowded
around their captain, tears flowed freely and many earnest prayers
were offered. Chaplain Woodfin concluded his report of this conversation
by saying that "the once wicked captain continued talking
and praying until nearly every member of his company professed
belief in Jesus. And then those former ringleaders of vice became
a powerful influence for the religious good of their regiment and
brigade."
A second reason how and why our ancestors were
able to fight on year after year and endure suffering year after
year was because they believed that God would bless them in life
and in death in the defense of their homeland. They believed that
they were fighting for God's way of life for them. It is no wonder
then that the Great Seal of the Confederate States of America bears
the inscription, Deo Vindice, that is, God will vindicate. Had
there been no religious revival, the Southern Confederacy would
have collapsed much earlier under the massive and brutal aggression
of the Federal armies. Chaplain Gresham of General Wise's Brigade
of the Army of Northern Virginia wrote in April 1864:
Yesterday was the anniversary of the secession
of Virginia. Three years of carnage have passed by, many hearthstones
of the Old Dominion have been polluted, her fields have been
laid waste, blackened ruins mark where her homes stood. But the
same stem resolve continues in defiance of the foe, just as Virginia's
motto declared in an earlier war for independence -- Sic Semper
Tyrannis (This always to Tyrants).
Captain Gresham went on to say:
I do not doubt the valor or the patient endurance
of the army or the people at home; I only fear that we may trust
too much in the army of the flesh, that we may look to Lee and
Johnston instead of to the Lord of Hosts.
Had their been no revival of religious life and
belief in the Southern armies, the South would have collapsed much
earlier under the massive and brutal aggression of the Federal
armies.
The third reason they fought on and suffered
unto their own survival or death was the fact that one day if they
survived, they would have to start life allover again for their
families. They knew they could not do it alone. They needed God
to rebuild their shattered lives and to rebuild their Southern
culture and way of life that had been so terribly ravaged by the
invading Northern armies. We all know how the South suffered during
the so-called “Reconstruction” era, which was a vindictive
military occupation designed to humiliate the Southern people and
to destroy their culture and style of life. We all know how the
Lincoln Administration, following the doctrine of the Prussian
general, Karl von Clausewitz, carried out the most loathsome, brutal
destruction of a total war against civilians, their children, their
homes, fields, and livestock that the North American continent
had ever witnessed. Had it not been for the great revival of faith
in God that swept over the armies, there would have been no leaders
who were prepared to staunch the flow of the precious life-blood
of Southern life and culture. After the war the renewal of faith
in God's Providence empowered those returning veterans to pick
up the plow after having laid down their swords. These men came
home determined through their renewed faith in God to rebuild the
South. Chaplain Jones writes in his book Christ in the Camp that
the rebirth of the South came “by way of the pluck, energy,
skill, patience, industry, brains and brawn of the men in gray.” He
writes:
I have found these men to be the new leaders
of the States in politics, business and social and religious
movements...It is a significant fact that the leading pulpits
of the South in all denominations are filled by Confederate soldiers.
One pastor of a leading church said to me, "I am indebted
to you for baptizing in the army the best and most efficient
men in my church."
Chaplain Jones describes an event which occurred
in the summer of 1865. It is on the last two pages of his book
and provides a moving conclusion to all that he has so accurately
and powerfully written. He was traveling in Virginia on a country
road and he just happened to see a young man whom he had baptized
during the war, who was plowing his field. He was guiding the plow
with one hand and arm while an empty sleeve hung at his side. He
was having difficulty plowing the field that lay next to his house,
which had been badly damaged by shot and shell. Chaplain Jones
said he called out to the young veteran and spoke some words of
comfort and consolation. The young man answered with a wave of
his only arm and said with a proud smile, “Oh, Brother Jones,
it's alright. I thank God that I have one arm left and the opportunity
to use it for the support of those I love.” Then with these
words Chaplain Jones concludes his wonderful book:
If my voice could reach all the young men of
the South today, I would ring in their ears the example of that
maimed hero, and would beg them now to imitate the examples of
our returned Confederate soldiers, who, as a rule, went to work
with an energy and patient industry which have made them a real
power in the land today...Surely Christian men of every section
and of every creed will unite in thanking God that Christ was
in the camps of Lee's army with such wonderful power to save
us, and that out of that terrible war God brought such rich blessings.
Had it not been for the vengeance of the U.S.
Federal Government which fostered political corruption by carpetbaggers
and scalawags who in turn encouraged a reign of thievery and terror
to start in the South; had it not been for the radical demon-inspired
Federal government, those beautiful words of Chaplain Jones would
have been fulfilled in history. Out of that terrible war God did
indeed bring forth rich blessings of personal salvation, but hateful,
mislead people in the North and the radical Federal Government
sought to totally destroy the South of our ancestors.
Now the last reason that I have time to suggest
as to why and how our noble ancestors fought on and suffered so
much was because they expected their descendants like you and me
to carry on the religious revival which they began. They turned
to God in worship because they knew that only the Lord could help
them and they wanted us to turn to the Lord for the same reason.
We, the descendants of these brave, self-sacrificing, godly men,
must carry on the religious revival which they began. We must carry
on the cause for which they fought, so that it will never be lost,
but be gained and vindicated for our sons and our sons' sons. We
know that the preservation of family, home, liberty and freedom
was a great motivating factor in the South's determination to fight
a second war for their Independence. We also know that the tenacity
with which they fought underscored their firm belief that the social
and political rights guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill
of Rights were being taken away from them by arrogant, avaricious
Northern politicians and "holier-than-thou" abolitionists,
politically correct newspaper editors and heretical church ministers.
These historical facts, however, do not explain completely why
they fought so desperately, even after the fall of Vicksburg, the
Battle of Gettysburg and the capture and burning of Atlanta. They
fought as they did because they never gave up on God. We, their
descendants, must do what they did on the battlefield and in the
camp. We must place their cause, which is now our cause, in the
hands of God and become the soldiers for a true Southland dedicated
to serving God and His truth. We must not fail to take up that
noble cause. If at times we should find ourselves mired by weakness
by our current American culture of power-mad political correctness
and moral corruption, we should be reading Father Ryan's poems
again. They engender new resolve to uphold the Southern Cause.
Father Ryan writes in a poem he called CSA:
Do we weep for the heroes who died for
us?
Who living, were true and tried for us,
And dying, sleep side by side for us;
The Martyr-band
That hallowed our land
With the blood they shed in a tide for us!
Listen now to the second verse of that poem,
which is inscribed on the Tomb of the Unknown Confederate Solider
at Beauvoir, the last home of President Jefferson Davis, in Biloxi,
Mississippi.
Ah! fearless on many a day for us
They stood in the front of the fray for us,
And held the foeman at bay for us,
And tears should fall Forever o'er all
Who fell while wearing the gray for us.
The Holy Scriptures and Holy Tradition of our
Christian Faith teach us that only those nations that submit to
God's Will can survive. The South, until the beginning of the twentieth
century, was a religious community...today it is fast losing it's
identity as a religious community.
We must try to purify and unify our Southern
culture by taking responsibility for what we do personally, and
for what we are bound to do for each other through God's Law. To
do this we must begin with a true contrition for our sin, a real
confession of our sin to God and an amendment of our own life that
pleases Him. This can only be undertaken through a faith in God
and prayers that will call upon Him to pour down His grace and
Mercy upon us. We all stand under the judgment of God. The success
of our cause to preserve the best in our Southern culture and heritage
depends ultimately upon what God's judgment will be of what we
say and do in both our personal and public life. If what we say
and do is good, then we can be comforted that God will eventually
uphold our cause. I say eventually because God acts in His time
and not in ours. The Russian novelist Count Leo Tolstoy emphasized
this fact about God's time when he wrote: “God sees the truth
but waits.” And why does Tolstoy say He waits? I think he
waits until He sees the truth in all of us. When we are obedient
to God and demonstrate our love for Him through good living, then
He, who is all love and mercy, will bless us by vindicating our
cause. My brothers and sisters, we who love the South with it's
history of religious culture, chivalry, morality and sacrifice,
face again a repressive invasion of our land. But this invasion
is happening throughout the entire United States. It will take
more than singing Dixie to stem the Devil's invasion with his armies
of materialism, hedonism, lies, perversions, immorality and greed.
As descendants of the Righteous Cause and citizens of the United
States of America, let us rebuild our Southern culture and heritage.
Let us take on the revisionist historians and the slaves of political
correctness and blot out their lies with the Truth. Let us rededicate
ourselves to serve God and His Truth, else our cause does not deserve
to be preserved and vindicated.
An English philosopher named Thomas Hobbes, a
man with whom we may not agree on religious issues, but nevertheless
said a very important thing. He said, "Hell is truth seen
too late." We have seen the Truth in Jesus Christ and we know
our ancestors fought for the Truth. Let us not be drawn toward
the gates of hell because we have not seen the Truth. We have seen
it and now we must act upon it and bring about another great revival
in our beloved Southland. The medieval philosopher, theologian
and literary giant, Dante Alighieri, says this to us today: "The
hottest places in Hell are reserved for those, who in times of
great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality..." I would
add to that, hell is reserved for those who play the game of political
correctness at the expense of Truth, and remain neutral. We all
know that hell is paved with good intentions, so we must work and
fight and live for the Truth ... for we have Christ who is the
way, the Truth and the Life.
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