Even as some Southern Baptists rejoice over revivals in the Confederate army, others lament over the evilness of Confederate soldiers. Can God’s nation be saved by an unrighteous army? An editorial in today’s Georgia Baptist Christian Index sounds a dire warning.
The demoralization of our army is said to be fearful. An intelligent gentlemen said that an educated young soldier remarked to him, If there had been a professorship established in every regiment to perfect the men in swearing, he did not believe greater proficiency would have been attained. Young men brought up in the lap of piety, trained in our Sabbath Schools, have gone forth from the gentle and refined influences of godly mothers and pious sisters, to hear the bitter oaths and listen to the obscene language of the baser sort, at first to be shocked, then to bear, and at last to participate….
The war cannot last always. Dark as are the clouds which hover above our nation’s horizon, they will sooner or later pass away.–The mighty hosts who now confront the enemy will after awhile be disbanded, and resume their places in society. Shall they return home with their souls contaminated by vice and their hearts steeped in sin? Shall this tide of evil break upon our enfeebled churches so unprepared to resist it? Shall this desolating spirit sweep over our land, blighting the minds and hearts of the rising generation, who are daily the objects of our tenderest and most virtuous care, and who are the future hope of the republic?
God forbid! But what is to be done? Come up now to the help of the Lord! Attack the evil there and stay its work of moral death now….
Let us send our missionaries, armed with the Word of God, and religious reading, among our soldiery. Let us send pious, intelligent, godly men, who will watch for souls as they that must give an account. Let our prayers ascend daily for the divine blessing to attend their labors.
Source: “The Moral Crisis–Our Duty,” Christian Index, May 11, 1863
