THE TEACHINGS OF THE BIBLE 255 



left of them to tell whether the State flag was that of 

 Massachusetts or Virginia. And behind these canie 

 scant three hundred men. All the rest were sleeping 

 between Washington and Richmond, some on almost 

 every battle-field. The uniforms were old and faded 

 from sun and rain. Only gun-barrel and bayonet were 

 bright. And the men were scarred and tired and foot- 

 sore, haggard from hard fighting and long, swift 

 marches. For these men had been trained to be hur- 

 ried back and forth behind the long line of battle, that 

 they might be hurled into it wherever the need was 

 greatest. I do not suppose that one of them could 

 have delivered a fourth-of-July oration on Patriotism. 

 They were trained not to talk, but to obey orders. 

 But they had stood in the " bloody angle " at Spottsyl- 

 vania all .day and all night ; and in the gray dawn of 

 the next morning, when strength and courage are always 

 at ebb, faint and exhausted, their last cartridge shot 

 away, had sprung forward at the command of their 

 colonel to make a last desperate, forlorn defence with 

 the bayonet against the advancing enemy. Numbers 

 do not count against men like these. What made them 

 such invincible heroes ? It was mainly the resolute 

 will and long training to obey orders. A Christian 

 should never forget that he is a soldier in the army of 

 the Lord of Hosts ; that enlistment is easy and quick- 

 ly accomplished ; but that the training is long, and 

 that he must learn, above all, to " endure hardness." 



And so, my brothers, I beg of you to preach a he- 

 roic Christianity, for if there ever was a heroic religion 

 it is ours. If you offer merely free transportation to a 

 future heaven of delight on " flowery beds of ease," you 

 will enlist only the coward and the sluggard. But 



