Providence in this War

Montgomery Weekly Advertiser
March 30, 1864, p. 2, c. 7

Correspondence of the Atlanta Register.
Athens, Ga., March 21, 1864.
Eds. Register:--A portion of Terry's Rangers, 8th Texas cavalry--on their way from Rome, Ga., to East Tennessee, being temporarily encamped near this place, it was arranged by their Chaplain, Rev. Mr. Bunting, that a sermon should be preached to them by Dr. Lipscomb, Chancellor of Franklin College, or the University of Ga., which is located here. The discourse was delivered yesterday--the Sabbath--in the Presbyterian Church. I will attempt to furnish for your columns a brief abstract.

The first point to which the Doctor called attention was Providence in this war. A belief in Providence is essential to true manhood, as well as to the accomplishment of great results. Wellington said that the issue of every battle depended on Providence. Napoleon declared that from the moment he crossed the bridge of Lodi, in his celebrated charge at that place, he felt that he was a man of Destiny. God is in this revolution, as he is in all the events of history.

Divine Providence is strikingly manifest in our separation from the North by the sword. It was the only way in which our independence could be secured. Just as the Colonies, having grown too vast and powerful for management by the English Government, and able to set up for themselves, sundered the ties that bound them to the mother country by a successful appeal to arms, so the South had withdrawn from the Federal Union, and taken up the sword to make good her right title and position as a distinct and independent nation.

Providence is seen in the division of the churches. Ecclesiastical ruptures preceded the dissolution of the civil government, and prepared the way for it.

Providence is discovered in the struggle required to give up the Union. Our attachment to it was fervid and strong.--We loved it and gloried in it, and our hearts were wrenched away from it. It was a magnificent dream--that of one vast empire stretching from ocean to ocean, and from the Gulf of Mexico to the lakes of the North. The splendor of the dream was ennobling, but the illusion is gone. In spite of all our affections and prejudices, Providence has led us out of the Union, and made of us a new Confederacy. How hard it was to get the Jew out of Peter. Washington was opposed to separation from Great Britain, and wished to remain an Englishman, but Providence made him an American. Luther at first had not thought of attempting to overthrow the papacy. If he had foreseen the troubles and difficulties of his future career, he would never have dared to enter upon it. But Providence blindfolded him and dragged him up to the cannon's mouth--into the very jaws of danger and death. He was led forward step by step, and constituted the Reformer of the Church and Leader of Protestantism. Through similar struggles, and guided by the same divine hand, the South has been conducted in the great movement tending to the establishment of a new and independent form of government.

In the remainder of his discourse, Dr. Lipscomb forcibly presented the infinite justice of God in its relations, to our sinfulness against himself. Toward man, we may properly justify our course, but in His sight we are, like Job, _vile_, and ought to abhor ourselves, and repent in dust and ashes.

J. H. M.