"...We shall not fight
our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies
of nations...."
Patrick Henry
"General,"
I (Captain,
later Brigadier General John D. Imboden) remarked, "how is it that you
can keep so cool and appear so utterly insensible to danger in such a
storm
of shell and bullets as rained about you when your hand was hit?" He
instantly
became grave and reverential in his manner, and answered, in a low tone
of great earnestness: "Captain, my religious belief teaches me to feel
as safe in battle as in bed. God has fixed the time for my death. I do
not concern myself about that, but to be always ready, no matter when
it
may overtake me." He added, after a pause, looking me full in the face:
"That is the way all men should live, and then all would be equally
brave."
Stonewall Jackson, from
"Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War", G.F.R. Henderson, Vol
1,
p 163
"Gratitude
is born in
hearts that take time to count up past mercies."
Charles E. Jefferson
(1860-1937)
"In
this enlightened
age, there are few, I believe but will acknowledge that slavery as an
institution
is a moral and political evil. It is useless to expatiate on its
disadvantages.
I think it a greater evil to the white than to the coloured race, and
while
my feelings are strongly interested in the latter, my sympathies are
more
deeply engaged to the former. The blacks are immeasurably better off
here
than in Africa - morally, socially, and physically. The painful
discipline
they are undergoing is necessary for their instruction as a race, and,
I hope, will prepare them for better things. How long their subjection
may be necessary is known and ordered by a merciful Providence. Their
emancipation
will sooner result from the mild and melting influence of Christianity
than from the storms and contests of fiery
controversy. This influence,
though slow, is sure. The doctrines and miracles of our Saviour have
required
nearly two thousand years to convert but a small part of the human
race,
and even among Christian nations what gross errors still exist! While
we
see the course of the final abolition of slavery is still onward, and
we
give it the aid of our prayers and all justifiable means in our power,
we must leave the progress as well as the result in His hands, who sees
the end and who chooses to work by slow things, and with whom a
thousand
years are but as a single day. The abolitionist must know this, and
must
see that he has neither the right nor the power of operating except by
moral means and suasion; if he means well to the slave, he must not
create
angry feelings in the master. Although he may not approve of the mode
by
which it pleases Providrnce to accomplish its purposes, the result will
nevertheless be the same; and the reason he gives for interference in
what
he has no concern holds good for every kind of interference with our
neighbours
when we disapprove of their conduct."
Robert E. Lee, in a private
letter
From "Stonewall
Jackson
and the American Civil War", G.F.R. Henderson, P 88
"My trust is in the mercy
and wisdom of a kind Providence, who ordereth all things for our good."
Robert E. Lee
"The truth is this, the
march of Providence is so slow, and our desire so impatient; the work
of
progress is so immense & our means of aiding it so feeble; the life
of humanity is so long & that of an individual so brief, that we
often
see only the ebb of the advancing wave, and are thus discouraged. It is
history that teaches us to hope."
Robert E. Lee
"As
nations cannot be
rewarded or punished in the next world, they must be in this. By an
inevitable
chain of causes and effects, Providence punishes national sins by
national
calamities."
George Mason, Debates
in the Federal Convention, Wednesday, August 22, 1787, Jonathan Elliot,
Debates on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, Vol. 5, p.
458
"The seasons do not
push one another; neither do clouds race the
wind across the sky. All things happen in their own good time."
Dan Millman
"...The
man must be
bad indeed who can look upon the events of the American Revolution
without
feeling the warmest gratitude towards the great author of the Universe
whose divine interposition was so frequently manifested in our behalf.
And it is my earnest prayer that
we may so conduct ourselves
as to merit a continuance of those blessings with which we have
hitherto
been favored."
George Washington
"Luck is providence
minus God."
Graham
J. Weeks
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