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give himself to the army, his churches were very unwilling to give him up. At one church, after several had spoken against his leaving, three of the sisters remarked, that while they valued as highly as any Brother Renfroe's services, they could cheerfully give him up to labor in the army, for they had sons there for whose conversion they felt very deeply.
Each of these three sisters has received a great blessing.
The sons of two of them have professed conversion, and the son of the third has been restored to the fellowship of God's people, from whom he had wandered.
I cite this incident with the hope of encouraging the churches to give their pastors, at least for a few months, to this work.
Your own son, or brother or father, may be converted through the preaching of your minister in camp.
And if this may not be, some one else may be reached and saved.
Then encourage your pastor to go, and send on what funds you may be able to contribute, with which to publish camp hymns, Testaments and tracts for our brave soldiers.
I have already described the scene in this same brigade several weeks later, when at one service 610 came forward for prayer and over 200 professed conversion.
I shall continue, instead of a connected narrative, to give letters written at the time, giving accounts of this wonderful work.
The chaplain of the Twelfth Tennessee Regiment states ‘that the lieutenant-colonel, adjutant, surgeon, seven captains and thirteen lieutenants are professors of religion; that not a single officer was addicted to profane swearing, card-playing or drunkenness; that a very large proportion of the men as well as officers pray in public, and heartily second any efforts for good; that the regiment has in it the largest Sabbath-school he ever saw; that the number of the faithful has been greatly multiplied, and that there are almost daily accessions to their number.’
Dear Brethren Editors:
Grant me a small space to report what the
Lord has done and is doing for us in
Mahone's Brigade.
This brigade has five
Virginia regiments (2,000 men), and there is not a chaplain in it. The men tell me, that until recently, they had not heard a sermon for
six months.
Although deprived of this privilege, they forsook not the assembling of themselves for prayer.
And God, who ever hears the earnest prayers of
