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by officers and men, and the kind thanks that I have received from them have fully repaid me for all my labors.’
Rev. John H. Taylor writes, from near Guinea's Depot,
Caroline county: ‘A very interesting meeting is in progress here, conducted by the chaplains of the different regiments in this brigade.
Oh that there may be an abundant outpouring of the
Holy Spirit!
I find the men very anxious for something to read, and there is a prospect of effecting good among them.’
Rev. J. N. Fox, Culpeper Court House: ‘I was greatly impressed, yesterday, with the magnitude and importance of my work, when for hours I was besieged by the soldiers for the Word of God, and saw, too, how ready they were to be advised with in regard to the great concerns of the soul.
At my meetings there is good attention to the word spoken.
Oh that the Lord will prepare me to be faithful to souls!’
Rev. M. D. Anderson furnishes us with an interesting account of the great revival which for weeks has been progressing in Fredericksburg among the soldiers.
Scores there have become ‘obedient to the faith.’
A. E. D.
April 30, 1863.
Rev. Perry Hawkins, writing to the
Confederate Baptist, gives the following account of a conversion among the soldiers at Pocotalio, as related by the subject of it: ‘When I entered the army, I was the chief of sinners.
I did not love God, nor my own soul, but pursued the ways of unrighteousness with ardor, without ever counting the cost.
I studiously shunned preaching and our faithful chaplain, lest he should reprove me; and when he was preaching in the camp I would be in my tent gambling with my wicked companions.
One day he presented me a tract, entitled, “The wrath to come,” and so politely requested me to read it that I promised him I would, and immediately went to my tent to give it a hasty perusal.
I had not finished it before I felt that I was exposed to that “wrath;” and that I deserved to be damned.
It showed me so plainly where and what I was that I should have felt lost without remedy had it not pointed me to that glorious ‘Refuge,’ which I trust has indeed been a refuge to me from the storm; for I now feel that I can hope and trust in
Christ.’
Rev. W. G. Margrave, who is alluded to in the following letter, was spared to continue his work until some years after the war, when, full of labors and ripe for heaven, he ‘went up higher:’