When Cromwell's men went out
to win the victory at Winceby Fight, their watchword was "_Religion_."
Can we in our great struggle for liberty and right adopt any other
watchword than this? Do we require another defeat and more suffering to
bring us to a sense of our responsibility to God for the conduct and the
issue of this war?
It is only by taking the highest ground, by raising ourselves to the
full conception of what is involved in this contest, that we shall
secure success, and prevent ourselves from sinking to the level of those
who are fighting against us. The demoralization necessarily attendant
upon all wars is to be met and overcome only by simple and manly
religious conviction and effort. It will be one of the advantages
of defeat to have made it evident that a regiment of bullies and
prize-fighters is not the best stuff to compose an army. "Your men are
not vindictive enough," Mr. Russell is reported to have said, as he
watched the battle. It was the saying of a shrewd observer, but it
expresses only an imperfect apprehension of the truth. Vindictiveness is
not the spirit our men should have, but a resoluteness of determination,
as much more to be relied upon than a vindictive passion as it is
founded upon more stable and more enduring qualities of character.
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