William W. Bennett, A narrative of the great revival which prevailed in the Southern armies during the late Civil War

“The soldiers here (in Western Virginia) are starving for reading matter. They will read anything. I frequently see a piece of newspaper, no larger than my hand, going the rounds among them. If the bread of life were now offered them through the printed page, how readily they might be led to Christ.” From Culpeper Court-house a pious lady wrote of her labors among the sick and wounded: “The poor soldiers here are really begging for something to read. This is true especially of the wounded. Pray that the divine blessing may be bestowed on these afflicted ones, and that I may be a blessing to them. There is nothing I desire so much as by nursing to do good to those who have given up all for their country. There is great room for usefulness opened to pious friends now in ministering to the wants of our sick soldiers.” And never did Christian women more nobly discharge their duties to the suffering. Our war brought out from the sweet retirement of home, and into the midst of agony and death, not one, but a thousand Florence Nightingales.

“It is truly gratifying,” wrote a chaplain,

to see the eagerness manifested by the soldiers to get a Testament. While we are in camp, we are deprived, to a great degree, of the comforts of home and the advantages of the family library; and while we earnestly seek for a book to read, what a blessing that the Bible can be obtained, which is a library in itself!

May God bless all who aid in any way to send the Bible or other religious books to the soldiers. To one outside of the army there can be no proper estimate of the value placed upon the Word of God by the soldiers. In perusing it, his thoughts go back to the kind instruction received around the paternal hearth-stone. We had the pleasure of knowing that in one instance, at least, these books were instrumental of good. A young man of our regiment, when told that he must die, and who had carefully attended to the reading of his Testament,