“For any one that is going forth to meet the temptations of camp life I had almost said I would sum up in one single word of remembrance a talisman of safety—temperance, absolute temperance.... The men that are dangerous in camps are not bloated drunkards, shameless gamblers, and such as they. But an accomplished officer, a brilliant fellow, who knows the world, who is gentle in language, who understands all the etiquettes of society, who is fearless of God, who believes nothing in religion, who does not hesitate, with wit and humor, to jeer at sacred things, who takes an infernal pleasure in winding around his finger the young about him, who is polished and wicked, and walks as an angel of light to tempt his fellow-men, as Satan did to tempt our first parents—if there be in camp such a one, he is the dangerous man. “There ought to be a bold stand taken in favor of virtue by the good in each one of the various companies. If there is not such a stand taken in Company C of the Fourteenth Regiment, I shall be ashamed of my preaching.” He was constantly invited to lecture, and almost any sum was offered to secure his services. These, as we may well conceive, were mostly patriotic addresses upon the great subjects that were then burning in the minds of the American people. We remember well his having a course at Providence, Rhode Island, the third of which was delivered Monday, after the heavy work of the day previous, and when he took the train he had not touched pen to paper nor given it a moment’s thought; but his mind and heart were fully awake, and the resources of a lifetime of thought and labor were at his command. The battle of Bull Run, which was fought in July, as is well known, was the first battle of the war of really national importance. The result was sobering and humiliating to the North. On the following Sunday evening Mr. Beecher preached a sermon upon “God in National Affairs.” After tracing His way in the history of the nation, he says: “The battle is well begun. If I consult my pride, if I consult my vanity, I fain would never have seen our banners dip; and yet, if I consult a larger wisdom, I know not but that the best thing that can befall us is that humiliation which shall teach us not to rely so much on words and cheers and newspaper campaigns. A defeat just sufficient to make us feel that we must fall upon the interior stores of manhood, that we must have faith in God, that we must set aside everything but a solemn purpose and an earnest consecration of ourselves to this work which God has given us to do—such a defeat cannot but be beneficial.” And so it proved. The battle of Bull Run awoke the North from its dream of easy conquest, and thenceforth she took up the war in earnest.