I do not remember attending divine service in the army, except once in the Wilderness campaign. It was at night, and the congregation stood around a blazing camp-fire. The good old chaplain exhorted the boys to prepare the way, and buckle on the whole armor. It was a striking scene. Some of the boys wept as the minister alluded to the loved ones at home, who were looking to the Army of the Potomac for a victory that would crush out the rebellion. There were few dry eyes when the benediction was pronounced, after the chaplain had urged his hearers to “be prepared to stand an inspection before the King of kings.” It was the last religious service that many who were present that night ever attended. The next day rebel bullets mowed them down by scores. They died in defense of the right--that the Union might be preserved. Of those who fell as they fell a poet has written: “No more the bugle calls the weary one, Rest, noble spirit, in your grave unknown; We will find you and know you, Among the good and true, When the robe of white is given For the faded coat of blue.” I may have had many opportunities to hear the Gospel preached during the war, but I do not recall the circumstances now. Yet I am sure that if I had diligently reconnoitered the camps, I could have found faithful disciples preaching the Word of Life to such as had ears to hear. And I believe that when the general roll shall be called on the shores of eternity, the noble Christian soldiers who held aloft the banner of their Master on the battle fields of the great Civil War, will not only hear the welcome, “Well done,” but they will be crowned with diadems bedecked with many stars. The third commandment laid down in the regulations was probably violated more frequently than any of the one hundred and one articles of war. It read: “Article 3.--Any non-commissioned officer or soldier who shall use any profane oath or execration, shall incur the penalties expressed in the foregoing article; and a commissioned officer shall forfeit and pay, for each and every such offense, one dollar, to be applied as in the preceding article.”