Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1911 edition. Excerpt: ... VII PEACE, AND THE REUNION OF THE DIOCESES "peace hath its victories no less renowned than war." It is one of the highest honors of the Southern soldier that, when he had laid down his arms in 1865, he went back to his home, or what was left of it, and never thought again of taking them up. He revered the character and followed the example of his noble leader, General Lee, who spent the rest of his life teaching the arts of peace, and instilling into the young men of the South lessons of peace and of patriotism. And in studying the brief history of the Church in the Confederate States we cannot but be proud and thankful that, when the War ceased, the separation caused by the War ceased with it. The Church of Christ showed then the spirit of Christ, and at once put behind it all wrath, bitterness, anger, and the memory of wrongs done or suffered, and, making no terms or conditions on either side, but with sole reliance upon the love and honor which should be between brethren, closed the breach, and was again one in heart and mind, and in that visible unity which witnessed to men their Oneness in Christ. And that the reality of that vital Unity, which thus asserted itself in the life of the Church, and which was truly the work of the Spirit, and not the contrivance or achievement of man, may clearly appear, it is necessary to mark somewhat distinctly the human elements of strife and discord which entered into the problem, as men saw it, at the close of hostilities in the spring of 1865. The first important step towards reconciliation and reunion was properly taken by the Presiding Bishop1 of the Church in the United States. In God's good providence his personal relations with the Southern Bishops, and his known attitude towards some of the...