n, and very earnest Christians. What they stood for,
they stood for boldly, and outspokenly on all proper occasions. They
were not one whit ashamed of their religion and were ready at all times,
and about all matters to let the world know just where they stood; to
declare by word, and deed who they were, and whom they served.

All this set up before the eyes of that community a very strong,
forcible, manly type of religion. These were not women, and children,
and they were not sick or weak men--they were the very manliest men in
that town, and so were taken and accepted by general consent.

Just think of the effect of that situation upon the boys and young men
growing up in that community. The veteran soldiers, back from the war,
with all their honors upon them--were heroes to the young fellows. What
the soldiers said, and did, were patterns for them to imitate; and the
pattern of Christian life, set up before the youngsters, made religion,
and church membership most honorable in their eyes. They did not now, as
aforetime, have to overcome the obstacle in a young man's mind which lay
in the association of weakness with religion, and which had largely been
suggested to them by the older men, in the former times.

The old Christian soldiers, whom they now saw, set up in them the idea
that religion was the manliest thing in the world, and so inclined them
toward it, and assured the most serious, and respectful consideration of
it. Religion could not be put aside lightly, or treated with contempt as
unmanly, for those veteran heroes were living it and stood for it, and
they were, in their eyes, the manliest men they knew.

Now, this leaven of truer thought about religion was leading society all
through the South; the Southern men and boys everywhere were feeling its
influence, and it was having most remarkable effects. The increase in
the number of men, who after the war were brought into the church by the
direct influence of the returned soldiers, "who had found their souls"
through the experiences of their army life, was tremendous. Those
soldiers did a bigger service to the men of their race by bringing back
religion to them than they did in fighting for them during the war.

Just after the war, in the far harder trials and soul agony of the
Reconstruction days, I think that the wonderful patience, and courage
which resisted humiliation, and won back the control of their States,
and rebuilt their shattered fortunes an