The Union times. [volume] (Union, S.C.) 1894-1918, 1898-05-13
BILL ARP TALKS OF WAR;:
Says When Preachers Advise Fight
There is Trouble Ahead.
SOME SERMONS PREACHED
During the War That Seemed Pro
phetic, hut Were Not So--The Ne
groes Scared.

When Napoleon was in Egypt and
great battle was impending, he made a
speech to his army and said Soldiers,
forty centuries are looking down upon
you from the heights of those pyra-
mids. Just SO Jupiter used to sit en-
throned upon the top of Mt. Olympus
and overlook the doings of the children
of men. These are rather lofty thoughts
for a common man to contemp plato, but
some times L wish that / could take
flight to the clouds and poise myself
and let the earth roll under me, so that
could look down upon the nations
and see what they all were doing. The
world has been getting smaller ever
since L was a boy. 1t has been shrink
ing, shrinking from year to year, for it
used to take three years to go around
it, but now less than three months
makes the great circuit. Still we are
not content, for though the land is
wired pretty we'll, the sea is not and
vessel may be lost or q fleet destroyed
away out in mid ocean and we could
not hear of it for week. This little
war of ours is growing bigger and
spreading wider in its probabilities.
We thought that Cuba was to be the
battle ground for our army and Cuban
waters for our navy, but the Philippine
islands are thousands of miles away
and the Canarias not far from Africa.
1t is now q war of invasion aud the end
is not in sight But it IS too la.e now
to entreat for peace or arbitration, and
SO we must all fall into line and do our
share. When the preachers put on their
war paint L Ieckon it is no harm for the
laymen and the sinners to fight We
hnr hot IN hn 1ns
preachers, both North and South, were
more belllgerent than any other class.
They dident do much fighting, but they
went along and encouraged the boys
and prayed for them and nursed the
sick and the wounded and showed their
faith by their works, but some of them
were awfully mistaken about which
side the Lord was on, or what were His
great designs.
God moves iii a mysterious way
His wonders to perform.
Blind unbelief is sure to err
And scan His work in vain;
God is His own interpreter
And He will make it plain.
The preachers are just human like
other people and subject to like pas
sions and prejudices. L remember that
just before Georgia seeded our Rome
preachers could hardly maintain their
Christian serenity in the pulpit or out
of it, and one of them, an eloGuent and
gifted man whom the whole community
.o'reS.-I. nua arS-s.snc ICED: touh for hie
chapter of Joel: II will remove far
from you tho northern army and will
drive him into q land barren and DESC
late, with his face toward the east sea
and his hinder part toward the utmost
sea, and his stink shall come up and his
Ill savor shall come up, for he hath
magnified to do great things.
Fear not, oh laud! he glad and re-
joice, for tho Lord will do greater
things"
tell you he made it fit our case like
prophetic prediction, and we could
see the Yankees flying from our valiant
troops and driven to their utmost bor-
ders and scattered from the Pacific
ocean to Plymouth Rock and perish
ing to death all along the line for lack
OF provisions, and nobody left to bury
them. At the same time Henry Ward
Beecher was breathing out threateninos
and slaughter from his Brooklyn pulpit
and declaring that the Almighty's hand
was on their side and within q few
months would wrcak his vengeance
upon the slave holder and set the bond
men free. And the editors knew moth.
ing Mt last. L tell you, my brethren,
that preachers and editors are lust hu.
man like the rest of us, and the world
Will never have a fair chance to get
even with them until every man mas q
pulpit and newspaper of his own.
: But the war Is on us and we must fight
1t. Our congressman have said it IL
right n.u Ju". ...u .uvy ousut 10 Know.
but | was Illuminating about blood and
tears and aSony-about widows and or
Phans and Rachel mourning for her
children because they wero not That
good old Georgia mother in Israel
whose son Is an officer or the Olvm-
pia in far Oft waters has ceased TO smile,
For years his letters have been her
comfort. For years he has supported
her from his pay and is now educating
and maintaining an orphan niece, and
they love him dearly. But it may be
that the conflict has come and gone and
he is even now sleeping in the deep
waters, and they know it not. Who
can measure the glory of war with a
grief like theirs, and this is only one
case. There are or will be thousands
Ike this If the war goes on.
But we must fight. In tho language
OF Patrick Henry, 81 repeat it, sir, we
must fight.
Patriotism is n God. given emotion in
the human breast True, sincere.
'ho" io'c VI IlOllS hHU country.
not that kind which is n pretense and
winch DIR. johnson SAID was the last
refuge Of II scoundrel Politics and
greed and religious fanatacsm are of
ten coniounded with 1t and woman is
always the chief mourncr both in vic
tory and defeat when war afliicts n
country. Nations make war in haste
and repent Mt leisure. The sY.ldest pic
ture ever painted was that of mother
with n babe at her breast hunting over