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Following in the Lord's Footsteps

Scripture: "Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle."
- Psalms 24:8

John followed in his Lord's footsteps-being mighty in battle and brave in the pulpit. He was indeed a minister-soldier. In fact, John would not have been
a minister had he not been a soldier-in the Civil War. His younger brother chronicled John's life, first describing how and where this Pennsylvania farm boy spent his twentieth birthday-at Gettysburg, the bloodiest battle ever fought on American soil. Yes, this is a devotional, please read on.

"John celebrated his twentieth birthday, July 2, 1863, in the awful battle of Gettysburg. He was in the wheat field, the 'Vortex of Death,' where men were mowed down by the thousand. His regiment went into battle with 500 men, 267 of whom were killed or wounded. His brigadier general and his colonel were killed, his captain and both lieutenants seriously wounded. And thus my brother, a sergeant, came out of the battle in command of his company."

John had witnessed the worst of man's inhumanity to man at Gettysburg. This is the background that helps explain a remarkable reaction he had to a letter from a stranger when he visited a field hospital-one of his new duties as company commander-near Baltimore. The wounded Union soldiers had just received a box of supplies from the Women's Christian Commission of Quincy, Mass. The box was accompanied by a letter from one of the women, Eliza Hardwick-who was the same age as John, twenty. 

After all the savagery of warfare, John found Eliza's letter a wonderful contrast, uplifting and even enchanting. "The letter was beautifully written-in penmanship, in the style of composition, and in the thought which it contained." Tender words and a woman's touch went straight to John's heart-he fell in love with the letter and with Eliza, standing at the altar and 
exchanging vows with her at the Quincy Congregational Church after the war.

John was soon at another altar, a pulpit of a new and struggling church in Iowa. What took him from the wheat fields at Gettysburg to the corn fields of Iowa? His brother again tells us: "The war had made a deep impression on John's moral and religious nature. The awful wickedness he had seen daily awakened the deepest religious feelings of his soul, and he came home determined to enter the Christian ministry-so that he might teach men the gospel of peace and good will, hoping to make the world a better place."

Prayer: As happened with John, may adversity be turned to victory and the hard edges of life softened and smoothed out, much as the wickedness this young man saw in battle awakened his soul. Amen.

Jim Burns
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