THE UNITED STATES' CHRISTIAN COMMISSION.*

ANOTHER of the great charitable organizations which the late American War brought forth—the United States' Christian Com- mission—has published to the world its final record. Perhaps in these long lists of delegates, balance sheets, summaries " of receipts and values," "of labours and distributions," some may miss a little the spirit of the divine command to the almsgiver, "Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth." And yet it would be impossible to wish that the volume, together with the kindred one of the United States' Sanitary Commission, had not seen the light. Of that great conflict, the epic grandeur of which looms larger and larger upon us as we recede from it, they illustrate aspects which the ordinary political, military, or financial history cannot render, and which are neverthe- less most essential to be to taken in, if we would comprehend the struggle as a whole. The present volume, for instance, in direct contradiction to the reports industriously circulated in Europe at the time on the subject, which represented the war as becoming daily more and more the work of mere mercenaries on the Northern side, shows that there was throughout it a constant growth of religious feeling and fervour, both in the armies and at home, • Annals of the United States' Christian Commission. By the Rev. Samuel Moss, Home Secretary to the Commission. Philadelphia: Lippincott. 188d. probably beyond all parallel on so large a scale, and only to be compared in modern times to the best days of English Puritanism in our civil wars of the seventeenth century. "It was generally felt," writes Mr. Moss, "especially during the last two years of the war, that the Christian character of a young man was as safe in the Army as in any place out of it." Again, we read :— " Pastors and others, who visited the Army as delegates during the winter of 1863-4, declared that their experience was unlike anything known or conceived before. There was a religious revival among the soldiers which made labours at home seem formal and fruitless, an the opinion was expressed by clergymen of most mature and sober judgment that the prospect was more encouraging for the conversion of men in the Army than out of it. It was felt to be worth a journey to the Army to find men who wore positively eager to learn the way of salvation, and they were found there by thousands."

Again :—

" That there was abundant badness in the Army is indubitable, for- where men abound sin will abound too. But it is not too much to say that the world never saw so moral an army as the mighty host enlisted in the cause of the Union ; never such an assemblage of men arrayed for war with so little of those vices that are the cankerworm of armies —drunkenness, profanity, and uncleanness. And there were, besides, a sufficient number of men of such deep religious character that they . were felt as a positive power."

And Mr. Stuart, the President of the Commission, was able, after the close of the war, to say at the meeting of our own Bible- Society in 1866, "I have seen the returns that were made in answer to official inquiries throughout one State, Massachusetts, and, with a few exceptions, the soldiers have returned better meq than they left." This is, however, but one aspect of the- facts. The gradual strengthening of the nation's faith in the war, as one of religious obligation, seems to have been no less remark- able. The mere statistics of the Christian Commission would suffice to show this. During its first year (November, 1861-2) it had hard work to keep alive. In July, 1862, it had not "funds sufficient to rent permanently even the merest corner of an office," and there was talk of selling up its assets, a miscellaneous assemblage, comprising one table and two chairs ; whilst its total receipts for 1862 were 40,160 dols. 29 cents. In 1863 they rose to 358,239 dols. 29 cents. ; in 1864 to 1,297,755 dols. 28 cents. ; and during only four months of 1865 they-were 828,357 dols. 70 cents. That this increase in money receipts represented no buying-off in money of the duties of personal self-devotion is clearly shown by the parallel increase in the number of "delegates." These were volunteers—" members in good standing of evangelical churches" —who gave their services for at least six weeks, their expenses- only being paid, in the field, in the hospital, or on the battle- ground, for the "instruction, supply, encouragement, and relief" of the soldier ; distributing stores, circulating good publications, aiding chaplains, encouraging prayer meetings, encouraging and aiding the men to communicate with their friends, aiding the surgeons on the battle-field, praying with the dying,— " in short, striving to do all that man can do to meet the wants of brethren far from home and kindred." Now the number of these delegates rose from 374 in 1862 to 1,189 in 1863, 2,217 in 1864, and during the four months of 1865 was 1,079; a progression, though not the same as that of receipts, yet quite as satisfactory. The Christian Commission, moreover, claims not to have, like the Sanitary Commission, encouraged "the use of fairs and other similar expedients for raising money," although a few " reasonably successful" fairs were held by friends of the Commission upon their own responsibility ; and it is thus alleged on its behalf that whilst its total receipts were leas than half the nearly five millions of dollars received by the Sanitary Commission, yet that deducting Pacific coast contributions, the proceeds of Sanitary fairs, and a few other sources of income of which the latter body availed itself, the "spontaneous contributions" to the Christian Commission more than quadrupled those paid to the elder body. Such com- parisons would be invidious if used to disparage one of these admirable institutions at the expense of the other ; they are only useful as showing the strength of the distinctively religious ele- ment in the war charities of the time. The two Commissions, indeed, appear to have worked harmoniously together, though their fields of operation to some extent overlapped each ogler. Thus Mr. Moss says of Sherman's Georgian campaign : "In all this campaign the co-operation of the United States' Sanitary Commission was most hearty and helpful. During the first two weeks, while their supplies were largely in excess of those of the Christian Commission, the delegates were allowed to distribute freely from their stores."

The name of Sherman recalls that of the General whose recog- nition of the services rendered by the Commission seems to have been the most grudging and tardy. The most humorous portions

of Mr. Moss's big volume are those in which he appears on the scene, as in his endorsement on a request to pass two of the Commission's delegates to the front.

"Certainly not. There is more need of gunpowder and oats than ally moral or religions instruction. Every regiment at the front has a chaplain,"

(the latter assertion of which is shown in a note to have been completely incorrect, as there were no more than 80 chaplains to 150 regiments and 40 batteries, of whom not one-half were at the front); or in the exquisite story of the agent of the Commission who, having to preach in a church which had been used as a hospital, for want of help set to work himself in his shirt-sleeves,

with the thermometer at 90°, to clean it out,—when he had finished his labours by clambering up into the belfry and striking

the bell (the rope having been cut away), in dropping down again lost, through a treacherous nail, "an important part of one leg" of his pantaloons,—and then found himself suddenly sum- moned by a corporal and two bayonets :—

" ' Did you ring the bell ?'—' I did.'—' I am ordered to arrest you.'— ' For what ?'—' To bring you to General Sherman's head-quarters.'- 'But, corporal, I can't see the General in this plight. I am an agent of the Christian Commission, and am to preach hero this morning, and was ringing the boll for service. If you will tell the General how it is, it will be all right.'—' That's not the order, Sir.'—' Well, corporal, send a guard with me to my quarters, till I can wash up, and pin together this rent.'—' That's not the order, Sir ; fall in.'"

And so, "without hat or coat, and with gaping wardrobe, preceded by the corporal, and followed by the bayonets," the luckless

agent had to state his case, and was met by the question, "Is this Sunday?" The following words complete the picture :— "As I entered, General Sherman was drumming with thumb and finger on the window-sill, and when the corporal announced his prisoner, the General commanding fixed his cold grey eye on me for a moment, motioned to his chief to attend to the case, and without moving a muscle of his face, resumed his drumming and his Sabbath problem—how to flank Johnston out of the Allatoona Mountains."

Yet, after the close of the war, and on the winding-up of the Commission, General Sherman bore his testimony to its labours, admitted having "displayed an impatience" when its agents "manifested an excess of zeal," and expressed his belief that their charity "was noble in its conception, and applied with as much zeal, kindness, and discretion as the times permitted." From General Grant, on the other hand, as well as from President Lin- coln and Mr. Stanton, the Commission received unvarying kindness and support, as well, indeed, as from the great bulk of the superior officers of the Army. Grant tersely expressed the position and work both of the Sanitary and Christian Commissions in saying that to them the Army felt "the same gratitude that the loyal public feel for the services rendered by the Army."

But the work of the Christian Commission has yet to be con- sidered in another aspect. Its "reflex action," we are told, upon the delegates "was very great They received for them- selves an intellectual and spiritual quickening that remained as a permanent element of their future efficiency." Amidst the terrible realities of the camp, the battle-field, the hospital, no sham faith could pass muster, the truths of Christ's Gospel shone out with new power. "Never shall I forget," writes a delegate of his Army audience, "the look of those earnest eyes, and the devouring intensity of those eager countenances. It was a new thing, an experience never to be forgotten ; an experience that will inspire many a heart, and strengthen the courage of many a Christian man, to do that sort of preaching at home which clinches the nail, and makes it stand fast in a sure place." Thus, as one of them wrote, their own congregations were "greatly benefited "by their absence ; and as on their return they continued to work for the Army, delivering, it is said, "as many sermons and addresses about the soldiers as they had previously delivered to them," they contributed to keep up a common religious purpose and fervour throughout the country.

It is hardly worth while to dwell on the distinctive religious views which influenced the Commission. Mr. Moss says of it that "it stands before Christendom as a monument of the faith of the American Church in the great doctrine of man's ruin, and the great fact of God's complete salva- tion." Apostles and prophets would probably have, at least,

interverted the two elements of the sentence, if indeed the idea of "faith in the doctrine of man's ruin" could ever have entered into the creed of either, in whatever sense they might have admitted the fact. Fortunately, however, the works of the Commission were larger than its professed faith. It was not faith in the doctrine of man's ruin, but brotherly love for man, that invented the "coffee waggon," of which a woodcut is given, capable of giving ninety gallons of tea, coffee, or chocolate on the march every hour,—" What you might call the Christian light artillery," as a soldier said of it. It is admitted repeatedly that the practical charity of the Commission was the true passport for its creed. "The delegate could not speak well of the soul until he had cared for the suffering body." And the very sight of that suffering often brought with it a very different faith from that in the doctrine of man's ruin. "I had an exalted view of human nature," writes one of the delegates, from a Fredericksburg hospital after the battles of the Wilderness, " as I contem- plated these noble men, wounded and bruised for our sakes and the country's, and enduring their sufferings without a murmur, indeed, in some eases, with cheerfulness, singing to soothe their pains, and smiling in order to hide them from others." Yes, thanks be to God ! This human nature of ours, which the Son of God did not disdain to take upon Him, is a nobler, higher thing than it takes itself for. It bears stamped upon it the image and superscription of its Creator ; in its Saviour and Head its life is gathered up ; it is the temple of the Eternal Spirit. Whatever it bears about it of " ruin " is not its very self, but a thing of earth and time ; an object not of faith, but of sorrowful experience. If the religions formulse of the Christian Com- mission were narrower than its self-sacrificing love, the Lord of Love knows his own ; and that they are not His the less, though their eyes may not be fully opened to His light.