People tend to be narrow minded. We make judgments based on our experiences in our own lives rather than looking at the broader picture, especially failing to consider the times and events surrounding specific moments in history. People will condemn the use of atomic weapons in Japan in 1945 and the loss of around 150,000 Japanese lives. They ignore, or conveniently forget, that the Japanese government was fanatical and would never give up the war they had started, that the Japanese populace had been trained to become a giant defending army and that an invasion of the Japanese home islands would have cost a million and a half American live, over ten million Japanese lives and would have destroyed the whole nation. Our children today are taught that the first settlers came to this country to exploit and systematically destroy the natives here, rather than for religious freedom. People refuse to examine event from the past in light of the circumstances in which they occurred. Which is tragic.

          The American Civil War is one such example. People on the political left are beginning to talk civil war now, but they have no understanding of the horror of such a thing. They want a president removed but do not want to wait for elections. The American Civil War had a much deeper cause. Several causes, actually, that struck people at their very core. Causes that made men clash in some of the worst battles anywhere in history. Those talking of such things are foolish, even stupid, in their understanding. The American Civil War was horrible in its magnitude and inspiring in its heroism. One such story that covers both the horror and the heroism follows.

            Julia Ward Howe was a woman who lived a hundred and fifty years before her time. She was a suffragette in a time when such a thing was unthinkable. (Quick now. Who knows what a suffragette was? This is what I mean by people only making judgments based on current life.) She had her own independent thoughts about religion and politics. Different thoughts than those espoused by both her father and her husband. Many others shared her religious and political views. You may have the same views now. But in 1861, a woman was supposed to have her husband’s or father’s views.

          In 1861, Julia was 41 years old. She had given her husband, Samuel Howe, six children by then, the last coming just the year before. She was a strong anti-slavery believer, but she was in anguish over the fact that the United States was now split in two warring factions. Worse for her, while she despised slavery, she also knew that the Bible did not condemn that institution. She could see the two factions fighting to total destruction, both certain they were fighting on the right. It was with this conflicted attitude that Julia arrived in Washington D.C. in November of 1861 with her husband from their native Boston. They were there on her husband’s business, but it was the first time she had seen the effects of the war.

          She saw the fortifications that surrounded Washington. The fighting was just a matter of miles to the south. Wounded were being brought back to the City daily. Wounded who screamed out their pain in that time before painkillers. The stench of death and decay permeated every corner of the Capital. Uncounted horses and wagons and other military needs clogged the streets. And soldiers. Everywhere soldiers. Marching, drilling, preparing for war. Her two oldest children, both girls, were almost of the age to go and fight, if they had been boys. As she looked at those young men preparing to be slaughtered, she thought of the countless women, her age, who were crying and praying for their boys.

          Standing by a window one evening, she was listening to the soldiers sing “John Brown’s Body,” a song popular at the time about the abolitionist John Brown and his death by hanging for his abolitionist views and actions. (Again, if we don’t know the circumstances surrounding historical or Biblical events, we cannot really understand what was happening. So, look up John Brown.) She remarked to a friend standing close by, “I hate that song!” “Well,” he said, “it has a good tune. Why don’t you write something better to the tune?” Julia was a poet of some note. In her recollection of the moment, she said she took quill and paper and began to write, rarely looking away from the encampment of Union soldiers that stretched out before her. She didn’t write about great political ideas, nor did she quote any of the leaders of the day. She wrote from her heart and she wrote from the power of Christ in her life.

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord, Her deep Spiritual faith.
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; Coming from an area that grew grapes, she slipped into a visual she understood.
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword She believed both sides would pay a Spiritual price.
His truth is marching on. Always, she felt, His truth would march on.

I have seen Him in the watchfires of a hundred circling camps; As she looked out that window, she could see young men praying.
they have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps; Every night the chaplains would hold services.
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps She believed that the righteous sentence of God was whatever He willed, rather than what man felt should be.
His day is marching on. It was His day.

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; The first Battle of Bull Run had been fought just a few months before. Great numbers of civilians from Washington had gone south to watch the spectacle, fully expecting the Union forces to crush the South. However, the Southern forces ripped through the Union like a hot knife through butter, driving soldiers and civilians back to D.C. The blaring of the trumpets as they called ‘Retreat’ was considered a national shame.
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat; A crushing blow, the defeat brought a nation to the Lord.
O be swift, my soul, to answer Him! Be jubilant my feet To Julia, it was far more important at this point to answer God’s call rather than the Union call. Only by standing with Him could the nation stand.
Our God is marching on. Our God will always move forward, whether we march with Him or not.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
with a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me;
as He died to make men holy, let us live to make men free,
while God is marching on. This last verse is a recalling of His birth, His glory, His death and our job, which is to make people Spiritually free while we do His will.

This isn’t the meaning to the song that I worked up. This is the meaning Julia wrote about years later. The song became known as “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”, which was fine with her, so long as we understood what battle she was talking about. She simply called it “Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory.” The glory of God in the dedication and heroism of war.

Happy Fourth of July. And as you celebrate, remember that this country was put here so that men and women could worship as they pleased and hold the God of their heritage high. Maybe most of the nation has forgotten, but we do not.