1 Timothy 6
Riley1 Timothy 6:9-11
THE RUIN IN RICHES 1 Timothy 6:9-12THERE are some texts that need no light from Heaven to interpret them. They are best read when read in the streets, and find their truest commentary in the busy life of mortals in their eager races after the things of time. When Henry Ward Beecher was about to speak on “The Love of Money, he said, “Wall Street is my commentary. Broadway is my commentary. Life is a better commentary on the practical sides of the Bible than anything else.” In that sentence Beecher proved the prophetic spirit within him. There was never a time in which the Word of God was being read in the light of street lamps, and in the midst of the multitudes who crowd our great thoroughfares, as now. The most helpful and stimulating preachers of the hour are not those who look most sharply to homiletical effect, or to the art of sounding periods, or to the end of pleasing the aesthetic tastes; but those who are studying life’s dangers, and seeking to understand the safeguards of the soul, in the light of the Gospel of God’s Son.It will always be so, that the secluded study, a cloister, if you please, will furnish the best place for perfecting religious discourses, but the streets and lanes of the city, the great highways of life, domestic, social and political, are the sources whence the material of the true prophet must be brought. The language of our text this evening is strong language, but stand on the street corner where men pass and repass in their race to be rich, and you will conclude that it is the speech of no idealist, no dreamer, no false prophet!The marts and tricks of trade, the avarice and ingenuity of designing men, the wild extravagance and the growing greed of our times, all tell on the text, “But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition”.There are several strong suggestions in this text that find ample illustration in the money-mania of the hour.In the first place, we must learn from this text some of the dangers that accompany the determination to be rich.The Apostle did not particularize those dangers. He only hinted at the multitude and ruinous character of them. “Many foolish and hurtful lusts”.It is doubtful if any speaker will ever be able to tell them all, or describe the exceeding hurtfulness of those that are most manifest.But some of them are so patent, and so injuriously powerful, that every student of this mania for money must face both them and their results. They that determine to be rich, at whatever cost, are in danger of deceiving themselves.There are only a few men who seem to be bad from birth.
Even the twenty years of childhood and early youth seldom develop a vicious and abandoned spirit. The vast majority of young men and women come to their independence with a good degree of generosity in their hearts, and enter upon life with some high and holy resolve.
We can scarcely think that the pushing, keen-sighted, longheaded young man, destined one day to be a millionaire, is an exception to this rule! In common with his less nobly endowed business competitors, he is free-hearted and frank, and thinks no ill toward anyone. But his distinguishing trait is moneymaking and money-keeping! He finds himself capable of competing with the shrewdest in the market and with a consciousness of capability comes a fixed purpose to surpass, and pile up wealth.At first he has no thought of doing wrong to get gain. His plans are all laid in righteous reflections, and his first bargains are driven with a clean conscience. He purposes that it shall always be so!
Alas, for the blinding power of Satan! If many a young man who is beginning to heap up gold could only see himself forty years hence, a coarse, conscienceless, grasping, greedy miser, how he would start back and say, “I do not want riches at such a price!” But that is what he can’t see because blinded by the god of this world.
You remind him of the history of a hundred men who acquired great wealth and came to be stenches in the nostrils of their fellows, and he replies by citing some Peter Cooper, and says, “I will end after his sort! I will keep my conscience. I will keep my business integrity. I will keep my tender sympathy with my fellow-men, and my benevolent spirit toward the unfortunate and suffering. I will keep every faith in God.”You tell him that when he gets the power of money behind him, he will cease to remember the unfortunate; he will come to think of his fellows as subjects to be fleeced; he will oppress and rob, and with Hazael he answers, “What, is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing”? Young men, you don’t want to be misers, and mean?
Then don’t be deceived into thinking that your determination to be rich, whether or no, can come to any better end!Again, they that will be rich are in as much danger of self-conceit as of self-deception. These two go naturally together.
It is always a species of conceit that deceives men into the notion that they can walk the very paths that have ruined their fellows, and yet escape all hurt.On the “Board of Trade” there are scores of young men today, who know full well the history of “Old——” as he was called, and many others of similar character. They saw him succeed only to fail both in pocket-book and brain; and yet, with that conceit which accompanies temporary success, they are saying to themselves, “We will not go as he went, as others have gone. We will be shrewder still, and our minds will stand the strain and our fortunes shall rival Rockefeller’s!” They despise the unwisdom that caused a thousand of their predecessors in that “Trade” to leave the pit in pauperism and despair. They look with contempt on the conservative, conscience-keeping men, who make money slowly and by the sweat of the brow. Some time ago, such a speculator boasted that he had made two millions of dollars in a week and a paper commented on the fact, “It does not require a high education to make a success in speculation. If God has given a man a head to work with, an education is not all essential to money-making!” The versatile author of those sentences doubtless supposed himself to be treating the Twentieth Century to a novel idea in finance.
But everybody knows that the world’s brainy men have not aspired, and in the nature of things never can aspire, to bag its boodle. The small souls who sell conscience and self-respect and soul for a few millions will continue to exercise the conceit that their money-making ability is an evidence of superiority.
But long after such men are in the graves of disgrace, long after their estates have been wasted by fighting heirs, long after their memories have perished from the earth on which they gambled, long after the moment when their deceived souls have been assigned a place in the pit, the man who kept his mind for nobler ends, his heart in better service, and his spirit in touch with God, will live in the memory of good men, in the company of angels, and in the eternal favor of God.Such conceited men are snared by Satan, and are walking with him, and yet such is the deception of money-blindness that only God can tear the bandages from the eyes of small men who make some financial success. They know too much of business to suffer the preacher’s counsel in that realm; they are so far in advance of father, that his honest notions are fogyism, and even if men fresh from the bruises of such business bring them a word of warning, they turn from it as from those who knew not enough to manage their own affairs, and of course are incapable of advising others; Conceit! It is the toboggan slide that makes many a man proud of his progress at the beginning of his race, and leaves him a bruised and lifeless heap, filling some deep ditch of destruction at the end.Then there is the temptation to dishonesty.Who, that determines to be rich, is likely to escape that temptation altogether, or successfully resist it when it comes? It is one of the most certain temptations to come. Every trend of the life that makes money-getting its chief aim lies in that direction. You enter business with a clean conscience, and honest purposes.
Ere long you find men playing unprincipled parts, and in an unsuspecting hour you are caught by some sleek citizen and deceived and practically robbed. The tempter will then come with the suggestion, “Get even with the world!
It is a dishonest pool. Why should you be playing a straight hand? The law in this realm is, ‘Every fellow for himself,’ and if you want to keep pace with the sharp procession you must learn their tricks and beat them at their own game.” How many men have been taken by that satanic bait and landed at last on the banks of moral bankruptcy, having in their mouths the hook of deception and dishonesty.Then, though one is not evilly entreated by his fellows, the tendency of the money-mania is naturally to dishonest dealing. A man of ordinary talents, of humble birth and breeding, soon sees that financial success makes it possible for him to forge to the front in American society. Among us riches cover a multitude of deficiencies. He who has it may butcher the Queen’s English to his heart’s content without offending the most fastidious; in his manners he may be a veritable boor, and yet outshine a hundred intellectual, refined, yet poverty stricken competitors.
In his dress, outlandishness does not disgust, if only a diamond sparkles in the shirt-front. What wonder men determine to have money?Honesty?
Yes, if possible, but if not, then by whatever means found to be most successful. One of the grossest sentiments of modern society is seen just here, and at the judgment of a just God many a society leader will find on his skirts the blood of souls that were tempted to dishonesty for position’s sake; and for a place in circles that had more of beauty than brains, and more of boodle than either.It is not an unusual thing for those men whose purpose of riches has cost them their conscience to console themselves with the reflection that after all they are not so bad. They know that they have secrets locked up in the individual heart, or else safely ensconced in the confidence of companions in crime, that would ruin the business and tarnish their excellent reputations, if only a drop of it should leak. And yet they say to themselves, “Business secrets are not so bad! This bank will not burst at once. Why hasten it by letting the stockholders know the danger?
This Association is bringing us in rich returns. Why shut off our own main to save the dribble from the faucets of others!
This fortune will be squandered soon after the children get it anyhow. Why should not somebody have it who knows how to use it, and who has more right than the administrator?Seemingly, some men accept only a part of the moral law as binding on the conscience! They subscribe to the commandment, “Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain”. They are zealous for its successor, “Remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it holy”. They say “amen” when one reads, “Thou shalt not kill”. They blush at the command, “Thou shalt not commit adultery”.
But there are at least two of the ten articles of the old law that can be conveniently forgotten—“Thou shalt not steal”; “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house * * nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s”. Against the point of those they have steeled their hearts.
They may have gotten some of their wealth questionably, but haven’t they used it to the glory of God? Did they not give away at least two hundred of the questioned five thousand to charitable ends, ten dollars to a needy family, twenty-five to a charitable institution, fifty to the cause of the Gospel and a hundred and fifteen for the improvement of the street that faces their home? Liberal? Ah, yes, God can’t condemn a fellow who uses his money so nobly even though he does rob a few widows, wrong hard laborers, crush weak competitors, and embezzle a few funds to get the sum! That was a keen observation that Charles Dickens made upon his miserly character, Ralph Nickleby, and one that has compassed many a kindred spirit. “There are some men who, living with the one object of enriching themselves, no matter by what means, and being perfectly conscious of the baseness and rascality of the means which they will use every day toward this end, effect nevertheless, even to themselves, a high tone of moral rectitude, and shake their heads and sigh over the depravity of the world. Some of the craftiest scoundrels that ever walked this earth, or rather, for walking implies at least an erect position and the bearing of a man, that ever crawled and crept through life by its dirtiest and narrowest ways, will gravely jot down in diaries the events of everyday and keep a regular debtor and creditor account with Heaven, which shall always show a floating balance in their own favor.”Who can study such men without feeling the tremendous judgment that our text proclaims in saying,“They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition”. Better be cast into the sea with a millstone about the neck, than come to judgment with the cries of robbed men, and deceived women, and hungry children following you to the throne whose brightness shall disclose every purpose and plot of dishonest dealing.They that would be rich, at whatever cost, are tempted to sacrifice all the nobler sentiments of the soul on the altar of Mammon. There is an old saying to the effect that the mind keeps chiseling away at the features. That is one with the saying, “As he (a man) thinketh in his heart, so is he”, or so he soon becomes. It is utterly impossible for a man to make money-getting his daily thought and nightly dream without becoming a monster of miserliness into whose features Mammon will pencil his hard lines, until the human is worked out and the beast is made prominent.Have you never seen misers who scarce suggested, or hinted humanity, in that best and most liberal use of the term? Hawthorne in his “House of Seven Gables” strikingly portrays this dehumanizing effect of the money mania. An Italian organ-grinder was before the House of Seven Gables, out of whose windows Phoebe and Clifford looked on the crowd that gathered to hear the music, but more especially to see the trained monkey perform.
That monkey’s appearance and actions Hawthorne describes after this manner: “The mean and low, yet strangely manlike expression of his witted countenance; the prying and crafty glance that showed him ready to grip at every miserable advantage; his enormous tail (too enormous to be decently concealed under his gabardine) and the deviltry of nature which it betokened—take this monkey just as he was, in short, and you could desire no better image of the Mammon of copper coin, symbolizing the grossest form of the love of money. Neither was there any possibility of satisfying the covetous little devil.
Phoebe then threw down a whole handful of pennies, which he picked up with joyful eagerness, handed them over to the Italian for safe keeping, and immediately recommenced a series of panto-mimic petitions for more. Doubtless more than one New Englander, or let him be of what country he might, it is likely to be the case, passed by and threw a look at the monkey, and went on, without imagining how nearly his own moral condition was here exemplified.”Truly the greed of gain demoralizes the man whom it concerns. When a man gets gold by grinding the lives of those falling under the chariot of his financial triumph, despising the cry of the poor, disregarding the principles of honest dealing, and despising the great virtue of charity, in heaping up millions on millions, he may be lionized and beastly at the same time. Free men are afraid of voracious, conscienceless lions, that go about seeking whom they may devour.A rich man is God’s man, and loves his fellows, and is loved in turn, and his end is bitterly mourned. There is no more an inherent evil in money than is the devil in a fiddle. On the other hand, it is God’s gift as much as music is, and may be employed to his praise.
William E. Dodge was rich, yet not bad!
Willeston was rich, yet made many rich beside! Peabody was rich and left behind monuments that no more perpetuate his memory than they honor God. Cooper was rich, and his institutes endowed all America! Rose was rich, but his benefactions were a sweet smelling savor the year around. R. L. Stuart was rich and our land rejoiced. Rockefeller is rich, and many universities and colleges know his generous heart and hand.
1 Timothy 6:12
THE BEST BATTLE FOR THE BOYS’ BRIGADE (A Talk to Boys) 1 Timothy 6:12. WHILE the discourse of this evening is especially adapted, and will be directly addressed, to “The Boys’ Brigade”, it is the purpose of your speaker to say things of equal interest and importance to others. Our text was addressed, originally, to a young man, and yet to one who had already assumed the sterner duties of a professional life. It is a peculiarly appropriate text for this occasion because of the imagery out of which it was born. The figure of speech which Paul here employs is that of battle; and the resultant idea is that life is a warfare, and they who triumph over its enemies must “fight the good fight of faith”.I want to talk to this “Brigade” tonight about the greatest battle that ever has, or ever can, engage men; and in speaking to them, I wish to speak also to every man, woman, and child here present.THE WOULD-BE SOLDIER MUST ENLIST FOR WAR That is the first step. The army of the Redeemed is made up in the same way. That coaxing and “come” that we find so often in the Bible is the Captain’s call.The invitation is general, universal. It is as broad as the race! Christ wants every immortal soul to enlist for service against that eternal enemy, Satan, and his emissaries. You remember that when Fort Sumter was fired upon, and the last prospect of peace exploded with the cannon’s flash, President Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for 75,000 volunteers for the suppression of the Rebellion. He didn’t understand the strength of his foe, or else he had never dreamed of victory with so few. Christ knows His enemy, his strength, his courage, his derelict tenacity.
Christ knows that Satan will never be wholly conquered until the last friendly spirit has enlisted in his service, and Christ calls on every man to prepare for war. The army of the Redeemed is not like the federal army, made up of only a part of the population that believed in one flag; but rather like the marching army of Israel, going to Canaan’s conquest. It asks all to come, young and old, male and female, bond and free. “To you is the Word of this salvation sent”. What about it, boys? What about it, men and women? Have you enlisted in the serried ranks of the conquering Christ as yet?Christ calls for volunteers. He will coerce no one to come with Him and fight beside Him. Compulsory service is never satisfactory service, nor is it the service that saves.
There were many drafted soldiers, who did valiantly in our Civil War, and yet the honor of our national unity belongs not to them, but to the volunteers instead. There is no other such soldier as the one that faces danger, inspired by love of his country, or love of his captain. It is related of a certain French soldier that wounded unto death, he lay in a ditch breathing out his last, when Napoleon rode by, and the suffering soldier heard a shout of victory. With his expiring breath he shouted, “There, let me die. The Emperor has conquered!” Truly, “that was the spirit that made Napoleon’s army invincible, and that spirit should actuate every soldier of the Cross.” It requires a volunteer to so feel!There is a special appeal to the young to enter in this fight of faith. It is the best time to begin the battle.
If a man has not won some victories before he passes into middle life, he is likely to accomplish his decease in defeat. The Divine wisdom in that Scripture, “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth” is abundantly illustrated by the fact that those who do not serve Him then, rarely ever serve Him at all.
It was young men, for the most part, who stood in the imminent deadly breach of 61—66 and saved the flag. It is young men, for the most part, again, who are planting the banner of the Cross in places of present-day conquest.James E. Docking once contributed an article to the Golden Rule, entitled, “Young Men in Religious Work”. He reviewed the deeds of the mighty and showed that they were accomplished under the inspiration and valor of Truth. Joseph was yet young when he came to the full possession of his honors; so were Saul, David, Solomon and Daniel. The great men of the New Testament were youths every one, Christ included.
Luther, Watson, Simpson, Hall, Calvin, Chalmers, Dean Alford, Richard Baxter, Beecher and Spurgeon, were famous every one before the touch of time had turned a hair of their heads white. The truly good and great are not all numbered among the dead.
The world has never seen such captains and companies of noble youth as are marching to the marshal music of Heaven today. As the fathers have fallen, nobler sons have stepped into the ranks and filled them. “Why are they then baptized for the dead”? Thank God, young men have been baptized to take the tares of the departed, and shall be in increasing numbers. From one side of the globe to the other, there are young men falling into line behind the great Captain, Christ, and their tread is the promise of victory.Some years ago, a gifted young minister by the name of Eyng was injured by accident in Philadelphia and lay dying. He called about him the boys and youths that were his friends, and addressed to them a plea for enlisting beneath the Banner of Christ. As the end of life drew on he lifted his wounded arm and in a voice eloquent with pathetic power said, “I am about to die.
Young men, stand up for Jesus!” It is the old appeal! John made it nineteen centuries ago, when in his Epistle he said, “I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the Word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one”.
There is perhaps no one before which Satan fears and flees as that consecrated youth. Will you stand up for Jesus?THIS BATTLE CALLS FOR THE HIGHEST BRAVERY It is no small skirmish to which Paul incites Timothy, when he says, “Fight the good fight of faith”. It is a battle against many and mighty foes.You must battle the world, if you would win in this warfare. Worldliness and Godliness are enemies forever, and one cannot love the first and experience the second. John writes,“Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is Hot in him. “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father”. I have known a good many people who thought to be friendly with the world, and yet favored of God. They attempted to be Christians and yet keep faithless companions, indulge in worldly amusements, and “enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season”. Such compromise is fatal to the spirit of Christ. Mr. Moody relates that when in England, he visited a gentleman who kept a canary of fine plumage. Mr. Moody remarked on his beauty, and the gentleman answered, “Yes, he is a beauty, but he has lost his voice and that detracts from his value. He used to be a fine singer, but I hung his cage out the window and the sparrows came around him with their incessant chirping, and he took to imitating them.
Gradually he ceased to sing and came to twitter only.” It is true in a higher life. Many a soul that has known the song of Zion has companied and compromised with the twittering world until it knows only the baser music of a sensual life. If you would fight the good fight of faith, you must oppose that world.You must also fight the lusts of the flesh. You have already taken an obligation to do that. You have said, “I promise and pledge that so long as I am a member of the Boys’ Brigade, I will not use tobacco nor intoxicating liquor in any form; that I will not use profane or vulgar language; and that I will at all times set an example of good conduct to my comrades and other boys.” If you keep that pledge you must fight the lusts of the flesh. It is not easy to give up the habit of profanity when once acquired.
But it is manly so to do, and if you ask the great Captain, Christ, to help you, it can be done. Some boys think it makes them great to use God’s Name in vain.
But we have always had an ardent admiration for the small boy who went to do office work among many young men clerks. They laughed at his size and said, “You are too little to do anything.” He straightened himself up and said, “I am big enough to do what you men can’t do!”“What is that?” they said. “I can keep from swearing, and you are not men enough for that.” They felt the sting of such a rebuke and left off the shameful habit. Boys, if you can’t drive that little black devil of profanity from your life, you can never become soldiers of the Cross.Some also think it manly to use tobacco, but is it? The dirtiest and most low-down people are always addicted to this habit. It is filthy in itself and an unprofitable expense. The man who smokes five cigars a day has wasted a hundred dollars a year, and puffed away a part of his precious life.
I have a friend, a young man of handsome face, and royal spirit, who is a hopeless invalid now, suffering from softening of the brain, brought on by excessive smoking. You remember that the same evil habit killed our great general Grant.
Years ago King Humbert of Italy, a temperate man in all things except the use of tobacco, found his health giving way, and his friends despairing of his life. He called in learned physicians, and on examination they said, “You are a victim of nicotine from smoking.” Weak as he was, he turned his face to the physician and said, “Then from this day I smoke no more,” and he kept his word and regained his throne. In all his experiences as a king he never fought a better battle, or discovered a more brave and manly spirit than that. It is a caricature of manliness to think that either profanity or filthiness fosters it. That old maid in Washville set forth that thought in all its nakedness when she said, “I keep a parrot that swears and a monkey that chews tobacco, and of course I don’t need a man.”What shall I say about your battle against intoxicating drinks? The best way to fight that lust of the flesh is not to feed it.
Let liquor alone. Never take the first drink, and whoever else it may conquer and down, you are safe.
At the W.C.T.U. Convention held in Chicago a Hindoo Monk, Vivekananda, gave some suggestions on drink that America should profit from. He said that among the people of India, it was a rule that if a Brahman should meet a wild elephant on the street, and the only way of escape was through a saloon, that he should take his chances with the elephant rather than enter the den of drink. Yes, with tigers, lions, leopards, hyenas and serpents a man is more safe. Hagenback and his associates were caged with the most ferocious beasts through the Chicago World Fair and came out alive, while many that lifted an innocent-looking wine cup to lips and drank it, found the serpent at the bottom, and died of his sting. If you fight the good fight of faith, you must obey the great Captain when He says, “Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup”.There is yet another lust of the flesh that I wish was included in your pledge.
It is that for vicious literature. Cheap words are deadly enemies to a Christian life and character.
Those who read them are wrecked in morals, and prepared to do any deed of darkness, even to murder. You remember that two boys were hanged at Danville, Illinois, some months ago. On the scaffold Harvey Pate and Frank Stiers told how they came to fall so low. The first of them said to Rev. Shields, “Warn young men against profanity, unbelief, bad company, disobedience to parents, the saloon and the danger of delaying to meet God. Tell them that bad literature was the starting point of my sin.” His gallows-mate said, “My downward course began with the low dance, but next to that ‘trashy literature’ and the saloon.
I got my first lessons in robbing from reading bad books.”You have heard the story of the man who was taking down volumes from the dusty shelves of a great library. As he picked one of these volumes from its resting place, something suddenly pricked his finger.
He supposed that he had struck the head of a nail or possibly the broken metal of some book binding. The wound began to pain him and shortly swelled. The physicians called said it seemed to have in it a deadly poison, and sending back to the library, they discovered what it was that produced the same. They found a small viper coiled on that identical shelf ready for a kindred stroke should another hand approach it.There are vipers in books; their bite is poison and their venom is deadly. One of the greatest dangers to a boy’s life is from bad books.The best way to battle that lust is to fight it with good books. There are good libraries open every day and night.
My own library is at your service. Battle the devil of bad literature by the use of good books.But beyond all this, and back of all other enemies stands Satan himself, the arch-enemy of every immortal life.
If you are to fight the good fight of faith, you must overcome and cast him from the heart. There is reason to fear bad habits and fight against them, and reason to fear bad men and battle to be rid of their companionship and influence. But after all, the great enemy of our immortal souls is not apparent in visible form of flesh and blood, and cannot be fought with steel sword or loaded gun. The great Captain he fears to face is Christ; the sword whose point pierces him and puts him to flight is the Word, the Sword of the Spirit, and the flag on which he dare not fire is the blood-stained banner of redeeming love. Accept in love the Crown Prince of Heaven as the Captain of your soul and you will conquer; take in hand the Sword of the Spirit and you can win, or wrap around you the blood-stained banner of redeeming love and you are safe forever.Some years ago an American was tried in Cuba and condemned to death. Friends interceded for him in vain.
The Spanish officer appeared to execute the law, and lifted his gun to the shoulder to shoot out the American’s life. Just then our consul flung about him the American stars and stripes and pointing a finger of defiance at the officer said, “Fire at that flag if you dare, and you will see that the power of a nation is behind it.” The gun was lowered and the living man led safely back to his cell to be set at liberty later.It is good to feel that when the enemy threatens our lives, the Son of God stands by and is ready to wrap about us the blood-stained banner of Heaven and defy all hell to do us harm.
Thank God some of you are thus already ensconced against all danger, even death itself. But I want you all to fight the winning battle, and report at least in Heaven without the loss of one.During the Civil War, there went from the First Methodist Church of New Haven, Conn., 104 young men. They were the idols of that body, the pride of the public. Many prayers followed them through all the days of that dark epoch, but when the last confederate fort had fallen, every one of them returned to the old home unhurt. Many had fallen about them, and died before them, but God had kept His own, and brought them home.When the war of life is over, let this blessed sight hold our eyes in Heaven, the coming to his home and crown of every boy of this brigade, without the loss of one.