Lars’s Memorial Day post on Friday reminded me of a book I picked up several years ago in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. It’s From the Flag to the Cross: Scenes and Incidences of Christianity in the Civil War, by US Army Chaplain Amos S Billingsley. The book has many notes and expressions of faith from those who came in touch with the Union chaplaincy during the war. Billingsley includes records of his own ministry and the people he spoke to in hospitals, prisons, and camps.

He tells the story of visiting the gangrene camp next to Hampton Hospital in November 1864-65 about midnight. He entered one soldier’s tent in the dim light of the moon, noticing a small candle burning within.

On approaching him, he warmly grasped my hand, and, upon inquiring how he was, he replied, “I am very weak; I don’t think I’m going to live long; and I have sent for you hoping you could administer a word of comfort, and write a letter of sympathy and consolation to my wife and children.” “I trust you were not without hope?” “Oh no! I have a glorious hope. Christ is my only hope, and he is growing more and more precious every hour.”

“The pious, heroic John Lambert, with his legs burned to the stumps, with his body pierced with ruthless halberds, with his fingers flaming with fire, with dying breath exclaimed, ‘None but Christ! NONE BUT CHRIST!’ Think you would be afraid to die?” “No, I think not. I die for my country, and, dying for Him who died for me, I have nothing to fear; I don’t fear death, thank God! I trust he will give me the victory over it.” “You seem to have it already.” “I have got the victory!” said the dying Rutherford and he left the world shouting glory. I asked him, “What word shall I send to your wife and dear children?” “Tell them I died happy in Christ. He lingered a few hours, and God took him home. How striking the transition! How glorious the change! From a lonely, dreary gangrene camp to the throne of God in heaven! Here, he wore a soldiers garb; there, robed in white, he wears a crown of glory, and bears palms of victory. I visited two other patients at the same call; one of which was so far gone, it was then too late to get his dying message to send home to comfort his bereaved friends. He was a good man. Such were my visits to this suffering camp.

Whether we spend our days on anger, reacting to the latest news prompt, or on sentimentality, wanting to get the family together for smiles and meals, or on kindness, building or rebuilding our communities, we have only one hope. Maybe we’ve lived constructive lives, earning the praise of our peers. Maybe we’ve wasted our lives on self-indulgence, which could also earn the praise of our peers. Nothing we do opens or closes more avenues of hope. We have only one, the work of Christ Jesus on the cross.

Because this is true, we can take comfort when someone professes new faith on his death bed, despite the life he leaves behind. We cannot judge a spiritual transformation when the subject has no opportunity to bear the fruit of his faith. Even then, we cannot judge a man’s heart perfectly. What we can do is look to Christ and point others to Him as well.