A couple of weeks ago I was at Gettysburg. It was my third time there -- I'd gone once before, in my high school years, and once again as part of a college choir. But this time I was there for a whole day. And this time, there was a new visitors' center there, one that brought to life what had happened there almost 150 years ago. Walking through it, seeing the events that led up to the war and then the battle itself, was very sobering.
As part of tour, I went up to a circular room, surrounded by a panorama of the battle. It was brought to life with lights and sound, the dramatic third day of Gettysburg when Picket's men charged -- and were slaughtered.
Men died everywhere. They were mowed down with grapeshot. Slaughtered.
Slaughtered.
There isn't another word that describes it better.
The narrator read the number of men who died that day.
I was struck by the humanity. Lives snuffed out. So many.
And the war dragged on bloodily for two more years.
Dear God, is this just part of the price we paid for slavery?
How then, will you judge us for our tolerance of abortion? How can our nation stand?
2 comments:
Thinking about Gettysburg always breaks my heart. At camp we actually had a discussion about it on one of days it was fought on.
I never thought of comparing it to abortion before.
RYC: I did award you, but you don't have to pass it on if you don't wish to.
I'm treading quite lightly now when I tune... especially making sure I don't do stupid things like have the mute on the wrong string - which is why I broke a string. The piano is about a year old. And it's a big pain. They messed up the soft pedal - instead of moving the hammers closer to the strings like most pianos do, a piece of felt drops down - but it gets in the way when I'm trying to tune and I have no idea how to get it off. So I haven't really tuned much in the treble section because I can't get a mute in there. I have trouble getting the mutes to stay in the first place - any advice? And then something else I had a question about was that when I've tuned the unisons on one, then play it, it'll play some, but then there will be a bit of a dead sound, like a string is still muted or something, even if it's not. Maybe they'll address that later, I don't know. I've taken the first test but still want to do another hour or so of tuning the unisons before I move on. I heard the beats pretty quickly after I figured out it's not a ringing sound but like vibrato.
And it's wonderful to know now why so many old pianos sound like they're out of tune with themselves when you just play one note.
Actually, the South was fighting for State's Rights, which you seem to be very interested in. The North wanted to forcibly free all the slaves, bang! without any payment for the Southerners for all the money they would lose in that way (besides the labor they would lose, and even more money which would have to be spent hiring laborers). The North had no right to force the South to free its slaves, especially when slavery was protected by the Constitution. The Yankess got rid of their slaves for several reasons: one, they wanted more money, so instead of freeing them, they sold them to the South; two, the slaves were not adapted to the severe northern winters, and could not do as much as free white hired men, so again, they were SOLD to the South, thereby making the Northerners richer and giving them better laborers. Another thing to think about, while we're on the topic of the so called Civil War (better called The War of Northern Aggression): many people think that Lincoln was a Christian. If so, why did he allow his wife to attend a seance? He knew about it, because he wrote of it in a letter to a friend.
Yet another thing: the North practiced total war on the South, burning homes to the ground, using churches as stables for their horses, ruining crops (remember Sherman's famous words that 'a crow would have to carry his own provisions' over that part of the South that that godless general had destroyed). Women and children starved or froze to death because they did not have food and shelter. One Yankee general told his men to treat any Southern woman who showed them any defiance as a prostitute.
I don't think you find any such records of the Southern Army.
Another thing to think about: those who say that slavery was evil, because some masters mistreated their slaves, are about as ridiculous as someone who says that marriage and parenting should be done away with because some husbands and fathers abuse their families.
A good book on the subject of slavery is R. L. Dabney's 'A Defense of the South'.
I can't, honestly, believe that you would compare abortion and slavery. Abortion is murder, and millions of babies have been killed, while slavery was NOT murder. Take it as you will. I'm just tired of all the lies against the South.
In Christ,
Laura
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