We have spoken of the great revival of religion which at this time took place in the army.  The touching spectacle was presented of bearded veterans, who had charged in a score of combats, kneeling devoutly under the rustic roofs of evergreens, built for religious gatherings, and praying to the God of battles who had so long protected them.  A commander-in-chief of the old European school might have ridiculed these emotional assemblages, or, at best, passed them without notice, as freaks in which he disdained to take part.  Lee, on the contrary, greeted the religious enthusiasm of his troops with undisguised pleasure.  He went among them, conversed with the chaplains, assisted the good work by every means in his power; and no ordained minister of the Gospel could have exhibited a simpler, sincerer, or more heartfelt delight than himself at the general extension of religious feeling throughout the army.  We have related how, in talking with army-chaplains, his cheeks flushed and his eyes filled with tears at the good tidings.  He begged them to pray for him too, as no less needing their pious intercession; and in making the request he was, as always, simple and sincere.  Unaccustomed to exhibit his feelings upon this, the profoundest and most sacred of subjects, he was yet penetrated to his inmost soul by a sense of his own weakness and dependence on divine support; and, indeed, it may be questioned whether any other element of the great soldier’s character was so deep-seated and controlling as his spirit of love to God.  It took, in the eyes of the world, the form of a love of duty; but with Lee the word duty was but another name for the will of the Almighty; and to discover and perform this was, first and last, the sole aim of his life.

We elaborate this point before passing to the last great campaign of the war, since, to understand Lee in those last days, it is absolutely necessary to keep in view this utter subjection of the man’s heart to the sense of an overruling Providence—­that Providence which “shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will.”  We shall be called upon to delineate the soldier meeting adverse circumstances and disaster at every turn with an imperial calmness and a resolution that never shook; and, up to a certain point, this noble composure may be attributed to the stubborn courage of the man’s nature.  There came in due time, however, a moment of trial when military courage simply was of no avail—­when that human being never lived, who, looking to earthly support alone, would not have lost heart and given up the contest.  Lee did not, in this hour of conclusive trial, either lose heart or give up the struggle; and the world, not understanding the phenomenon, gazed at him with wonder.  Few were aware of the true explanation of his utter serenity when all things were crumbling around him, and when he knew that they were crumbling.  The stout heart of the soldier who will not yield to fate was in his breast; but he had a still stronger sentiment than manly courage to support him—­the consciousness that he was doing his duty, and that God watched over him, and would make all things work together for good to those who loved Him.