Supported by thy word
The saints, in all this glorious war,
Shall conquer, though they die;
They see the victory from afar,
With faith's discerning eye.
When that illustrious day shall rise,
And all thine armies shine
In robes of victory through the skies,
The glory shall be thine."
Anybody who had seen the fervor with which these brethren now united in singing these stanzas, might have supposed them a company of the primitive martyrs and confessors, who, having drawn the sword and thrown away the scabbard, were now ready for a millennial charge on the devil and all his works. None sung with more heartiness than Dr. Packthread, for his natural feelings were quick and easily excited; nor did he dream he was not a soldier of the cross, and that the species of skirmishes he had been describing were not all in accordance with the spirit of the hymn. Had you interrogated him, he would have shown you a syllogistic connection between the glory of God and the best good of the universe, and the course he had been pursuing. So that, if father Dickson had supposed the hymn would act as a gentle suggestion, he was very much mistaken. As to Dr. Calker, he joined, with enthusiasm, applying it all the while to the enemies of the Presbyterian Church, in the same manner as Ignatius Loyola might have sung it, applying it to Protestantism. Dr. Cushing considered the conflict described as wholly an internal one, and thus all joined alike in swelling the chorus:—