Celebrating St George

On St George's Day Alan O'Reilly revisits the story of England's patron Saint

Patron Saint of England – and English Football - the original Crocodile Dundee1

“Then said St George: ‘Fair daughter, doubt ye no thing hereof for I shall help thee in the Name of Jesus Christ.’  She said: ‘For God’s sake, Good Knyghte, go your way, and abide not with me, for ye may not deliver me.’  Thus as they spake together the dragon appeared and came running to them, and St George was upon his horse, and drew out his sword and garnished him with the sign of the cross, and rode hardily against the dragon which came towards him, and smote him with his spear and hurt him sore and threw him to the ground…

“And St George slew the dragon and smote off his head, and commanded that he should be thrown into the fields and they took four carts with oxen that drew him out of the city.”

Described by Jacobus de Voragine, Bishop of Genoa in The Golden Legend, 1230 AD, the above episode is apparently the basis of the familiar account of St George and the Dragon.  Princess Sabra is the young lady mentioned but she appears to be an embellishment and sadly contrary to romantic expectations, St George does not win her hand in marriage in the original narrative - he had more pressing business to hand.

A ruined tower, situated north of St George’s Bay where modern Beirut stands on the southern arm, traditionally marks the scene of the conflict.  It took place in approximately 303 AD, when according to historian Pliny, the area was infested with crocodiles.

George may therefore have killed one while on his way to the Eastern Court of Emperor Diocletian, located at Nicomedia2, now Izmit, about sixty miles east of Istanbul.

The deed comes as no surprise when we consider George’s background.

Noble Beginnings

George was born in 270 AD to Christian parents in Lydda, now Lod, located on the Plain of Sharon, Palestine.  His father was Anastasius3, a distinguished Roman army officer who was appointed Governor of all Palestine at the age of twenty-five, with three thousand armed soldiers at his command.  George grew up as a soldier-saint.  A contemporary writer said of him4:

“When St George had completed his twentieth year he was so exceedingly strong and valiant that he was the leader in battle and there was no one among all the company of soldiers who could be compared with him for strength and beauty.  And the grace of God was with him, and He gave him beauty and strength that all those who saw him marvelled at his power and youth…and God was with him in all his ways.”

George was at that time a general in the Roman Army, in command of five thousand men.  None other than Emperor Diocletian himself had conferred this honour on the young man, so greatly impressed was he by George’s bravery and leadership.

Imperial Treachery

But Diocletian was susceptible to less honourable influences.  His subordinate and Emperor of the East, Galerius Maximus was a confirmed pagan and in 303 AD persuaded his superior to issue an Edict calling for the extermination of Christianity throughout the Empire.  The persecution that followed was savage.  Ten thousand Christians are said to have been massacred in Caerleon-on-Usk alone, the organised centre of the British Church and thirty-eight thousand in the eastern half of the Empire.  Possibly as many perished in the western half, including those in Britain5.

On learning of the Edict, George threw in his lot with the intended victims.  He divested himself of his rank and worldly possessions* and journeyed to Nicomedia to intercede with Diocletian on behalf of his suffering brethren, to plead for their lives and obtain for them freedom of worship.  He sought for this purpose to utilise his friendship with Diocletian gained on the field of battle but for others only, not for himself.

*Save for his personal arms, with which it appears he slew the crocodile.

Yet George knew that despite Diocletian’s former regard for him, his mission could end in death.  He said to friends before setting out for Nicomedia, “If ye are alive and hear that I am dead, do me the kindness, for Christ’s sake, to take my body to my native city and bury it.”

These wishes would be faithfully carried out.

A Bold Witness

By the time George reached Nicomedia, its bishop, Anthimus had been executed and many believers had been terrified into silence by the sight of instruments of torture publicly displayed but when George saw a copy of the decree posted up for public inspection, while both emperors were in the city, he was “stimulated by a divine zeal, and excited by an ardent faith…tore it to shreds as a most profane and wicked act.”

The contemporary historian Eusebius states that, “St George was the first of those at that time who thus distinguished himself, and…in his endurance of such results as naturally followed a daring act of this kind, he maintained an untroubled and undisturbed demeanour to his very last breath.”

His ardour was unabated when he stood before Galerius and his sixty-nine governors. 

He boldly declared, “I am a Christian, and I believe on my Lord Jesus Christ; whatsoever ye desire to do unto me, that do” and St Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, 374-97 AD, states, “George, the most faithful soldier of Jesus Christ, when religion was by others concealed, alone adventured to confess the name of God, Whose heavenly grace infused such constancy into him that he not only scorned the tyrants, but contemned their torments.”

Galerius and his governors sentenced George to death and Diocletian, sadly, acquiesced in the verdict.  After a period of imprisonment and torture in an effort to force him to recant, the martyr was beheaded on April 23rd, 304 AD.

When he came to the spot where he would be executed, he asked leave of his guards to pray for his persecutors.  Ever the soldier, he then turned to them said, “Come with me, brethren, and fulfil your order and do what ye have to do.”

The date has of course gone down in history as St George’s Day. 

Association with England

According to The Royal Society of St George6, “It was in the year 1415 AD that St. George became the Patron Saint of England when English Soldiers under Henry V won the battle of Agincourt.”

The Society states that George was officially beatified by the Roman Catholic Church but the term ‘Saint’ George may well have been coincident with the widespread mourning that followed his death, which has been further commemorated by the propagation far and wide of St George’s ‘device’ or knightly emblem, the familiar red cross on a white background.  It probably signified George’s regard for the blood sacrifice at Calvary of the Lord Jesus Christ and the sinless purity of the Saviour’s life on earth.

England’s adoption of St George’s emblem as its national emblem may therefore indeed pre-date St George, and derive from the arrival of the earliest Christians to these shores during the first century AD, including Joseph of Arimathea.  The striking and simple symbolism of the St George Cross could well have appealed to many early believers.

England’s association with St George is much more direct, however.  He visited York during his military service and was welcomed by the Christian Empress Helena, mother of George’s comrade-in-arms, Constantine, who later became Emperor.  St George’s visit is commemorated by the shield emblazoned with his emblem that hangs over the gate of York – one of many instances where the soldier-martyr’s ensign figures in English heraldry, pomp and circumstance – though none more widely celebrated than on present-day football terraces!

But there is a greater cause.

Not in Vain

Like his Saviour, George achieved much in his death.  By it, he slew a monster more dangerous than any saurian; the dragon of persecution.  Diocletian abdicated in 305 AD and Imperial Rome’s large-scale persecution of Christians ended.

It wasn’t the end of persecution per se but in coming ages, God would raise up other men to stand, both against tyranny and for the witness of the Lord Jesus Christ, after the manner of St George7:

“I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
“Straining upon the start.  The game's afoot:
“Follow your spirit; and, upon this charge
“Cry God for Harry, England and St George!”

From Henry V, Act 3, Scene 1

Or in the words of St Paul, 1 Corinthians 16:13:

“Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong”

An Exhortation

God is still looking for men – and women - of stature who will stand and strive for the Lord Jesus Christ in these days of rapidly encroaching heathenism, as even God’s enemy Pharoah of Egypt recognized only too well, Exodus 10:11:

“Go now ye that are men, and serve the LORD; for that ye did desire”

Will you be among them?
_______________________________

References and Notes

1. Saint George by E.O. Gordon

2. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicomedia

3. George’s grandfather, John, was the Roman Governor of Cappadocia, part of what is now Turkey.  This accounts for the mistaken idea that St George was Turkish.  St George, moreover, is not to be confused with the avaricious George of Cappadocia, Bishop of Alexandria, who was lynched by his own congregation in 362 AD.

4. George of Lydda by I. Hill Elder

5. Between 67 and 303 AD, Imperial Rome instigated ten distinct persecutions against the early Church, of which Diocletian’s was the last.  The total number of victims must number in the hundreds of thousands.  “Untold millions” more would die, according to Halley’s Bible Handbook, p 793, under “the iron heel of the Papacy” when Imperial Rome metamorphosised into the present-day Papal Rome.  See Which Bible?, edited by Dr David Otis Fuller, p 214.

6. http://www.royalsocietyofstgeorge.com/stgeorge.htm.  Note that this site locates George’s birthplace as Turkey, which location is not borne out by other authorities.  See above.  However, the site agrees with these other authorities in other aspects of George’s life and witness and overall is most informative.

7. www.britannia.com/history/stgeorge.html

Interracial Marriage

This contribution from Alan O'Reilly:

All right-thinking Britons who love their country should oppose interracial marriage. The implications of race-mixing are much more sinister than is commonly understood - individual objections notwithstanding. Integrationists by definition are far too blinkered to see the big picture.

It is common knowledge that the mainstream media and many leading politicians exert considerable pressure in favour of race-mixing and scream 'racist!' whenever any sane individual protests against this kind of coercion.

Such pressure is mainly directed towards blacks and whites. In spite of the abominable practice of Muslim 'grooming' of mainly vulnerable white adolescent girls, Asians will almost exclusively favour their own kind for longer-term relationships regardless of any outside pressure. Muslim women risk so-called 'honour' beatings and even killings if they don't [like Banaz Mahmod, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6733919.stm ]. Heinous as this cruelty is, it simply reinforces the point.

Large-scale white and black liaisons are of course unlikely to occur in spite of media and political pressure. They could, however, be enforced by the EU, via Europol and the Euro-army, when Britain is fully absorbed into the EU Superstate or ['golden garrotte'] concentration camp following the treason of Gordon Brown in May 2009, compounded, sadly, by royal assent. The aim, as always, is to destroy white Anglo-Saxon Celtic Britain, both as a nation and as a people.

(The USA attempted much the same with Germany after WW2, by sending large numbers of black troops to make up the occupation forces.)

Enforced race-mixing is one of the most effective ways of so doing. The black race in Britain would be destroyed in the process but that would be of no consequence to our European masters, i.e. gauleiters.

Paul Broca published a study in 1864 on hybridity in the human race. He found that, in South Carolina, where white Anglo-Saxon males had cohabited with negresses, the mulatto offspring were "little prolific and short-lived." See
http://campus.udayton.edu/~hume/Broca/broca.htm

He also reported that "the union of the Caucasian women with negroes is very frequently non-productive."

J.H. Van Evrie, M.D. reached the same conclusions after studying "several thousand cases of mixed blood" and published the results of his research in 1868. A CD entitled Vatican Assassins 3rd Edition, by American Baptist writer Eric Jon Phelps, summarises Van Evrie's work and is obtainable via Eric’s site http://www.vaticanassassins.org/store/ .

Van Evrie concludes that the mulatto progeny of white males and negresses, who then inter-breed with other hybrids, are by the 4th generation "as absolutely sterile as muleism...it may be assumed as the natural and impassable barrier of this abnormal and exceptional being."

He adds that "it is in the female hybrid that this tendency to decay...is most apparent. Many of them are incapable of nourishing or taking care of their offspring, and together with miscarriages and the numerous forms of disease connected with maternity, they are often found to have had a large number of children, not one of whom reached maturity."

An additional burden for our already overstretched NHS, I suggest, should the EU force this strategy on Britain.

Broca found that mulatto offspring of Southern European whites and negroes were more successful in reproduction but where this happened on an appreciable scale, as in Portugal, the result was disastrous after little more than 100 years.

In Racial Realities in Europe, Lothrop Stoddard describes how Portugal was a major sea power in the 16th century.

He then describes how she experienced a drift of her population away from rural areas to the cities, lured by wealth, a constant drain on her manpower by foreign wars and "racial impoverishment...with negro blood," as great landowners imported large gangs of Africans to work the half-deserted countryside and who inevitably intermingled with what remained of the indigenous population.

In little over a century, Portugal degenerated into a minor nation as a direct result of these combined trends.

Britain is degenerating in the same way. 5,500,000 or at least 10% of white Britons now live abroad. Britain continues to haemorrhage her white indigenous population at the rate of over 100,000 a year, to be replaced in over abundance by 300,000 foreign incomers annually. See
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6210358.stm

Her available employment, including rural work, is progressively being taken over by foreigners, especially Poles.

Though obviously not of African descent, Poles and other Eastern Europeans are nevertheless not equivalent to the native peoples of the British Isles. They are largely, i.e. 90%+, Alpine Caucasians, not Anglo-Saxon Celtic, or Nordic Caucasians (the Nordic distinction applies to all so-called 'immigrants' to these isles up until and including the Norman i.e. 'North-man,' conquest) and clearly cannot be assimilated without a deleterious effect on Britain's indigenous racial character.

And incomers of African or Afro-Caribbean descent to Britain now number well over 1,000,000 and they are continuing to arrive in large numbers, e.g. Congolese to Norfolk, Somalis to the south-east etc.

This is sufficient for the EU to further its strategy of Britain's ultimate destruction as a nation and a people as outlined above.

Given that white Britons could be a minority in their own country by the year 2066 if present trends continue, the EU could achieve its aim by about the year 2100, or not much later.

Remember Portugal - and that, like Portugal in its final decline, Britain is no longer a major sea power, so the EU destruction of Britain is off to a running start.

Alan O'Reilly
N. Yorks.

Lieutenant Terry Waters GC

By Alan O'Reilly

April 2011 marks the 60th Anniversary of the battle of the Imjin River during the Korean War

www.britains-smallwars.com/korea/Imjin.html.

An incident occurred in the aftermath of that battle that well illustrates the truth of Mark 15:31.
“Likewise also the chief priests mocking said among themselves with the scribes, He saved others; himself he cannot save.”

The incident is vividly described in the book The Edge of the Sword, Star, 1981, first published in 1954, pp 199-201, by the late General Sir Anthony Farrar-Hockley, former Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces Northern Europe in NATO. As Captain Farrar-Hockley, General Sir Anthony was adjutant of the 1st Battalion, the Gloucestshire Regiment and went into Communist captivity with the survivors of his battalion when they were forced to surrender after four days of heavy fighting at the battle of the Imjin River, April 22nd-25th 1951.
General Sir Anthony writes as follows.

“Part of the unworked coal-mining settlement of Kang-dong [was] known formerly by prisoners as “The Caves.” In 1950 and until the summer of 1951, many United Nations prisoners had been crowded into old tunnels in the hillsides round about, often drenched by the water that ran in from underground streams. The numbers of men who died in these black holes in the ground will never be known exactly. In cross-checking to find our friends, we accounted for over two hundred and fifty deaths; but this is not the total figure.

“Of all the many stories of gallantry and selflessness on the part of prisoners in these caves, I will recount only one here: a story that was told to us later by men who had formed part of it; a story which provided us with inspiration to continue resistance to our captors during the most difficult moments. Terry - the last remaining platoon commander of “A” Company - was taken to “The Caves” in the summer of 1951. He had been a member of a column of seriously wounded captives which had marched slowly north from the Imjin River some little time after the two main columns had set off. Though he was in great pain from a wound in his leg and a terrible head injury, Terry set a splendid example on the march, caring, as best he could, for other serious casualties with him. By the time they reached “The Caves,” the condition of many prisoners had deteriorated dangerously; for they had had no medical attention of any sort en route and many still wore the dressings, by now ragged and filthy, placed on their wounds by our own medical staffs before capture.

“Terry, and Sergeant Hoper of the Machine-gun Platoon, were placed with a number of others from the column in a cave already crowded with Koreans - themselves dying of starvation and disease. Except when their two daily meals of boiled maize were handed through the opening, they sat in almost total darkness. A subterranean stream ran through the cave to add to their discomfort, and, in these conditions, it was often difficult to distinguish the dead from the dying.

“One day, a North Korean colonel visited them to put forward a proposition.

““We realize,” he said, “that your conditions here are uncomfortable. We sympathize. I, myself, am powerless to help you - unless you are prepared to help us. If you care to join the Peace Movement to fight American Aggression in Korea, we can take you to a proper camp where, in addition to better rations and improved accommodation, your wounds will be cared for by a surgeon.”

“Our men refused this offer, individually. But Terry, seeing their condition, their numbers dwindling, came to a decision on which he acted the next morning. He drew Sergeant Hoper to one side and said:

““I have thought this business over and have decided that you must go over to the ‘Peace-Fighters’ Camp. Most of you will die if you stay here. Go over, do as little as you can; and remember always that you are British soldiers.”

““What about you, sir?” asked Hoper.

““It is different for me,” said Terry. “I am an officer; I cannot go. But I order you to go and take our men with you.”

“Terry remained firm in his decision; and when the North Korean colonel returned, as they had guessed he would, Sergeant Hoper and his party left “The Caves” with a group of American soldiers. The colonel pressed Terry to accompany them, advising him that he would not accept a final refusal just then but would return later.

“He returned four times. Armed with promises of an operation on Terry’s wounds by a surgeon, and a special diet of eggs, milk and meat in place of the boiled maize, he failed each time.

“Terry was a young subaltern, not long out of the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. Yet, irrespective of his service and youth, he saw clearly, an officer representing the British Commonwealth in enemy country: by his actions, the Commonwealth’s reputation would be judged. Quite simply, he was given a choice: life, and agreement to reject, at least outwardly, the principles for which he was fighting in Korea; or a steadfast adherence to those principles - and death. Coolly, loyally, like the gallant officer he was, Terry chose death. And so he died.”

Lieutenant Waters was posthumously awarded the George Cross, GC. A copy of his citation may be found here, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_Edward_Waters. He died aged about 22.

The photo below and its caption are most revealing, this writer’s emphases.

Gloster lieutenants Phil Curtis (right) Terry Waters (left) after a church service in an abandoned temple behind the forward Gloster company position (A Co, “Castle Site”) at around midday on April 22nd 1951. Phil Curtis won the VC; Terry Waters, the GC.

www.glosters.org/latest.htm

Lieutenant Waters GC took upon himself full responsibility for his men and maintained the honour of his king and realm. He was, in effect, also mocked by his captors but never yielded to them.

He therefore exemplifies both the experience of the Saviour in Mark 15:31 and the kind of man whom the Lord yet calls to follow him.

“And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.”

Brigadier General Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, a Man for Perilous Times

Brigadier General Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, 1828-1914

By Alan O'Reilly

American Civil War General Joshua L. Chamberlain was the kind of man who could “stand in the gap before me for the land” Ezekiel 22:30. The UK, the US and the Old Dominions all need such men today. God’s people should pray that He raises them up in these “perilous times” 2 Timothy 3:1

______________________

“This is the great reward of service, to live, far out and on, in the life of others; this is the mystery of Christ, - to give life’s best for such high sake that it shall be found again unto life eternal” – Joshua L. Chamberlain

Introduction

A fascinating leader to emerge from the Ken Burns series The Civil War was Lieutenant Colonel, later Brigadier General Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, an academic and theologian from Bowdoin College, Maine. Aged 34, he accepted a commission to command the 20th Maine Vol. Infantry in 1862 and served with distinction at Fredericksburg, Gettysburg (he was awarded the Medal of Honour in 1893 for service at Gettysburg), Petersburg and Five Forks. General Grant accorded him the honour of receiving the surrender of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House in April 1865. Here Chamberlain made the unforgettable and honourable gesture of a parade ground salute to the defeated enemy, returned according to military courtesy by General John B. Gordon, the Confederate commander.

Brigadier General Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain

Chamberlain’s detailed biography may be found in the book by Alice Rains Trulock, entitled In the Hands of Providence, available from Amazon. Although largely focussing on his war service and subsequent career, Trulock’s work unequivocally reveals that Chamberlain was a committed Christian with a resilient faith that sustained him through the worst of the Civil War. An overview of Chamberlain’s life and service follows.

Highest Point

Perhaps the highest point of Chamberlain’s career was his selection by General U.S. Grant to receive the surrender of the Confederate Army at Appomattox Court House on April 12th, 1865. This event, described in Chapter 10 of Trulock’s book, entitled The Passing of the Armies graphically illustrates the kind of officer and gentleman that Chamberlain was. With the Southern Army drawn up facing his troops, Chamberlain ordered his command to execute the “carry arms,” the old marching salute. The scene is summarised well by Dupuy and Dupuy in The Compact History of the Civil War, p 413:

“[The ranks] of the proud army were so thin and few that the succession of regimental and battle flags gave the appearance of being massed...a single Union bugle blared an order. Dejected Gordon raised his head on hearing the familiar slap and rattle as the blue-coated regiments shifted their arms to the marching salute. His back straightened, his saber came up and then down in smart precision. As Chamberlain’s blade flickered to return the salute, Gordon’s voice rang down his own ranks. “Carry arms!” Bent heads lifted, sloping muskets snapped from straightened shoulders to the marching salute. And thus the Army of Northern Virginia passed, in silence broken only by the splat-splat-splat of marching feet in mud. “Not a sound of trumpet more, nor roll of drum,” wrote Chamberlain later; “not a cheer nor word nor whisper of vain-glorying...but an awed silence rather, and breath-taking, as it were the passing of the dead.””

According to Trulock, p 309, Chamberlain reflected on “the terrible memories of past battles” and wondered “How could we help falling on our knees, all of us together, and praying God to pity and forgive us all!”

Terrible Memories

These thoughts had been in his mind in the aftermath of the battle of Quaker Road, near Five Forks, March 29th, 1865, an important victory for the Union, though dearly won. Chamberlain’s command alone suffered over 400 casualties, Trulock p 241. Lewis farmhouse, near the battlefield, had been turned into a makeshift field hospital and was crowded with wounded from both sides. Reflecting on the plight of the Rebel wounded, “lonely and helpless in the hands of their enemies” Chamberlain was particularly concerned that they be cared for. “Indeed,” he thought, “in the hour of sorrow and disaster, do we not all belong to each other?” His evident compassion prompted the wounded General Sickel to declare “General, you have the soul of the lion and the heart of the woman.” According to Trulock, “Chamberlain...asked Sickel to take the remark as his own description.” Outside, the rain poured down all night, gradually turning to snow. Off-duty pickets “snatched a few hours of exhausted sleep, the trees their only shelter.”

For Chamberlain, “the terrible memories” had begun on December 13th 1862 with the costly attack at Fredericksburg, p 100ff. Three days later the defeated Federals retreated by night through the shattered town, past those slain by the Confederate counter fire of the first day. “The ghastly dead lay” remembered one Union officer “with their pale faces turned toward heaven, while their open eyes, as a stream of moonlight fell athwart their faces, glared at one as if staring from another world.”

Disaster of a different kind struck Chamberlain’s regiment, the 20th Maine, in April 1863, p 110. Its men were inadvertently inoculated against smallpox with a defective vaccine, which caused eighty cases of the disease to develop and resulted in several deaths. The regiment was quarantined, while the rest of the Army of the Potomac marched off to the battle of Chancellorsville. Beside himself with frustration after hearing the cannonading for two successive days, Chamberlain urged, unsuccessfully, that his regiment be sent to the front. “If we couldn’t do anything else, we could give the enemy the smallpox!” he insisted.

Greatest Triumph

The defence of the Round Tops at Gettysburg on July 2nd 1863 was Chamberlain’s greatest triumph in the war, for which he was awarded the Medal of Honour, though many years later, in 1893, Trulock, p 367. Harry Hansen, in The Civil War p 378-379, notes that on the approach to the Round Tops, the features on the extreme left of and overlooking the Union line on Cemetery Ridge, “shells...began crashing amongst the boulders.” Riding in the van of the 20th Maine with his two younger brothers, Tom and John, Chamberlain said “Boys, I don’t like this. Another...shot might make it hard for mother.” He therefore split the trio up, assigning separate duties to each of the others.

The battle for the vital features raged throughout the glaring heat of the July afternoon “with exhaustion and terrible losses...taking a great toll on both sides,” Trulock p 146-147. Chamberlain, disdainful of personal danger, stood conspicuously on top of a large boulder so that he could control the action. Trulock writes “A Confederate from the Fifteenth Alabama...drew bead on Chamberlain...but something - a strange feeling - caused him to stop. Puzzled and impatient with himself, he tried again to squeeze the trigger but could not. Finally, he gave it up, and this perilous moment in Chamberlain’s life passed, all unknown to him.” By then, friend and foe - and their ammunition - were nearly spent. It was a fearful scene. Colonel Oates, in command of the Alabama regiment recalled that “the blood stood in puddles on the rocks.”

As I recall from the episode in Ken Burns’ documentary, Chamberlain had made this exhortation before the battle. “The opportunity to decide the issue, when all hangs in the balance, comes to men but once a century. Be steady, you men from Maine.” The defenders took these sentiments to heart. They were victorious.

Greatest Trial

Chamberlain’s greatest trial was to come almost a year later, in a desperate frontal attack on Petersburg, June 18th 1864, Trulock p 208ff. “Many cannon belched forth exploding shells, case shot, and whirring deadly canister. Bullets darkened the air as acrid black smoke filled the lungs of the advancing soldiers [running] into the shadowed valley, now a maelstrom of death...torn and furrowed with shot and shell, the earth shook with artillery concussion.” Directing his men to “oblique to the left” Chamberlain was hit. “The soft lead bullet entered below Chamberlain’s right hip and went through his body...[to] the left hip before stopping near the surface.” With great presence of mind, so that his men would not falter at seeing him go down, he dug his sword point into the ground and rested his weight on the hilt so that he stood upright while his men passed on into the battle “the expressions on [their] faces...impressed forever into his memory.” Then he collapsed, first onto one knee, then on both, then falling prone, blood soaking his trousers. “I am not of Virginia’s blood,” he said afterwards, “she is of mine.”

Word went back to the artillery lines in the rear that the brigade commander “was down and seriously wounded.” Captain John Bigelow of the 9th Maine Artillery sent forward a stretcher party that miraculously found Chamberlain. He urged the gunners to tend to others. One of them replied “You are not in command, sir. Captain Bigelow’s order to us was to bring you back, and that is what we must do.”

Chamberlain was taken to the division hospital, Trulock p 214-215. A private of the 143rd Pennsylvania lay on an operating table awaiting amputation of his leg. “He heard Chamberlain ask to be laid to one side, saying that he was all right and they should take care of his boys.” Instead, the surgeons gave priority to Chamberlain, though on inspection of his wound, they thought he would not survive. The bullet “had torn through his whole body from right thigh to left hip, severing blood vessels, nicking the urethra and bladder, and crushing bone before it stopped.” Nevertheless, they worked on him all night, though stopping at one point because of his terrible pain. He urged them to continue but in the cold light of dawn, believing death was near, he pencilled a short note to his wife and children:

Great Testimony

“My darling wife I am lying mortally wounded the doctors think but my mind & heart are at peace Jesus Christ is my all-sufficient savior. I go to him. God bless & keep & comfort you, precious one, you have been a precious wife to me. To know & love you makes life & death beautiful. Cherish the darlings & give my love to all the dear ones. Do not grieve too much for me. We shall all soon meet Live for the children Give my dearest love to Father, mother & Sally and John Oh how happy to feel yourself forgiven God bless you evermore precious, precious one Ever yours Lawrence”

Chamberlain’s note is a great testimony of peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. The title of Trulock’s chapter on Chamberlain at Petersburg is that of her book; In the Hands of Providence. The title is fitting, for all who seek to serve the Lord Jesus Christ.

The KJB Story 1611-2011 The Word of a King

By Alan O'Reilly

The Book That Changed The World1

The Word of a King, Ecclesiastes 8:4

Not formalized but Authorized

The question arises, was the Authorized Version ever officially authorized?

Dr Laurence Vance2 notes that Dr Miles Smith refers to King James 1^st in The Epistle Dedicatory as “the principal Mover and Author of the work” that became the 1611 Holy Bible. Dr Vance concludes, rightly that the 1611 Holy Bible is indeed authorized because according to Ecclesiastes 8:4, “Where the word of a king is, there is power: and who may say unto him, What doest thou?”

It is interesting that the 1611 Authorized Bible was the last English Bible to be translated under the direct authority of a king. The committee that produced the Revised Version of 1881 appealed twice to the Crown3 in order to get royal approval for their new version, as for the 1611 Bible.

Queen Victoria refused each time.

Dr Vance highlights another reason why the 1611 Holy Bible became Authorized and that is, its universal acceptance by the English-speaking peoples across the world. This was the real reason for the Book’s authorization after its publication in 1611. Gustavus Paine agrees. He states4:

“The Puritans fought their way forward. The 1611 Bible by its own worth was making itself welcome throughout the country, for those on both sides needed the best modern texts with which to fight their doctrinal skirmishes. High churchmen in greater numbers began to use the 1611 version, which in centuries to come would be the sole bond uniting the countless English-speaking Protestant sects.

“In 1629 the Bible was again revised, but only in small ways, and once more in minor respects in 1638. The last issue of the Geneva Bible was in 1644. By then the King James Version was ahead of all others, and now the strife over forms and doctrine helped it on.”

As Paine also said, “The Bible has always thrived on turmoil.”

Alexander McClure states that “It (the AV1611) speedily came into general use as the standard version, by the common consent of the English people; and required no act of parliament nor royal proclamation to establish its authority. Some of the older versions continued to be reprinted for forty years; but no long time elapsed ere the common version quietly and exclusively occupied the field.”

McClure’s comment is interesting because he5 was an American Republican, not a monarchist seeking to promote the Church of England or the Episcopal Church in the US.

It is further interesting to look at the comments of men who were both for and against the 1611 Holy Bible6.

“Give me that Book” - Bunyan, Wesley, Spurgeon, Ryle, Shaw

This is from John Bunyan, The Immortal Dreamer, by W. Burgess McCreary: “A university man met Bunyan on the road near Cambridge. Said he to Bunyan, “How dare you preach, not having the original Scriptures?” “Do you have them - the copies written by the apostles and prophets?” asked Bunyan. “No,” replied the scholar. “But I have what I believe to be a true copy of the original.” “And I,” said Bunyan, “believe the English Bible to be a true copy too.””

John Charles Ryle7 was the first Church of England Bishop of Liverpool. In the 1870s, he wrote a book entitled The Christian Leaders of the Last (i.e. 18^th) Century, about the great revival preachers like Whitefield and Wesley. He said this about these preachers and the 1611 Holy Bible, his emphases.

“The spiritual reformers of the last century taught constantly the sufficiency and supremacy of Holy Scripture. The Bible, whole and unmutilated, was their sole rule of faith and practice. They accepted all its statements without question or dispute. They knew nothing of any part of Scripture being uninspired. They never allowed that man has any “verifying faculty” within him, by which Scripture statements may be weighed, rejected or received. They never flinched from asserting that there can be no error in the Word of God; and that when we cannot understand or reconcile some part of its contents, the fault is in the interpreter and not in the text. In all their preaching they were eminently men of one book. To that book they were content to pin their faith, and by it to stand or fall. This was one grand characteristic of their preaching. They honoured, they loved, they reverenced the Bible.”

One of those men was John Wesley. He said this about the 1611 Holy Bible.

““I want to know one thing – the way to heaven – how to land safe on that happy shore. God Himself has condescended to teach the way; for this very end He came from heaven. He hath written it down in a book. Oh, give me that book! At any price give me the book of God! I have it: here is knowledge enough for me. Let me be a man of one book.””

Bible critics are quick to point out that Wesley wasn’t consistent because he compiled his own New Testament. That raises an interesting question that will be addressed shortly.

In the meantime, consider what Charles Haddon Spurgeon had to say about the 1611 Holy Bible.

“The Bible is God’s word, and when I see it, I seem to hear a voice saying, ‘I am the Book of God, man, read me; I am God’s writing: open my leaves, for I was penned by God’...I plead with you, I beg of you, respect your Bibles, and search them out. Go home and read your Bibles...O Book of books! And wast thou written by my God? Then I will bow before thee, thou Book of vast authority! For He has written this Book Himself...let us love it, let us count it more precious than fine gold!”

Once again, Bible critics are quick to point out that like Wesley, Spurgeon was inconsistent, because at times he thought parts of the 1611 Holy Bible should be changed. We come to the interesting question mentioned before and it is this.

When Wesley and Spurgeon said what they said about the 1611 Holy Bible that has just been quoted, who prompted them to say it, God or the Devil? Ultimately, it must have been either one or the other, either “the spirit of truth” or “the spirit of error” 1 John 4:6.

You should make a decision. God hates lukewarmness and halting between two opinions8, 1 Kings 18:21, Revelation 3:15, 16.

This is what Spurgeon9 said to his students about the 1611 Holy Bible a few months before he died in 1892.

“If this book be not infallible, where shall we find infallibility? We have given up the Pope, for he has blundered often and terribly; but we shall not set up instead of him a horde of little popelings fresh from college. Are these correctors of Scripture infallible? Is it certain that our Bibles are not right, but that the critics must be so?...

“But where shall infallibility be found? “The depth saith, it is not in me”; yet those who have no depth at all [spiritually] would have us imagine that it is in them; or else by perpetual change they hope to hit upon it...

“We shall gradually be so bedoubted and becriticized, that only a few of the most profound [intellectually] will know what is Bible, and what is not, and they will dictate to all the rest of us. I have no more faith in their mercy than in their accuracy: they will rob us of all that we hold most dear, and glory in the cruel deed. This same reign of terror we shall not endure, for we still believe that God revealeth himself rather to babes than to the wise and prudent, and we are fully assured that our own old English version of the Scriptures is sufficient for plain men for all purposes of life, salvation, and godliness. We do not despise learning, but we will never say of culture or criticism, “These be thy gods, O Israel!””

In the English-speaking world, even up until World War 2, the attitudes toward the 1611 Holy Bible expressed by those men; Bunyan, Wesley, Ryle and Spurgeon, were not as exceptional as we might think, as this statement shows:

“In all these instances the Bible means the translation authorised by King James the First…to this day the common human Britisher or citizen of the United States of North America accepts and worships it as a single book by a single author, the book being the Book of Books and the author being God.”

What a bibliolatrous thing to say about the Britain and the United States of a mere 60 to 70 years ago! Who could possibly make such an outrageous statement?

Answer: George Bernard Shaw, who was a lifelong atheist10.

However, Shaw was of course an accomplished and well-known writer, so he was in a position to know what Britons and Americans of his time thought about literature.

We’ll now look briefly again at how closely the 1611 Holy Bible is part of our national life and how you can’t get away from that Book, no matter what you do.

“God save the king!” - The national anthem and a paratrooper’s farewell

The expression “God save the king!” is of course part of England’s national anthem and well-known as such. However, that expression turned up in an unusual place in World War 2. On September 17^th 1944, British Army paratroopers captured the north end of the road bridge across the Nederrijn or Lower Rhine in the Dutch town of Arnhem11. This action was commemorated in the 1977 film A Bridge Too Far.

A Bridge Too Far – Battle of the Arnhem Road Bridge12

After four days of heavy fighting, the paratroopers were finally overwhelmed by superior German forces but on the morning of Thursday September 21^st, a paratroop signaler “known unto God” Acts 15:18, Philippians 4:6 radioed a final message from somewhere near the Arnhem Road Bridge.

The last bit of the message said13 “Out of ammunition. God Save the King.”

The expression “God save the king!” comes straight from a 1611 Authorized King James Holy Bible. The words occur 5 times. They are found in 1 Samuel 10:24, 2 Samuel 16:16 twice, 2 Kings 11:12, 2 Chronicles 23:11 and they have stood there undimmed and unblemished for 400 years. They will stand there forever.

That reading illustrates something about the 1611 English Bible for English-speaking folk who believe the Book. The Author of the Book said in Hebrews 13:5, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”

And the Book is like its Author.

The Book of course was found not only in a world war but it would be found worldwide, as we will now see.

Gone into all the world

English time, English longitude, English empire, English text

Remember what the ex-priest of Rome, Charles Chiniquy said about “the glorious British Protestant flag [that] floats on the breeze.” By the 19^th century, that flag floated on the breeze the world over and with it went the British Protestant Bible. Dr Peter S. Ruckman of Pensacola Bible Institute has summed up what happened in history14, his emphases.

“To fulfill Acts 1:8 [for the Lord’s witnesses to go to “the uttermost part of the earth”]...All the Lord needed was a Bible in line with what He had already written and preserved; since He had already decreed (in 1000 BC) that there had to be present “the word of a King” Ecclesiastes 8:4 before there could be any spiritual “power” in that word (Romans 13:1-4), and since His king was a JEW (John 18:34)...God needed a king with a Jewish name; He got one...this time it was JAMES. James is the English word for JACOB”…

“After 1588, “Britannica ruled the waves,” and…with absolute time determined by England (Greenwich Observatory), with absolute location on the earth’s surface located from Greenwich, England (longitude)…by 1850 the sun “never set on the British Empire.”

Britain was a seafaring nation and wherever Britain’s seafarers went, British missionaries went with the 1611 Holy Bible and to “the regions beyond” 2 Corinthians 10:16, as Dr Ruckman explains, his emphases.

“The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries sport the greatest host of Bible-believing witnesses the world has ever seen…These battle-scarred storm troopers crossed mountains, prairies, deserts, lands and seas and cast themselves into martyrs’ graves…They counted their life-styles in terms of the chains they loosed, the souls they liberated, the hungry they fed, and the heathen they transformed. They lived and felt Jesus Christ in every fiber of their being… They believed one Book and they preached and memorized that Book, taught that Book, and lived and died by that Book…”

So with the English Protestant Bible spreading throughout the British Empire and therefore the world, it is no wonder that today, the DVD that has been released in observance of the 400^th anniversary of the King James Bible has a simple but compelling title.

The Book That Changed The World – on DVD

The Book That Changed The World – on DVD -- King James 1^st of England15

You can get it from Amazon:

www.amazon.co.uk/KJB-Book-That-Changed-World/dp/B004BLTAT6

The Product Description states that “The greatest translation of Holy Scripture emerged into a world and culture that would never be quite the same again.”

Queen Victoria, who reigned over the British Empire for more than 60 years understood that statement. She was the queen that challenged the world.

The Queen that Challenged the World – a magnificent painting

Queen Victoria16 actually said on one occasion, to an African chieftain to whom she presented a copy of the 1611 Holy Bible:

“That Book accounts for the supremacy of England.”

The vivid painting by Thomas Armitage commemorates the occasion17.

“That Book accounts for the supremacy of England.” - Queen Victoria

However, it was not for the purpose of empire that God made England supreme and Britain Great. God made Britain great so that “all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of God” according to Isaiah 52:10.

We close with a compelling illustration of how this worked out in the days of the British Empire, from the lives of some of those “battle-scarred storm troopers” that Dr Ruckman described.

Dr William Grady18 relates how Charles Darwin visited the islands of Tierra del Fuego at the southern end of South America in 1833. The natives were in such a savage state that Darwin was convinced that he had found his so-called ‘missing link’ between animals and humans.

In about 1870, Darwin visited Tierra del Fuego again.

His time, he was astounded to discover that many of the natives had become Christians through the work of the South American Missionary Society, or SAMS19.

The society was founded in 1844 by Captain Allen Gardiner of the Royal Navy. Gardiner and six of his missionary companions died in the society’s service in 1851 in Patagonia. They had endured several months of sickness, starvation and extreme cold, reaching 20 degrees below zero.

After suffering for weeks on starvation rations and in sub-zero temperatures, Captain Gardiner wrote the last lines in his diary on September 6^th 185120. He said this: “By God’s Grace this blessed group was able to sing praises to Christ for eternity. I am not hungry or thirsty in spite of 5 days without eating; Wonderful Grace and Love to me, a sinner...”

Captain Gardiner died near the upturned boat in September 1851

(It is this author’s opinion that Captain Gardiner died with more joy in his heart, than even Kate and William will know on their wedding day if they know not the Lord Jesus Christ. “Rejoice in the Lord alway [all the way]: and again I say, Rejoice” Philippians 4:4.)

Thanks to his 1870 visit to Tierra del Fuego, Charles Darwin was so impressed by the work of SAMS that he became an Honorary Member and gave an annual subscription to the society for the rest of his life

It needs only to be added that the missionary workers of SAMS ministered to the tribes of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego through one Book, the Book that John Wesley and Charles Haddon Spurgeon called “the Book of God.”

That Book didn’t stop at the ends of the earth.

Apollo 821 was the first manned spacecraft to leave earth’s orbit. That was in 1968 and on Christmas Eve, the crew of Apollo 8 read from Genesis 1:1-13 in a 1611 Authorized King James Holy Bible.

Conclusion

400 years on, we find that the Book that had its precarious beginnings at Hampton Court in 1604 went from there to the imperial throne of Queen Victoria, to “the regions beyond” 2 Corinthians 10:16 in darkest Africa, “unto the uttermost part of the earth” Acts 1:8, literally, to Tierra del Fuego at the southernmost end of South America, to the road bridge at Arnhem during the “perilous times” 2 Timothy 3:1 of World War 2 and even into outer space, with the Apollo 8 mission.

400 years on, the Book is still going strong, with well over a billion copies sold22, evidently the only Book to achieve that distinction23.

That Book changed the world for the better.

The testimony of the last 400 years is that it can change you for the better according to 1 Peter 2:2.

“As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby:”

The last word should go to Dr Miles Smith, from The Translators To The Reader.

“Ye are brought unto fountains of living water which ye digged not; do not cast earth into them with the Philistines [Genesis 26:15], neither prefer broken pits before them with the wicked Jews [Jeremiah 2:13]. O receive not so great things in vain, O despise not so great salvation!...a blessed thing it is, and will bring us to everlasting blessedness in the end, when God speaketh unto us, to hearken; when he setteth his word before us, to read it; when he stretcheth out his hand and calleth, to answer, Here am I, here we are to do thy will, O God. The Lord work a care and conscience in us to know him and serve him, that we may be acknowledged of him at the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom with the holy Ghost, be all praise and thanksgiving. Amen.”

Earthrise - from Apollo 8, “And God made the firmament” Genesis 1:7

(Detailed appendix to The Critics’ Den available on request)

__________

References

1 www.kjbthefilm.com/

host248.ebm.bestsoftwarehost.com/iw_products.m4p.pvx?;products_no_tree?cat=STICKERS?company=BBB

2 King James, His Bible And Its Translators, pp 92-93

3 Which Bible?, p 286, kjv.benabraham.com/html/chapter-10.html

4 ‘O Biblios’ The Book, Chapter 11, Section 11.1

5 www.librarything.com/author/mcclurealexanderk

pabook.libraries.psu.edu/palitmap/bios/McClure__Alexander_Kelly.html

6 O Biblios’ The Book, General Introduction, pp 1, 101-102

The Christian Leaders of the Last (i.e. 18^th) Century, by Rev J.C. Ryle, T Nelson and Sons, 1878, Preface, pp 26, 90

7 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._C._Ryle

8 Satan’s Masterpiece! The New ASV by Dr Peter S. Ruckman, Bible Baptist Bookstore, 1972, p x

9 www.spurgeon.org/misc/gfw.htm

10 www.liberator.net/articles/SloanGary/Shaw.html

11 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnhem#The_Battle_of_Arnhem

12 http://shop.davidshepherd.org/detail.php?max_perpage=9999&id=000137, Google: Arnhem Bridge photos

13 A Bridge Too Far by Cornelius Ryan, Coronet Books, 1975, p 430

14 ‘O Biblios’ The Book, p 25

The Christian’s Handbook of Biblical Scholarship by Dr Peter S. Ruckman, Bible Baptist Bookstore, 1988, p 119

The History Of The New Testament Church Volume II by Dr Peter S. Ruckman, Bible Baptist Bookstore, 1984, Chapter Five

15 www.newmarketracecourses.co.uk/about/11788965902600.html

16 Halley’s Bible Handbook by Henry H. Halley, Regency, 1965, p 18

Bible Believers’ Bulletin, Bible Baptist Bookstore, June 2002, p 15, October 2006, p 2

17 www.arthermitage.org/Thomas-Jones-Barker/Queen-Victoria-Giving-the-Bible-to-an-African-Chief.html

18 Final Authority, p 182. Note that in an otherwise excellent account of the post-1611 history of the KJB, Dr Grady refers incorrectly to missionary John Paton with respect to the mission work on Tierra del Fuego, which was begun by Captain Allen Gardiner RN

19 www.cms-uk.org/Whoweare/History/SAMStimeline/tabid/511/language/en-GB/Default.aspx

www.archive.org/details/romance_missionaryheroism_0910_librivox, 17 – The Sailor Missionary of Tierra del Fuego

www.victory-cruises.com/allen_gardiner2.html

20 www.victory-cruises.com/allen_gardiner2.html

21 www.classicalastronomy.com/news/anmviewer.asp?a=310&z=21

22 www.thebm.com.au/index.php/a-biblical-birthday.html

23 www.greatsite.com/facsimile-reproductions/kingjames-1611.html

The KJB Story - Part 2 - The Critics' Den

The Anvil of God’s Word

By Alan O'Reilly

Dr Smith stated in The Translators To The Reader that:

“Neither did we think much to consult the [earlier] Translators or Commentators, Chaldee, Hebrew, Syrian, Greek or Latin, no nor the Spanish, French, Italian, or Dutch; neither did we disdain to revise that which we had done, and to bring back to the anvil that which we had hammered: but having and using as great helps as were needful, and fearing no reproach for slowness, nor coveting praise for expedition, we have at length, through the good hand of the Lord upon us, brought the work to that pass that you see.”

That work has received an avalanche of criticism in the last 400 years from a legion of critics, “My name is legion: for we are many” Mark 5:9.

The Appendix to this work addresses some of the better-known criticisms.

For now, it will hopefully be enough to point out what KJB supporters believe, namely that which was brought back to the anvil to be hammered afresh eventually became the anvil that has withstood all the critics’ hammers for the last 400 years.

This anvil and the critics’ hammers are described in a poem entitled:

The Anvil Of God’s Word

Last eve I passed beside a blacksmith’s door
And heard the anvil ring the vesper chime;
When looking in, I saw upon the floor,
Old hammers worn with beating years of time.

“How many anvils have you had,” said I,
“To wear and batter these hammers so?”
“Just one,” said he; then with a twinkling eye,
“The anvil wears the hammers out, you know.”

And so, I thought, the anvil of God’s Word,
For ages, sceptics’ blows have beat upon;
Yet, though the noise of falling blows was heard,
The anvil is unharmed - the hammers gone.

We now address our final question, what happened to the 1611 Holy Bible after 1611 and on to the present?

(To be continued)