It’s been a while since I’ve experienced the “pleasure” of a
winter camp. I recall years ago spending
the night in a primitive log cabin during a virtual blizzard, where my friend
Mark, my brother Steve and myself had to slog through snowdrifts that were
thigh-high just to get to the cabin!
This time my friend Mark and I arrived at the camp at about 8 p.m. where
we met our mutual friend, Simeon. Our
common faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and our common love of early American
history has united us together in a new but growing friendship. We started a fire in the fireplace and after
visiting some other folks in an adjoining cabin we returned to our cabin and
made ready for bed.
It didn’t take long for me to wish we’d had a lot more
firewood and had stoked that fireplace to the brim! With the outside temperature dipping under 30
degrees I soon realized the oil cloth and two blankets I had brought with me
just weren’t enough to keep out the cold.
I felt like I never slept at all that night.
While I was musing on my “sufferings” I couldn’t help but think of the
real hardships suffered by our forefathers.
I’ve recently been reading Joseph Plumb Martin’s memoirs of his service
during the War for Independence.
It seemed as though there wasn’t a day that went by when he
wasn’t cold, or hungry, or sick, or tired, or all of them at the same
time! I thought especially of the following
passage from his narrative:
“Next morning we
joined the grand army near Philadelphia, and the heavy baggage being sent back
to the rear of the army, we were obliged to put us up huts by laying up poles
and covering them with leaves; a capital shelter from winter storms [I’m sure
he’s kidding!].
Here we continued to fast; indeed we kept a continual lent as faithfully
as ever any of the most rigorous of the Roman Catholics did. But there was this exception, we had no fish
or eggs or any other substitute for our commons. Ours was a real fast, and depend upon it, we
were sufficiently mortified.”1
How ironic that I read that very passage during the very time of
the year many people observe Lenten. The
concept that a person can earn God’s favor by denying himself the desires of
the heart has no foundation in Holy Scripture; it is rather the tradition of
man. As Isaiah said so long ago, the
best we can do is still filthy rags in the eyes of a holy God (Is. 64:6). The Apostle Paul put the idea to rest in his
epistle to the Romans in the third chapter where, citing the Old Testament
prophets, he rightly proclaims all men hopelessly unable to justify themselves
by keeping the Law (Rom 3:19-20). Only by
the imputation of Christ’s righteousness can we ever stand in the sight of
God. Any works of our own are no more spiritually
efficacious than Martin’s starvation was.
Starvation was only one of the problems Martin and his comrades
had to contend with. Shortly after the
above-quoted passage occurred, he relates the following:
“The army was now not only starved but
naked; the greatest part were not only shirtless and barefoot, but destitute of
all other clothing, especially blankets.
I procured a small piece of raw cowhide a made myself a pair of moccasons,
which kept my feet (while they lasted) from the frozen ground, although, as I
well remember, the hard edges so galled my ancles, while on a march, that it
was with much difficulty and pain that I could wear them afterwards; but the
only alternative I had, was to endure this inconvenience or to go barefoot, as
hundreds of my companions had to, till they might be tracked by their blood
upon the rough frozen ground. But
hunger, nakedness and sore shins were not the only difficulties we had at that
time to encounter; - we had hard duty to perform and little or no strength to
perform it with.”2
While I was shivering in bed, I thought about these trials of
Martin’s and suddenly my problems didn’t seem so bad. I knew within a few hours I would be sleeping
in a heated home, in a warm bed. Even
though I was cold in the cabin, my stomach wasn’t empty like his was on an almost
constant basis. Although I’ve worn some
uncomfortable straight-last shoes and loose-fitting moccasins, I’ve never worn
them to the extent that they tore up my feet.
Then again, I’ve never had to march like Martin and his comrades did.
I suppose that’s what living history is all about. We can never replicate exactly, in every
detail, the conditions that these fathers of ours lived through but as we seek
to honor their memory by walking as best we may in their footsteps, we do gain
a newfound respect for them and the cost in blood, sweat and tears they paid
for our liberty. Praise God that He
raised up such men!
Semper Reformata,
Dale
1)
Joseph Plumb Martin, A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier (New York, NY: Signet
Classics, 2010), p. 85.
2)
Joseph Plumb Martin, A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier,
p. 88.
