Baptist History, Heritage and Distinctives – Henry Holcombe, DD – 1762-1824 –Searching for Truth Won the Soldiers Trust – PART TWO

Thomas E Kresal November 4, 2019

Baptist History, Heritage and Distinctives – Henry Holcombe, DD – 1762-1824 – Searching for Truth Won the Soldiers Trust – PART TWO

This period of his youth was one of severe trial to our common country. She was just then emerging from a state of dependence on an empire which had lost sight of her own interest and that of humanity, in attempting to fasten chains on freemen, and in daring to require that the noble and the brave should bow the knee at her behest.

It was a period when the hearts of our fathers were sorely and severely tried. Their homes were deserted for the tented fields, and their wives and daughters left alone at their firesides, hoping and fearing; and at the domestic altar, praying for their triumphant return, yet dreading to hear the dismal tidings of their discomfiture and death.

Our cities and villages were filled with hireling hordes, and throughout this portion of our beloved country nothing was heard but the loud alarm of war.

It was at this period — so interesting to our fathers, so interesting to us all — that the lofty and independent spirit of Henry Holcombe first exhibited itself. He waited not for the arrival of manhood before he drew his sword, but entered promptly into the service of his country, determined, with every patriot of that day, to live free or die.

His ardor and intrepidity, tempered as they were by that discretion and sound judgment, without which courage is unavailing and boldness becomes impetuous rashness, soon raised him to command. Here, as well as in every other station in which he was found in after life, he acquitted himself well, and gave the fullest proof that the trust reposed in him by his fellow-soldiers was not misplaced.

Thomas E. Kresal from – J. H. Campbell, Georgia Baptists: Historical and Biographical, 1874, pp. 185-186