A man may be a great man...

This quote,which I will get to in a second, is part of what makes looking at history, especially because there have been so many Godly examples to read about, help us to look to Christ even while reading about someone else. I know many people, thanks to the providence and kindness of the Lord, have spent years reading about great people in history and have had wonderful examples of true christian character from others around them. Even though my eyes have been opened much later in life, it is that same providence and kindness of the Lord who has brought me now to be able to read about the truth of the Scriptures and of history. One man whom I have had a very wrong idea of probably much of which I learned from my public education, is Jefferson Davis. Many have been taught much that is far from the truth about the 'War between the states', the causes of that war, what happened before and after, and the character of some of those that were made famous by those times. I have come to believe that Jefferson Davis should be regarded with the founders as a patriot and defender of true constitutional liberty and a man whom demonstrated true christian character in a most perilous time and in times of peace.

This quote is from Bishop J.C. Kenner of the Methodist Episcipal Church South. Bishop Kenner, at the end of his sermon in Felicity Street Church in New Orleans on December 8th, 1889, gave a tribute to Jefferson Davis, whose hope was in Christ for salvation, after he had died.

"A man may be a great man, a magistrate; he may be the centre of all thought and all eyes; he may be a great figure in history, and yet when he comes to die he dies like any one else; he is only a man; has to have the same repentance, the same assurance, the same faith in Christ; goes out the same way, passes through the same passages the Saviour passed through; is in all points a man; and as Christ was the Son of Man, it is essentially all that can be said; he is a man saved by Christ."

Jefferson Davis and the World's Tribute to His Memory- Memorial Volume 1890 J.W.M. Jones