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Contributing Musicians

Clark Hansbarger
Mike Jewell
Allen Kitselman
Gary McGraw

Matter of Time / September 6, 1865

Lyrics and Story:

I can tell by your smile
You’ll be leaving in a while.
It’s a matter of time
Till we all cross the line.

There’s a black horse on the ground.
People lost and people found.
It’s a matter of time
Till we all cross the line.

It’s a matter of time of time
Till the old man decides
Who is wicked, who is weak,
Who can talk and who can speak.
It’s a matter of time till the old man decides.
It’s a matter of time
Till we all cross the line.

Copperhead beneath that tree
Put the baby down you’ll see
It’s a matter of time
Till we all cross the line.

There’s a clock in the hall
Counts the stumbles and the falls.
It’s a matter of time
Till we all cross the line.

It’s a matter of time of time
Till the old man decides
Who is wicked, who is weak,
Who can talk and who can speak.
It’s a matter of time till the old man decides.
It’s a matter of time
Till we all cross the line.

They’ll be waiting for that moment when the good will arise,
When the wicked will stumble with dust in their eyes.
And they’ll gather up the children and look to the skies,
When it’s only a matter of time.

Matter of Time : The Civil War’s Effect on Religion

“Religious reconstruction was the process by which Southern and Northern, black and white Christians rebuilt the spiritual life of the South” — Daniel W. Stowell

Although the Civil War was not by definition a war of religion, it affected the religious beliefs of many Americans as profoundly as it did their political and economic realities. A culture-shattering shift had come to the nation, particularly in the South, and many Americans looked toward heaven for answers or in thanks.

The song “Matter of Time” presents a religious interpretation of the war and its aftermath. The worm has turned; millions of people have been lost and millions freed. Time has moved relentlessly forward, bringing with it unsettling change. For some Americans, this is a new beginning; for others it surely seems like the end of times.

To the freed slaves, the war proved that the God of Moses and the Exodus had not forgotten them. For many Northern whites, it affirmed that the abolition of slavery and the salvation of the Union was indeed part of a divine plan. And for many Southern whites, the war and its losses brought a sense of God’s chastisement, of a punishment for sins they had yet to fully comprehend. That within a generation, many Southerners attempted to recreate in new form the economic and social structures of the antebellum world points to the complex ways man interprets God’s role in human affairs.

Links

Christian Soldiers : The Meaning of Revivalism in the Confederate Army

Reconstruction : The Unfinished Story of a Revolution

Religion in the Civil War : The Northern Perspective

Apocalypse and the Millennium in the American Civil War Era

Religion in the Civil War (essay in Encyclopedia Virginia)

Religion and Reconstruction

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