Brave Words for Brave Soldiers and Sailors

This was written and sent out to the army before Sebastopol in the winter of 1855.

My friends, -- I speak to you simply as brave men. I speak alike to Roman Catholic and Protestant. I speak alike to godly men and ungodly. I speak alike to soldiers and sailors. If you are _brave_, read these words. I call these _brave_ words. They are not my _own_ words, or my own message, but the message to you of the bravest man who ever lived, or who ever will live, and if you will read them and think over them, He will not _make_ you brave (for that, thank God, you are already), but _keep_ you brave, come victory or defeat. I speak to the brave men who have now fought three bloody battles, and fought them like heroes. All England has blessed you, and admired you; all England has felt for you in a way that would do your hearts good to see. For you know as well as I, that nothing is so comforting, nothing so endearing, as sympathy, as _to know that people feel for one_. If one knows that, one can dare and do anything.